Angelina

A faintly perfumed letter.

Pretty handwriting on the envelope gave the recipient's name and address with great care, along with a dried pale purple flower stuck on with glue. The sender's face was sweet and brimmed with eagerness as she delivered it here, urging again and again to let her know straight away if there was a reply.

Angelina gingerly left the letter on the recipient's windowsill, using a nice-looking stone to keep this kindness in place, so that it wouldn't be blown off next morning in the wind.

How would the recipient feel when they saw it? With a light heart, Angelina leapt down from the building.

A very old box.

Seemingly years and years old, its sender was an elderly Infected who lived in a wasteland settlement. Shaking, he wrote the address in one long string, crossing it out midway and changing it many a time, before finally, with a look of satisfaction, shutting his eyes. Quickly and nimbly, his fellow residents moved him somewhere far away, and so waited for his return to dust.

Angelina found the address he had written, but the little cabin he'd reminisced about was no longer there. A splendorous new building stood in its place, and her gait came to a halt.

Who did the old man want to send the box to? What was inside it? Angelina carefully placed it back into her bag, and knew she'd never know the answers to these questions now.

A bag of vibrant green limes.

Angelina had meticulously picked these fruits out at the stall, plucked off the dead leaves, wiped them clean of grime, and even sprinkled a few fine droplets over them. With no recipient, no address, and no sender, she followed her own memories and arrived in a familiar place.

The third house from the east end of the street.

The mailbox had previously received a letter with a heart drawn on it, but the husband and wife behind the door never saw the sender for themselves.

Still, this morning, when they opened up at the knock of the door to find an veranda empty save for a few limes floating in midair, the couple knew their daughter had come by. They could've cried tears of joy, and perhaps they did.

Angelina sprung out from behind the door, and gave them a great, big hug.

I had this bizarre experience once.

It was when I only just found out I had Oripathy, and they kicked me out of the city. There was this Messenger who'd been sprinting to the wasteland settlement for nights on end, just to hand me a letter, so she wouldn't 'let down anyone's goodwill.'

Maybe she noticed I was kind of out of my senses, because after I took the letter, she suddenly held her hand out at me, all serious.

'...If you're feeling down, I have this trick to make someone relax for a little. Do you wanna give it a shot?'

I was permanently conscious about contact after my whole Oripathy diagnosis, but she grabbed straight onto my arm.

Next thing to hit me was how my own body had gotten lighter.

So light I almost couldn't feel its presence anymore, and so I couldn't feel the Originium in me either. There was light shining out of her staff, Arts glittering like fireflies and circling around us, fading in and out.

Then I realized, we were fireflies floating in the air too. The land swayed away beneath our feet, and then I couldn't see my own shadow. All I saw was nomadic cityways stretching into the distance, the lights from all the settlements flickering like fireworks.

'Light as a feather, right? All your worries and cares floating like dust now?'

Along the nomadic city streets far away, the lights strung together into lines, with the skyscrapers' shadows melting into the night. I used to hurry along their walls down in the street, and the buildings always stood there being so ice-cold and mighty, but now they seemed so insignificant, distant and innocent.

'Deep breaths, in, out.'

My breathing fused with the wind. We peacefully floated in the night breeze, with the wasteland sand low below us, and all the stars in the sky felt within reach.

', Congratulations. You've blown the dust away,' I heard the Messenger airily say.

In light of permissions granted, the Field Operations Department has hence passed the following resolution with respect to Angelina:

Where the entailing mission would fall under Integrated Strategies scope, this operator shall be pursuant to tactics of a reinforced nature in meeting the enemy.

In witness whereof,

This badge is hereby conferred upon the above named.

'Look, Doctor! Every land, every peak, every cloud, every star in the sky, it's all under our feet now.'