Jackie was dreaming that she was cold.

She was one some ice world. With the omnipotence of knowing she was dreaming, Jackie knew that the world was endless. It didn't matter in which direction she chose to go, the same old freezing storm would be waiting for her everywhere.

The dark presence that haunted behind her was there too. It had a physical form in the dream, but it kept standing behind Jackie, like a shadow. When she turned very quickly, the monster of despair didn't moved out of the way fast enough. She saw long claws and felt his scorching, rotting breath.

It was closer than it had ever been before.

"Hello!" she called into the storm. "Is anyone there? Kol?"

There was no answer. The world of suffering was hers to walk alone. Jackie had no idea if it was endless because she wasn't really moving or if it simply lasted into eternity. All she could see was about three feet in front of her. Heavy, sharp ice beat at her face.

Then suddenly she wasn't alone anymore. There was a shadow in front of her.

Jackie approached carefully, hoping that it was Kol-Eresh who had found her in the storm, but as she neared the figure, she knew it wasn't him. The man was too tall to be the harbinger.

She turned to run the second she saw the dark eyes of the Eternal, but the dream wasn't taking any pity on her. Jackie ran headlong into the monster behind her. She looked up, saw the bloodshot eyes of the beast and –

She sat up on the makeshift bed, screaming.

Sweat was running down her back, but Jackie was still cold like it was coming from inside her. It didn't feel like a natural frosty bite, more like numbness.

She looked around in the room, but there was no one there. Kol-Eresh was out, hunting for food which was scarce before the coming storm. The ship was parked under the protective shadow of a large cliff and Jackie's comm device was laying right next to her.

She decided not to call him. There was no point in inviting the harbinger to come and comfort her like some child.

Jackie pushed herself up, pulling a coat over her shoulders. The diadon in her chest was glowing, battling the curious symptoms in her body that it didn't seem to recognize. Jackie could tell. Kol-Eresh had told her that the diadon had an analytical component that glowed red instead of the sapphire blue.

The colorful spot of light on her shirt was definitely red.

It didn't promise anything good.

She climbed to the console, pulling herself up with difficulty. The numbness in her limbs was making her feel like a frozen marionette, all her joints refusing to cooperate.

"Ship," Jackie told the AI. "Flip the screen camera. Show me myself."

The AI obeyed. It was a simplistic tool that the Nayanors rarely used, preferring to pilot the ships themselves. Kol-Eresh had turned it on as a safety measure, running the alarms and keeping an eye on her vitals.

Jackie almost screamed when her image appeared on the monitor.

For the most part, she still looked like herself. Tired and weary and sad, but the person who greeted Jackie was her.

Except for the eyes. The deep purple irises made her look like –

An alien? Jackie thought, laughing after the shock passed. Yeah. An alien. A little alien on an alien world.

So she had two of the symptoms now. Forack had described them to her, reluctantly. The women who had ingested the serum all went through the same three stages. First their eyes turned purple, then they started feeling the same cold Jackie was feeling, like death itself was breathing down on them.

The last symptom was the tiredness.

Jackie tried to figure out where she was simply exhausted or if the third was already taking a hold of her too. The other two had come quickly enough, far quicker than they had for the other women, all of whom were gone.

She felt like she should have been more concerned about all that, but honestly Jackie had been having a hard time coming up with reasonable reactions lately.

The outer hatch opened and closed.

"Jackie?" she could hear the harbinger calling.

"I'm in here," she answered. "You're not going to like this."

Jackie heard something heavy being dropped and fast footsteps approaching. The harbinger practically ripped the door open when it didn't slide fast enough for him. He stopped dead in his tracks when Jackie looked up.

"My eyes," she said. "I know."

Kol-Eresh didn't answer at first. A hopeless, dark laugh sounded in the small room instead and Jackie realized that it was her laughing.

"Could you help me down?" she asked. "I seem to have lost some of my strength."

The harbinger did that without saying a word. He knelt down beside her, helping Jackie rest against the wall of the ship.

"How did the hunt go?" Jackie asked, the odd smile still on her lips.

"I found a beast that had hidden from the long night," Kol-Eresh replied dismissively. "That's not important. Jackie –"

"It's very important to eat," she pointed out. "I'm actually quite hungry. Could we have some?"

"In a moment," Kol-Eresh promised. "Why are you laughing?"

Jackie regarded him. She wanted to be serious and not mock her fated's concern, but her emotions no longer connected to her body in a way that followed logic.

"What else is there to do?" she asked quietly. "I look pretty funny, don't you think?"

"No," Kol-Eresh said.

The sharp tone of his voice hurt her. Jackie tried to pull away from him, but there was nothing behind her but the wall.

"Please leave me alone," she asked. "I want to eat. Let's just eat and I'll go back to sleep."

Kol-Eresh raised one eyebrow, his features twisted in concern and suspicion.

"You haven't slept for days," he said. "You have been too afraid to sleep. What happened while I was gone?"

"I slept," Jackie said, chortling.

She almost knocked her head against the wall as the laughter burst forth from inside her. There was nothing particularly funny to laugh about. In fact, there was absolutely nothing to laugh about, but it was better than crying and Jackie didn't want to change back.

Kol-Eresh had other ideas.

"Stop it," he ordered roughly, taking her hand a bit too hard and shaking her. "Snap out of it, Jackie."

"Let go of me," she warned him. "I'm dealing with this the best I can."

"Are you?" Kol-Eresh asked. "Because it looks to me like you aren't taking this seriously."

That was the wrong answer.

Even the cold Jackie felt around her heart didn't compare to the surge of red hot anger that filled her body from head to toe then.

"I have done nothing but taken it seriously," she said. "For a long, long time. I'm tired, can't you see that!? So damn tired of all the wrong solutions. Talking about it just depresses me, ignoring it bothers me. Daring to hope again and having that hope dashed exhausts me in a way you can't possibly imagine.

"Let me laugh! Let me look at my purple eyes and laugh!"

Kol-Eresh stood and nodded.

He left the room without giving her another look. Jackie was left there to sit and listen while the harbinger started to prepare the beast he'd hunted.

She tried to calm her racing pulse and focus, but it was impossible.

The monster had rested its hand on her shoulder and Jackie didn't have the strength to push it away. She couldn't even lift her hand without exerting herself.

She had tried to be brave and strong for so long. At that moment, Jackie was teetering at the edge of the despair that had been beckoning her ever since she heard the news.

I can't believe I thought it couldn't get any worse.

Turning her head, Jackie looked at the screens on the console. They showed her the various diagnostics that Kol-Eresh was having the ship run, in the vain hope that one of them would give him a lead where to look for the Eternals.

He refused to admit it, but it was hopeless. It wasn't like it hadn't been tried before. The Eternals had been wreaking mayhem on Luminos for a long time and no amount of luck or skill or meticulous searching had gotten the Nayanors any closer.

Kol-Eresh was full of hope, but it was a fool's hope.

Jackie looked around in the room that the harbinger had set up for her. It wasn't ideal, but she felt more at home there than she had in a long while. The bed was nothing more than a mattress and warm Fermanoli coats as covers, but that was where she laid in the arms of her fated, happy to be there with him.

That was how it could be. That was how she wanted it.

Jackie waited with all the patience in the world, like a person who had nothing left to lose. She could wait until the meal was prepared and then they could have the talk that had been coming since the day they met.

It was an appropriate moment for tears, but Jackie had none left. They, too, had given up on her.