[The last thing he can remember is shutting his eyes and clinging tightly to the rusty rails between the train cars, hearing a familiar pitter patter of shoes against metal coming closer and closer as he counts for as long as he needs to. Even if that noise was drowned out amidst many other things- Voices of younger children, a loud crash, or even the sound of bugs chirping away on a contrived summer night, he could recognize it. When you spend an entire lifetime with someone, and those years are the only ones in which you've felt alive, the strangest of things burn themselves into your memory.

Which is why when he can no longer hear her, his eyes fly open.]

What-

[Simon is no longer holding onto the train, or anything for that matter. He is standing on solid ground, no longer dangling above parched Earth, but instead of feeling relieved he is overcome with a piercing sense of dread.]

Wait. Where's my number? Where-

[He hurriedly tugs at his sleeves, pulling them all the way to his shoulders. There is no glow of green anywhere on the skin that he can see, and so he frantically kneels to check if the light has moved anywhere else, like his ankles or his knees. As a last ditch effort, he pries the sweatshirt he has been wearing over and off his head, then pulling up the tank top underneath to reveal his stomach.]

IS my number, it doesn't even look like it's here, I-

[And it's pale as ever.]

Grace? Grace, what's going on-

[This isn't funny. Not if it's another prank, she knows how he feels about being alone-]

The null must've done this.

I knew it couldn't be trusted.