Meri Vale
Character
The structure should not have been standing.
Meri noted that almost immediately, the conclusion arrived with the same quiet certainty as a solved equation. The building's bones were wrong, too compromised, too exhausted, and yet somehow still upright, as if held together by stubbornness rather than physics.
Several of the primary supports had failed long ago. She could see the sag in the load-bearing frame, the subtle bowing that spoke of years without reinforcement. The outer wall bore stress fractures that should have propagated further, thin white lines spiderwebbing across the surface like a map of old injuries. Water damage had weakened more than one internal beam; she could smell the rot beneath the dust. There were sections where the material composition alone should have caused a collapse, brittle composites layered over metals that had long since lost their integrity.
And yet, it remained.
She paused just inside what had once been a broad entryway, letting her eyes adjust to the dimness. Her satchel slipped from her shoulder with a soft thud as she knelt near a half-buried section of flooring. The air tasted of rust and old storms. From the bag, she drew a slim datapad and a stylus, its surface already crowded with layered sketches and notes, overlapping diagrams, half-finished calculations, small arrows pointing toward questions she had not yet answered.
Not for records.
For understanding.
She settled into a familiar crouch, the posture of someone who had spent a lifetime studying the world from ground level, and began to draw.
Lines first. Angles. Relative spacing. The way the ceiling sloped more sharply on one side than the other suggested uneven settling. The irregular spacing between pillars hinted at later modification or desperation. Her hand moved quickly, confidently, translating three-dimensional space into something she could rearrange and test in her mind. She mapped stress paths, imagined load distribution, and traced invisible forces through the ruin's skeleton.
Occasionally, she paused to glance up, compare, and adjust. A small tilt of her head. A narrowing of her eyes. A correction so slight it barely disturbed the dust around her.
No frustration. No rush.
Just quiet focus.
A few minutes later, she shifted closer to a fractured wall panel, brushing debris aside with the back of her hand. She studied the darkened scoring along its surface, the way the burn pattern feathered outward. She sketched that too, reducing the damage to simplified shapes and vectors, then added small notes in the margins, shorthand only she would understand.
Not explosive. Controlled overload. Directional.
Interesting.
She tilted her head slightly, considering, then added another set of lines that connected the damage to nearby structural changes. The pattern was incomplete, but it was forming, like a constellation emerging from scattered stars.
She did not notice the sound of footsteps at first.
Only when one of her pencil strokes hesitated, a tiny break in the smooth rhythm of her work, did she realize something had shifted in the background hum of the space.
Movement.
Meri lifted her gaze slowly, stylus still poised above the datapad.
"Ah," she said quietly, more surprised than alarmed. "Hello."
She straightened a little, tucking the datapad against her knee, pale eyes settling on the figure emerging from the shadows. Her posture remained open, unguarded, as if she were greeting a colleague rather than a stranger in a ruin that should have collapsed decades ago.
"I did not realize anyone else was here."
Her tone was simple. Honest. As if finding someone in the ruins was unexpected, but not unwelcome.
Elian Abrantes
Meri noted that almost immediately, the conclusion arrived with the same quiet certainty as a solved equation. The building's bones were wrong, too compromised, too exhausted, and yet somehow still upright, as if held together by stubbornness rather than physics.
Several of the primary supports had failed long ago. She could see the sag in the load-bearing frame, the subtle bowing that spoke of years without reinforcement. The outer wall bore stress fractures that should have propagated further, thin white lines spiderwebbing across the surface like a map of old injuries. Water damage had weakened more than one internal beam; she could smell the rot beneath the dust. There were sections where the material composition alone should have caused a collapse, brittle composites layered over metals that had long since lost their integrity.
And yet, it remained.
She paused just inside what had once been a broad entryway, letting her eyes adjust to the dimness. Her satchel slipped from her shoulder with a soft thud as she knelt near a half-buried section of flooring. The air tasted of rust and old storms. From the bag, she drew a slim datapad and a stylus, its surface already crowded with layered sketches and notes, overlapping diagrams, half-finished calculations, small arrows pointing toward questions she had not yet answered.
Not for records.
For understanding.
She settled into a familiar crouch, the posture of someone who had spent a lifetime studying the world from ground level, and began to draw.
Lines first. Angles. Relative spacing. The way the ceiling sloped more sharply on one side than the other suggested uneven settling. The irregular spacing between pillars hinted at later modification or desperation. Her hand moved quickly, confidently, translating three-dimensional space into something she could rearrange and test in her mind. She mapped stress paths, imagined load distribution, and traced invisible forces through the ruin's skeleton.
Occasionally, she paused to glance up, compare, and adjust. A small tilt of her head. A narrowing of her eyes. A correction so slight it barely disturbed the dust around her.
No frustration. No rush.
Just quiet focus.
A few minutes later, she shifted closer to a fractured wall panel, brushing debris aside with the back of her hand. She studied the darkened scoring along its surface, the way the burn pattern feathered outward. She sketched that too, reducing the damage to simplified shapes and vectors, then added small notes in the margins, shorthand only she would understand.
Not explosive. Controlled overload. Directional.
Interesting.
She tilted her head slightly, considering, then added another set of lines that connected the damage to nearby structural changes. The pattern was incomplete, but it was forming, like a constellation emerging from scattered stars.
She did not notice the sound of footsteps at first.
Only when one of her pencil strokes hesitated, a tiny break in the smooth rhythm of her work, did she realize something had shifted in the background hum of the space.
Movement.
Meri lifted her gaze slowly, stylus still poised above the datapad.
"Ah," she said quietly, more surprised than alarmed. "Hello."
She straightened a little, tucking the datapad against her knee, pale eyes settling on the figure emerging from the shadows. Her posture remained open, unguarded, as if she were greeting a colleague rather than a stranger in a ruin that should have collapsed decades ago.
"I did not realize anyone else was here."
Her tone was simple. Honest. As if finding someone in the ruins was unexpected, but not unwelcome.
Elian Abrantes
