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Realising your old human habits to get through the night will be fruitless you decide to try a different approach. Instead of focusing on nothingness and trying to enter a trance trying to lose yourself in the void, you begin to pay more attention to the sounds you can hear. You make an effort to distinguish between the heartbeat of Elia, and those of the groups of pigs, chickens or whatever animals around those sizes are in the outbuildings nearby. Eventually you are able to tell individuals apart within the groups. You do the same with some other sounds. Soon you can hear every rustle of every blade of grass and every leaf on every tree. You can identify the paths of individual winged insects based on the particular range of pitches and rhythm of their flapping wings. You can hear the shrill scream of foxes somewhere high on the wooded plateau echoing down. You try to reach further, and are surprised to hear the whine and clang of an iron gate being pulled open. And at about that moment Elia stirs against you and you open your eyes. It’s dawn.

Turn to 104.