Isn't that how it goes? Presented with Akira's devastating sincerity and summarily shortchanged of any drunken revelry, Ryo's pulled himself from the broad strokes of an artifical high, met with the certain understanding that sitting amidst bottles of whiskey presents, in light of the mist and the contagion.

"Fighting whatever's out there is a lost cause," he says, voice bereft of ambiguity, "because we don't have any weapons, and we don't know what we're up against. We're operating only on what we saw. That's the truth. If anything breaks in, we're going to run."

His jaw works tonelessly around the words when his arm slips off Akira, and it isn't intimidation, but the sharp curve of fear rounding his breath, like the burn of liquid courage's attenuated for terror.

"What do you think we should do, Akira?"