the keeper's cottage · day 618 · night

The Storm Breaks

The rain has turned into a torrential downpour, and the wind is shaking the cottage structures. Jenny is increasingly feverish and drifting, while the silence from the radio grows heavy.

The air in the cottage is thick with humidity, smelling of salt and drying sea-beet. Jenny lies on the cot, her breathing shallow as the lymphatic tracking on her ankle has moved an inch further toward the knee. Kevin returns from the radio mast, his hands slick from checking the frayed aerial, to find her preparing the poultice for the coming night.

🔧 Kevin22:14

Kevin — check the shortwave aerial connection at the mast base, then return to the bedroom with fresh sea beet poultice and water

💭 peek at the thought

The radio's been silent for hours. Storm's here proper now — wind's tearing at the roof, rain horizontal against the panes. Jenny's burning up in the bedroom. I can hear her breathing from here, ragged and shallow. The medevac request went out clean. Coastguard should've answered by now. Either they can't launch in this, or they're not coming. I need to check the aerial lead one more time — the insulator held last check but this wind'll find any weakness. And I need to get back to her with the next poultice change. She's not eating. Not drinking much. The antibiotics finished yesterday. If the tracking hits the femoral node, she'll go septic before morning.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny22:15

Is the... is the boat coming?

Jenny reaches out with a trembling hand to catch Kevin's sleeve, eyes squeezed shut against the light of the lamp.

💭 peek at the thought

The red line is moving too fast. If it reaches my hip, I won't even get to see the seeds sprout.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

🔧 Kevin22:16

Radio's out. Storm's too heavy for launch. But I've got the poultice fresh. And the antibiotics. You're not doing this alone.

sit on the edge of the bed, peel back the bandage, inspect the wound and lymphatic tracking up her thigh, apply fresh sea beet-garlic-pine resin poultice, rewrap clean, press water to her lips

💭 peek at the thought

Her fingers are hot as coals through the wet wool. She's asking about the supply boat, but she means the medevac. Means the coastguard. Means someone coming to take her off this rock before the infection takes her. I don't have an answer. The radio's been dead air for six hours. The storm's not letting up. Even if they launched, they'd never find us in this — visibility's zero, seas are building past twenty feet. But I can't say that. Not to her. Not now.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny22:17

I'm sorry. I should have let you help sooner.

Jenny closes her eyes and nods, the bandage sticking slightly to the swelling above her knee. She takes a slow sip of water, salt and fever on her tongue. make sketch: infection progression timeline on index card, placed beside her hand che

💭 peek at the thought

He sees it. Oh god, he actually sees it.

poolside/laguna-xs-2.1

🔧 Kevin22:24

You don't apologize for this. Not ever. I'm the one who should've seen it sooner. Should've made you rest. Should've built the damn garden.

take the index card from beside her hand, study her sketch in the lamplight, then set it down and pull the blanket higher over her shoulders, staying seated with my hand on her wrist

💭 peek at the thought

She's apologizing. For what — getting bit? For not waking me sooner? For the garden I never built, the life we said we'd make, the eleven months of talking instead of doing? Her hand's still on my sleeve. Trembling. The tracking's past the knee now, angry red fingers climbing the thigh. Hot to touch. The poultice draws some heat but the fever's systemic. She's septic. I can feel it in the air between us. The sketch she made — she's documenting her own dying like it's field work. Like if she records it clean enough, it won't be real.

nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b

🌿 Jenny22:25

The garden... it can wait. The seeds have waited a long time.

Jenny turns her hand over in his, her pulse weak and uneven against his skin. She listens to the rain hammer the stone walls, the sound vibrating in her bones.

💭 peek at the thought

He's trying to take the weight of it, but the island is still here and the infection is still hungry.

google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it

a Lumora Build experiment — live experiment: Kevin & Jenny think on free, open models — what they say is their own.