We Are Legend

Dedicated to Romaine - there are no hummingbirds in Britain, hon, so I had to make do with the swifts.

In typical bird-sex, males introduce sperm into females' bodies by pressing their
sexual openings against the female's sexual opening, kiss-like.
»birdsex«, from backyardnature dot com

= * =

Part 1

Dark City, the seventh month of Year 62 of the Second Wizarding Era (London, July 2080, Muggle-time)

The old warehouse had seemed ideal. Abandoned amidst the overgrown wilderness, it stood right between the destroyed BBC headquarters and the grounds where the Crystal Palace had housed the World Fair more than two centuries ago. Far from the Death Eaters' areas in the City, but within easy reach from all of London still inhabited by survivors. For the last three weeks the refugees had gathered in White City. Harry had brought two groups up North into Hogwarts, last sanctuary in a Britain ruled by Voldemort. But now a small army of Death Eaters besieged the warehouse. Clearly, they should have changed to a different departure point much sooner.

»Told you I should've stayed, Flash Man.« Aunt Timila's voice sounded shaky at his shoulder.

Harry turned to give her an encouraging smile. »I'll get you out of here,« he said.

The small Indian woman flashed him a crooked smile of her own. With practised ease she redid her black, grey-streaked hair, then took a firm hold on the shoulder strap of her bag, indicating that she was set to go wherever he lead her. Harry watched her as she kept her eyes fearfully on the huge doors, then turned away before she noticed. Aunt Timila had never wanted to leave London. I'll stay as long as there's people here eating my food, she used to say. And the Death Eaters can eat death, she would add serving Harry another helping of spicy chicken and saffron-coloured rice. He would never forget how she'd stood before her burned-out restaurant, a stack of plates with a gold-stemmed rose pattern held tightly to her breast. It had not been hard then for him to convince her to join the next group of refugees.

»I'll get you out of here,« Harry repeated to himself, then added, »All of you,« with a look towards the other Muggles. They huddled close to one of the massive steel columns that once had carried the roof of the warehouse. What little daylight coming in through the tall windows was brittle and subdued. Even in July, the ever-present fog kept the sun at bay. Longbottom's hair flashed red in the group. The quiet wizard would keep the Muggles calm, prevent them from panicking and running away, into the hands of the Death Eaters. Through the windows Harry could see their shadows moving closer. Poliakoffa in her oddly elegant grey robes was kneeling to the left of him, Torwell and Jugson were far to the right on the other side of the hall, guarding the massive double doors. Stunning Spells flashed red repeatedly, then Harry heard a muffled scream. The black shapes massing at the doors retreated. He estimated five, maybe ten minutes until the Death Eaters would break through.

Apparition was out of the question. It had taken Harry one look at the shimmering net-like signature of the Anti-Apparition spell to determine that it was unbreakable. Not for the first time he wished they could break the powerful non-Apparition spell which prevented them from setting up Portkeys directly in the Southside Muggle Ghetto. Voldemort had become so bloody powerful. Or perhaps he had always been such a brilliant wizard. Somehow he had managed to survive the Battle of Hogwarts, which should have been his end - according to prophecy, to Dumbledore's words, according to everything Harry had believed in. He and Arthur Weasley had found the dead body of the Ravenclaw first-year later, strangled to death without any magic, the marks of the murderer's long fingers on the small neck. A life for yet another stretch of Voldemort's unnatural existence. But it had not been his emaciated death-skull form that had survived. Harry had seen this body die with his own eyes.

But there were ways around powerful magic, even Anti-Apparition nets cast across an entire building. Harry had learnt that lesson the hard way and become stronger in the process. There was a reason why Harry Potter was the world's most powerful wizard. And the five minutes that Torwell and Jugson bought them at the doors might just be enough. He just needed to get the bead-covered shoe that he'd dropped in front of him to the Muggles. Those soft-leathered moccasins had been a craze with Muggles in the years following Voldemort's downfall, when everybody had believed him dead for once and all. Life had returned to normal then for a while. They seemed short to Harry now, these twenty years when he had actually believed that there was peace. He had loved, married, given life to three children. None still lived, of course, and only Lily had died a natural death. Her only child, Harry's granddaughter, was running the Hogwarts Sanctuary these days.

The colourful moccasin was lying on a broken slab of cement. Harry had Portused the shoe himself, set it for the Hogwarts co-ordinates and adjusted the transportation time. Half the group needed to be touching the shoe in little more than eight minutes, the rest would go with Poliakoffa who held the second Portkey, a lidless sugar-bowl. He beckoned the witch to retreat towards the Muggles. They stood in the one corner where Harry had detected a weak spot in the Anti-Apparition Spell. Spells covering such an extended area were notoriously hard to cast, and while this one was way too powerful for even Harry's magic to break, the four wizards together might just be strong enough to rip a hole into the Spell's weaker boundaries. All they needed were five seconds at the right time to get them all out of here and into Hogwarts.

Harry gestured for Torwell and Jugson to retreat. He cast an Impediment Jinx while they placed a Gate-Bracing Spell on the iron doors, then quickly moved away from the huge metal containers they had been hiding behind. The Spell would not stand long against the onslaught of the Death Eaters' magic, but a few minutes should be enough. Harry flicked his wand at the walls, they went translucent for a moment. Masked figures were advancing towards the warehouse from all side, their shapes dark against the purplish light of the afternoon. They were massing at the doors, the enemy smelled defeat. With another flick of his wand the walls became solid again. Somehow the Death Eaters' spies must have learned about the departure point. It was easy enough. There was no way to keep the Muggles from talking amongst themselves. But they never were just amongst themselves. Voldemort's spies were everywhere. Disguised in Muggle clothing, they even moved around the Ghetto.

Harry had his eyes on Torwell and Jugson scrambling over towards them, ready to give them cover should the Death Eaters break through. Only when Aunt Timila gasped at his side did he notice something was wrong. Torwell stopped mid-run and was cursing loudly. The Muggles screamed, and Harry heard Longbottom's deep voice. »Stay together. Stay together, damn it, Jason, stay – «

A sound like crashing thunder split the sky directly above the warehouse. The tall windows rattled in their rusty frames, and Harry could feel the steel columns shake. Then abruptly, there was silence. Pieces of paint, that had been peeling from the columns, drifted silently to the floor, flakes thin and fragile like paper burned to pale green ash. Harry dropped the moccasin to have one hand free. With a sharp thump it landed on the floor. On the far side of the warehouse there was a dry snap, then magic flooded the hall. The Death Eaters had broken the Locking Charm. Harry looked over to Poliakoffa, searched for the grey of her robes. Even before the whooshing, deafening boom reached his ears, he saw the tall windows explode into a rainstorm of glass and metal. The entire wall was blasted open right beside the Muggles.

»Down! Down!« he heard Longbottom's voice, when Harry dragged Aunt Timila behind one of the columns, protecting her with his body.

Razor-sharp chips were flying everywhere, within seconds the floor was covered with what looked like diamond snow. The Muggles were flat on the ground, and Harry breathed out with relief when Poliakoffa cast a Shield Charm around them. Then he noticed the black-robed figures climbing over the heaps of brick, grout and plaster. He didn't need to think when he cast a rapid volley of Stunning and Impediment Spells at them. He got three, four Death Eaters, saw Torwell fight as well, but there were too many advancing like a dark flood through the steel girders that were all that was left standing of the Eastern side of the warehouse.

»To the Muggles!« Harry screamed. The Portkey would be activated within the next minutes, they could make it yet. Whoever had brought down the wall had used a magical force so strong that Harry could still feel it in his bones. The Anti-Apparition Spell must have suffered from the blast, too. Its weaker fringe was showing clearly just behind the Muggles. Perhaps fifty yards away, Jugson and Torwell were crouched back to back, moving towards the Muggles like a human-sized crab, throwing Stunning Spells as they went. Harry cast Petrificus Totalus in the general direction of the Death Eaters, grabbed the Portkey, shoved it in his back pocket, then started crawling towards the corner, too. He had managed about four yards, when he realised Aunt Timila was not at his side. He turned frantically and froze when he saw the woman leaning on the column where they had hidden. Blood was streaming down her neck, her face was turned up towards the ceiling.

He scrambled back, forced himself to be careful when he drew Aunt Timila towards him. Then he saw the piece of blood-smeared glass. It was wedged into the skin of her neck, just below the ear. Dark wisps of hair had escaped the bun and curled around the shard as if it was a glittering earring. She must have been hit when the wall came down. Judging from the amount of blood spurting down her neck, the shard had severed a major artery. The familiar hollow sickness spread from Harry's stomach to his chest. He had been the one who'd persuaded Aunt Timila to leave the Dark City. He had promised he get her out safe. Alive ...

»It's the Blue Phoenix,« she whispered, and Harry followed her gaze upwards. The shadowy outlines of a bird-like creature were visible on the ceiling's iron beams. It seemed to just be watching them, but Harry could feel waves of magic emanating from it.

Aunt Timila's words were repeated loudly by a strangled, panicked voice coming from the Muggles. »The Blue Phoenix!«

There was a commotion over at the doors, where scores of Death Eaters were pushing into the building. They, too, had seen the bird. There were yells of welcome, loud voices rising towards the ceiling. »He's come. The Blue Phoenix is here!«

Cold light suddenly filled the warehouse and made Harry squint. At the centre of it was the bird plunging towards the entrance like a raptor descending on its prey. It slowed down just before hitting the floor, then the hall was returned to its murky darkness. All that was left of the spectre was a flickering bluish-white light, hovering over where the Death Eaters stood.

»Now we won't get away, will we, Harry?« Aunt Timila's breath came in laboured gasps, but her eyes were clear.

»Can you move, Auntie?« Harry asked.

She laughed harshly. »I doubt it, Flash Man. Not with that thing poking out of my neck.«

There was little blood coming from the wound now. The shard seemed to have stoppered the artery it had ruptured. Harry didn't dare to remove it. Not here, not in the middle of a battle that with every passing minute they were more likely to lose. Aunt Timila's only chance were the healers at Hogwarts. The Portkey in his pocket would be activated in three minutes. Harry looked back to where Poliakoffa was walking a circle around the Muggles, casting a Protection Spell. She could take nine with her, perhaps ten. That still left five Muggles for him. Those five ... or Aunt Timila who might not even survive the transport. Five lives, or one? The choice should be easy, but it never was.

Harry looked desperately for Torwell and Jugson. They had almost reached the Muggles. Poliakoffa had gathered them around her, waiting for the Portkey to be activated. Jugson turned towards Harry, waving him to get over, when his face all of a sudden was lit in a green glare. It took Harry a full second to realise that this was the Death Eaters' attack. He heard the »Avada Kedavra« come from dozens of throats, as they cast Killing Curses towards the Muggles. This war was about extermination, God, he knew that. But he never expected such a blunt attack. Poliakoffa's Salvio Hexia flashed orange as the combined power of the Curses hit it. And it held. For now.

The Protection Spell didn't shield everyone, though. Torwell crumpled to the floor, moments before Jugson's Shield Charm came up. Harry screamed, and the next thing he knew was poisonous green light flashing right before his eyes. The column shook as the Killing Curse hit it. Aunt Timila clung too him, eyes wide in shock. He raised a Shield Charm against the Death Eaters at the doors. A group of them had moved behind the containers and were casting Spells from there. Harry raised his wand towards the corner, towards that weak spot in the Anti-Apparition net. It shimmered like heat in the height of summer, back when there still had been summers in the Dark City. Harry pressed Aunt Timila towards him, careful not to touch the shard. It had been so long since he had seen a real summer. He shouted »Reducto!« and felt the floor shake, then a gap opened within the shimmering spot in the air. There was a fresh green behind it, the green of the smoothly rolling hills surrounding Hogwarts. This one life, Harry thought pushing the moccasin in Aunt Timila's shaking hands and holding onto the Portkey himself. Any second now –

The Killing Curse bounced off the column left of them. It had come from the side, from the collapsed wall, where dust-covered Death Eaters were hiding behind bricks and mounds of shattered glass. Harry had never cast a Shield Charm in this direction. This way was their escape route, the rip in the Anti-Apparition Spell. He had to leave it Unshielded for the Portus Spell to work.

Harry felt the tug of the Portkey at the same time as Aunt Timila's body went slack in his arms. Her head fell back, he looked into brown eyes staring lifelessly back at him. Not ... not her. The shoe slid out of her hands when Harry let go of it. From the corner of his eyes he saw that Poliakoffa had Portkeyed out with her group. Longbottom was gone, too. He must have Disapparated, taking two Muggles side-along. Jugson sat beside Torwell, four remaining Muggles staring alternately at him and Harry.

Jugson's face was twisted with grief, and Harry remembered that he and Torwell had been lovers. Longbottom's oversight, when he had put together the team. No lovers or married couples in one team, it meant unnecessary risks and attachments which could jeopardise the entire mission. Clearly, the tall wizard would not leave Torwell. Harry got up, lowering Aunt Timila's body to the floor. Perhaps there should be a similar rule for friends. He'd be damned if he left the body of Aunt Timila to the wolves. He slowly turned towards the Death Eaters who were approaching from two sides. Damn the cowardly bastards! Did they know nothing but strength in numbers? Harry raised his wand, lowered the Shield Charm.

The »Expelliarmus« echoed through the warehouse as he cast the Spell repeatedly towards the containers and the crashed wall. Wands came flying from all sides, clattering on the floor in front of him. He allowed himself a quick smile, then prepared for the inevitable counter-attack. He had been hit with the Killing Curse before, and while the Curse could not kill him, it was not a pleasant experience. Even immortal, humans felt pain.

Harry waited. He could only hope that Jugson and the Muggles got away in the chaos once the Death Eaters discovered that they had captured the legendary renegade wizard the Muggles called Flash Man.

The seconds stretched on. Since the clattering of the wands there had been barely a sound in the hall. Harry dared a quick glance towards Jugson. The wizard had called the Muggles towards him. The golden glow of a Shield Charm shimmered around them. They were safe for the moment. But why didn't the Death Eaters attack? Judging from the wands at his feet, there must be at least fifty Dark wizards still out there with the ability to Aveda Kadevra him on the spot.

A solitary figure stepped out from behind the containers. With quick, determined strides it walked towards them. Black robes moved as if caught in a wind, splintered glass crunched underneath heavy boots. The stranger's head was hidden below the hood. There was something about the way ...

Harry felt the surge of magic even before he saw Jugson raise his wand. His Shield Charm was down, the wizard ready to kill, Harry could feel it. He spun around, screamed »Don't!« and sent a light Stun towards Jugson. The stranger looked up as if Harry's scream had been a pre-arranged signal. Still walking he raised his hands and took down the hood in one swift move. Hair bright like silver flashed in the dim light of the warehouse. Harry felt his heart stop. That colour hair ...

»Are you crazy?« Jugson yelled at him from the ground. The Muggles helped him up. »He's going to kill us!« Before Harry could react, Jugson cast an Impediment Jinx at the stranger. The wizard never broke his stride, simply raised one hand and deflected the jinx. He looked straight ahead at Harry.

»Let him come,« Harry said barely loud enough for Jugson to hear. The stranger was a mere twenty yards away. As he came closer, Harry took in the knee-high leather boots, the flowing old-fashioned cut of the robes, the odd way his left arm swung in a slightly crooked angle. Then the man stood before him.

It was his hair. His eyes. His bloody pointed chin. He looked twenty-five, thirty at the most. And this – this could not be.

The wizard's eyes held Harry's gaze as he slowly raised his hand. Harry forced himself not to flinch. He needed to know. A finger, cold as ice, touched his left cheek, the corner of his left eye. The touch was light as breath, barely a touch at all.

»You?« the stranger whispered. His finger moved towards Harry's scar, then stopped. He dropped his hand. His mouth formed soundless words. No glamour, Harry read from the pale lips. He wanted to shake his head – why would he glamour himself with a scar so recognisable, so dangerous? – but all he managed was a jerk of the chin. Grey eyes seemed to pierce him when the wizard asked, »Potter?«

The voice sounded different than Harry remembered, rusty and hoarse, as if it was not used very much. For the first time he noted the bluish light flickering around the stranger. Harry meant to nod, but he couldn't move. His skin prickled where the finger had touched him. The other man gazed at him intently, as if Harry was as much of a puzzle to him as he was to Harry. Then he abruptly turned and walked back with the same indifferent determination as before.

Something about those hunched-up shoulders broke the spell Harry was under. He stepped forward quickly, shouted, »Malfoy!«

The name hit him like a curse. Malfoy's body arched as he threw his head back and stopped. For a moment Harry feared Jugson had cast another Spell and Malfoy would drop to his knees. But then he slowly turned, and Harry was shocked by the pain in his face.

»You care for this Muggle?« Malfoy asked in that odd scratchy voice and pointed towards the lifeless body of Aunt Timila.

Harry nodded. »Yes. Yes, she's a friend.«

With three long steps Malfoy was at Aunt Timila's side. He crouched beside her, moved her head with a gentleness that surprised Harry.

»Get down here,« Malfoy said as if it was the most natural thing for him to order Harry Potter around.

But Harry obeyed. Something strange was happening, and he had to know what it was. He knelt down beside Aunt Timila, setting her head in his lap. Malfoy looked up from the dead woman to Harry, his expression unreadable. The pain, which had distorted his face moments ago, was now only visible in his eyes. Then he extended his arms in the oddest of gestures. And was gone with the blink of an eye. A bird the size of a swan sat beside Aunt Timila, wings spread wide as if to protect the body. Harry was too startled to even jump. From the Muggles and Jugson he heard loud gasps and a fearful scream of surprise.

Large silver talons buried themselves in the cracks of the cement slabs. The bird's plumage was a blue so dark it seemed black, with a silver-feathered tail. The underside of those huge wings and its belly was a lighter blue, and when it lowered its head Harry saw the whitish glimmer of its crest. For a second he feared that the bird might hurt Aunt Timila with his strong silver beak, but it simply pressed its head towards her neck. Drop-shaped pearls of ice were falling from its grey eyes. For all its dark colouring, the bird's resemblance with Fawkes was striking.

Phoenix tears. Of course ... healing powers ... A boy's voice from another life echoed in Harry's mind. More and more frozen tears pooled around the wound, melting from the contact with human skin that was still warm. Harry carefully pulled at the shard of glass, and it slipped out easily, like a knife out of soft butter. The wound filled with the melted tears, pink skin closed over it. Within seconds there was nothing left of the gash but a glittering wet spot on Aunt Timila's skin.

The phoenix raised its head, shaking it in a gesture of impatience. With a sudden movement of its wings it stepped backwards and then rose into the air. Harry watched the bird spiral up towards the ceiling, stunned. In his lap he felt Aunt Timila stir and take a first shaky breath. It seemed hardly possible, but he could feel her heart start to beat again, stutter at first, then settle into a strong, even pace.

He meant to look down at her, meet her eyes that he knew were open and alive, when he felt powerful magic erupt in the sky above. The phoenix hovered directly above the crashed-in roof of the warehouse. From the tips of its wings silver beams shot out and downward. Where they hit the Anti-Apparition Spell it shattered, and like an infection the silver spread wider and wider, lighting the entire building in a brilliant white. The phoenix took to the sky, a streak of blue against the murky twilight. Harry watched it soar ever higher, until it disappeared behind the clouds. For the first time in what felt like an eternity he felt his own heart flutter – a stumbling, hopeful rhythm.

== * * ==

The signal's intermittent beep swept through the fog-shapes that moved sluggishly over the water. Even in the late morning, a mere hour before noon, a muddy gloom lay over the City, thanks to the Dementors who had been breeding all Spring. Voldemort kept his most faithful servants in good spirits by having them feed off imprisoned Muggles. No one - neither Muggle nor wizard - dared to go close to the Isle of Dogs which Voldemort had given to the Dementors.

Harry adjusted the small transmitter, trying to pick up a stronger signal that he could use to broadcast his daily message. Muggle technology had been quite adaptive to the demolition of the National Grid, starting with the destruction of Drax power station in Year one of Voldemort's second return. Oily, noisy generators, solar watches and battery-powered digital radios went for thousands of Galleons on the black market. Harry looked up from where he knelt on the platform stretching into the Thames. The fog was so thick that he could barely see the other side of the river. The ruins of the Houses of Parliament were blurred shapes peeking out of the greyness. He remembered how, in the early evenings, sometimes all the windows had been lit up, rows of bright squares reflecting on the surface of the river. Electric light was dangerous these days, a dead give-away to the Death Squads that Muggles were living in a building. In the wizarding districts there was no muted shimmer of candlelight, either. People kept their curtains closed or had their windows enchanted to show them whatever they wished on the inside, a lifeless façade to the outside. London at night was a pitch-black cityscape, a Dark City indeed.

To Harry's left the Westminster Bridge loomed in the fog, to his right was the City, Death Eater territory. Behind it started uninhabitable ground, the Dementors' realm. The dread and despair that lay over Greenwich, Whitechapel, Rotherhithe and New Cross could be felt even here, on this small sunny patch amidst the sea of mist. It was a risky location for the broadcast, so close to Buckingham Palace where Voldemort had taken up residence if the rumours circulating in the Muggle Ghetto were true. And of course there was no telling whether Dementors were hiding behind those drifting grey wisps.

The pressure behind his scar became stronger as the midday sun pierced through the clouds. Harry slid to the floor beside the huge broken spindle and leant against one of the wrecked capsules that once had circled high into the air. He was constantly aware of his link into Voldemort's mind now, controlling it with Occlumency but never shutting it down all the way like he used to do. In those first years of peace, he had not thought much about the sudden flashes into the disturbed mind, he had taken them for his own brain playing out nightmares, showing him twisted after-images of the war. And maybe they were. The link had become so much a part of him that Harry was never sure how much was himself, how much Voldemort. But in his youth he had felt a sharp intellect through the link, a sadistic craziness that was ruled by a twisted kind of purpose and logic. Ever since the Battle of Hogwarts there had been a more visceral force on the other side, a mind focused on smell and taste, on food and warmth as much as on its grand airs of pure-blooded world dominion. Not for the first time Harry wondered if Voldemort's new body was not all human, but some magical beast, perhaps hiding in the Tower dungeons.

As he scanned the Southern Embankment his gaze inadvertently went up into the sky. Ever since that uncanny encounter with Malfoy he found himself searching the horizons. During the last days he had seen a huge bird fly in the distance several times, but he could not be sure if had been the phoenix. That scratchy voice whispering Potter ... It was but a distorted echo from Malfoy's vicious drawl, but Harry couldn't get it out of his mind. It made him remember the days when Flash Man was a figment from a future not one of them could have had foreseen. Made him long for memories of carefree and happy times, which in reality he had never known back in school. All these years Harry had thought it was only him and Voldemort left. And now there was Malfoy. Malfoy, who'd always been on the Dark side.

The Blue Phoenix was one of the more powerful, if unpredictable minions of Voldemort. Every once in a while it appeared at some battle, throwing itself recklessly into the most dangerous action. It was rumoured that in the final confrontation, it had been the phoenix's powerful magic that had allowed the Death Eaters to break into the Department of Mysteries where the Unspeakables had protected the last secrets from the Dark. The Muggles believed the Blue Phoenix to be invulnerable, untouchable by neither their weapons nor magic. Why the bird had appeared in the warehouse, Harry had no idea – refugees rated low on the list of Voldemort's enemies.

Harry had never believed that the magical creature truly was a phoenix. A phoenix did not kill. At least he had thought that, but really, he had only known Fawkes. Malfoy had to be a phoenix Animagus. It was the only explanation that made sense, the only explanation of why Malfoy was still alive. Last Harry had heard of him, he had died in Azkaban, decades ago. But the stranger had been Malfoy, Harry was sure of it. Different of course, like Harry himself, altered by time and whatever had happened to him, but some things never changed. That shifty look in those grey eyes, the way he moved deliberately, too conscious of each gesture and step for them to be all natural. And of course, the feel of his magic. Harry could still remember it ripple through him, where Malfoy had touched his skin.

The cement platform was now wrapped in bright sunlight. It had burned off the fog over the river, where a sudden breeze made the water glitter like liquid silver. Harry got up and adjusted the dial of the transmitter. The signal was strong now, a regular beep-beep-beep that would carry his message far into the Northern districts where Muggles might still be hiding. As Harry prepared to talk into the microphone he wondered if Malfoy would perhaps hear his broadcast. He quietly chuckled about the silly notion. Malfoy likely had never even touched a Muggle radio, and if the Blue Phoenix could intercept Flash Man's message, then the Death Eaters would be here in no time.

Standing in the noon sun in the middle of the platform, the transmitter's antenna aimed in the direction of Trafalgar's Square, Harry's voice carried far across the water.

»My name is Harry Potter. I am a half-blood wizard still living in the City of London. I am broadcasting on all frequencies. I will be at the London Eye platform every day this week at midday, when the sun is highest in the sky. If you are out there ... if any surviving Muggle or Muggle-born wizard or witch is out there ... I can provide food, I can provide shelter, I can provide safe passage to Sanctuary. If there's anyone out there ... anybody ... please. You are not alone.«

== * * ==