Jacob heard a commotion outside and answered the door. Two lovely young women were standing outside his door holding hands. The fairer one, with hair that abounded in bright, silvery curls and with a hint of eyes blued, kept her face downcast so all he could see was the flutter of an iris under its lid and a hint of a rosy lip.

  The other, who seemed eerily familiar, gazed at him and he saw recognition in the great, green swirls of her eyes. Ones like a woodland grove.

  “Jacob I missed you,” she said. Smiling beneath a cloudy fringe of coppery tresses.

  Just as he twigged to who this creepily sweet-eyed, little hellion was, her female companion spoke.

  “I didn’t. I think you’re almost as bland as the last guy we trapped in the mists. Less of a great blubber baby, I suppose.”

  Jacob was horrified. Before the name Mist could leave his lips, the girl began to disgustingly transform; her limbs thickening and soon muscles appeared lithely beneath a well-fitted shirt.

  “Just so there is no doubt of what we are and you will take us seriously,” Shiver said. Her face too, had altered. “Besides, we did you a favour; seeing me turn into a man would have been far more disconcerting and traumatizing no? I do make a beautiful boy.”

  There was now a trickle of pale, pearly gold in those once rich, Russian-red locks, and her eyes gazed browner and warmer.

  “I already believed you, mostly,” Jacob spoke as he twisted his hands together, before thrusting them deeply into his pockets. Better than using them to throttle monsters. At least ones who could basically strangle your cells from the inside.

  “How did you get out here…” Jacob asked after quite the pause. “You live in Australia.”

  “We flew. Aryan took us so we could come to the ceremony to help crown the winner of the Virtual Tournament. We’re magnanimous like that.”

  They then asked Jacob if they could come in for tea, and reluctantly, he invited them in. Even though inviting monstrous demons into your home was the first thing you learned not to do. Unless you were working with one.

  They sprawled out on his little sofa and waited for him to serve them. Shiver asked for a large dash of milk and seven hundred biscuits.

  Jacob gave her seven.

  “Well at least the tea is milky,” she said. She ate her biscuits in mere seconds. Mist crushed all his up and then ate the crumbs slowly. They asked him which one of them made the prettier girl.

  Jacob ignored this and when they finished their milky tea they left. Giggling.

  “Will I get another charming visit from the racist Prince?” Jacob inquired of a dozing Shiver. They were once more doing their nightly ritual of meeting in a virtualizer land to plan out schemes to beat the AI. Within the virtual realm, she had turned herself into a great, green-and-blue serpent and then slithered onto the old, oak table and curled up on it, and was now lying upon the wood dreamily, in a state of half-repose. Her sleepy, snake eyes were in scarlet ringed.

  Shiver’s head rose indignantly. In so much as a snake could convey such things as human emotions. Which in her case, was quite well.

  “He isn’t just that! He is also a shapeshifter and a great beauty with a gift for pranks and puzzles. You are being too judgmental."

  “Right,” Jacob said. "Will he do any more transformations?"

  “Wait and see.”

  Jacob sighed. He soon left the virtual land to get himself some nice, meaty bread. Shiver had said she would get herself some golden chips and crispy chicken and a loaf with butter and honey. She really was a greedy little beast.

  Just before the dawn as they worked together yet again and as the lightest layer of the sun outside this feigned land broke through dark, smoky, wine-red clouds, Jacob asked what he had long wanted to ask. “ Why are you helping me? It seems counterinitiative since it only hinders and doesn’t at all help you.”

  "Fair enough, you don’t trust me. You probably will not believe this but I am capable of remorse you know. Of wonder and hope. There is but one way to redeem a serpent.”

  Jacob frowned.

  “God,” she whispered.

  “You have neither the raw talent nor brilliance to win through any strategist's logic but you are brave and true and if God is watching…You may yet succeed. Under his watch, even a lowly sparrow does not fall unnoticed to the ground.”

  Jacob believed her.

  "You see, Emanuel believes that the gene-splicing end of humanity he predicted will indeed come to pass. The majority of simulations he ran all support it. He believes that all hangs sickened and within, his simulation's looming, rose-welt tinge. Yet in my heart of hearts, I want to believe The Legend of the Infiltrator,” Shiver said then paused before speaking up again.

  "I am indeed praying that the bloody but golden rise of the Shiverla or Emanuel's predicted deathly outcome are not our only possible, future realities," Her lips then parted with a hopeful whistling.

  Suddenly Jacob was whisked away out of the Virtual Room. Back into the OCEMA.

  Welcome to the Ocema, without further ado here is our third entry on Ambrose's greatest saddest hits.

  Time Monday 7: 09 pm. Mood; Poor and friendless in the cold.

  I have few friends and can count the ones I do on my fingers. In regards to Max and Eva (at least we get along amicably), I was discussing computer code with them, and I think they were finding it a little repetitive. Also, Max owes me twenty dollars and I really need it back; maybe the nurses can help me retrieve it.

  In other news to make my many haters jump up and down with glee I had another stroke, I couldn’t move my face, and my head felt like it would explode, and I fainted right away. Still, if I died who’d you have to laugh at, relentlessly mock? It’s a sick, painful, symbiotic relationship we have. I am so tired of feeling this way and people calling me shit and Ditch all the time. At least when I recovered, I felt like I was high as I always do afterwards.

  Reactions:

  Eva and the rest of us aren’t your friends Ambrose. We never were, and never will be. Do us all a favor and choke on your breakfast one morning and never bother us again, we hate you.

  The reason everyone calls you shit is because you are shit, Ditch.

  As if anyone cares about you or your fucked up life, I mean God like we care. Call the President Ambrose so he can issue a bulletin….

  We have a Prime Minister mate. Yet man, Ambrose, you’re still the bigger retard. That’s why no-one loves you. Sheesh is it that hard for you to comprehend basic rules of life. Don't be you and you'll be liked got it?

  Like you know what it is like to get high stop trying to fit in, you geeky fucking loser.

  Well, I am most certainly no brain-dead stoner. Perhaps you, the DOA waiting to happen, the pot-loving, grocery bagger soon replaced by the robots, might know a thing or two about being one though?

  Oh my God everyone, I think the little, Bronze-age bronzer just insulted me… Die you fat, ugly freak who can't move on into this century.

  You’re a weirdo. You should be tested on instead of animals, let’s get Peta on board. Great compromise between people who want good products and medicine and those who love animals like they're human or something.

  I’m glad my prayers you would get hurt came true, but you didn’t die… What the F, God? Such a bronzer. I wouldn’t call Max your friend, no one deserves that lowly a title. Also, shut up about that stupid money tightwad; no one cares about you getting paid back (hint you won’t ever).

  Also, someone yesterday said you should fall down a flight of stairs. God, I hope it happens, kills you and I never have to see you again.

  You are just ugly. I hope they reopen Guantanamo Bay just for you. Die for the world, be a hero. For once in your life think of the rest of us and stop selfishly continuing to exist.

  I wouldn't hold your weak nerdy hand if you were dying, I'd sever it to cause you more pain, you deserve it...

  I’d have taken you to that strip club they shut down (on my own dime) that's full of women with STDS and was ground zero for one of the STD resurgences and have them all sleep with you and kill you. However, no one would agree to touch you, you ugly bronzer, even with the wide end of a handed-out, participation trophy, that's all someone like you could hope to win.

  I have a game for you…You test your pain endurance and record it as you light yourself with a match then douse the flame with lighter fluid and it gets rid of all your blemishes( in your case just the entire face).

  The virtualizer ended.

  "Want to see when we wrote an ode to Ambrose's life or his poem to Isabella and her one for him," Shiver asked innocently.

  "No. Not even remotely."

  She didn't listen.

  Virtualcreator.com

  Welcome to the OCEMA at Virtual Creator ( we are currently residing in the branch virtual story). We're doing something different today. Instead of killing random people (as voted in by you since we ran out of people to kill after the “tragic” school virus epidemic) which has all our fellow Wright Housers dying while we kill ourselves laughing about it. We'd like to share some slightly altered extracts of what we found in entries by people from our school.

  They are dying now thanks to us but that doesn’t mean we can’t still poke fun at them. P.s we chose the absolute worst it was very difficult but, in the end, we think we picked wisely.

  Extract one (written not a re-enactment) author: Ambrose Luther Kliendefer: Date: 13th of November: Mood: blank, brain-dead, possibly zombified.

  Music I’m currently listening to: (how the hell should we know what music he likes? What’s more who crooken cares?

  Subject: poetry; an ode to my life as the world’s most boring loser.

  I got up today;

  It took about 10 minutes hey

  Pants were a little tight

  Worse everything was dark as my fat ass obscured the light

  I pulled and grunted, grunted and pulled

  Finally got my pants on and said (most wittily) oh pants how you I ruled

  Plus, it only took an hour not the usual 6

  I usually get up at 3:00 am so I won’t miss breakfast, my 300 kg sugar fix

  I sprinkle my toast with light toppings of whipped sugar and chocolate syrup mix

  Walked downstairs

  Didn’t know why but my parents glared

  Chewed some toast, chewed again couldn’t swallow for a minute

  Started choking, writhing, choking thought my life was at its limit

  Thought death was upon me and I would die right where I was sittin

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  Recovered, picked up my mug with the photo of the kitten.

  Drank some coffee with whipped cream, looked around for the whipped sugar

  Father looked at me, said, “You ate it all Brose you fat mother crooker”

  This is worse than the time he refused to acknowledge how manly I'd become

  “I’ve grown a mustache,” I said. He replied; “I see only fat on your face, my son.”

  I walked out of the house crying before

  He could hurt my poor little feelings more

  The end

  Mist: This is particularly humorous because Ambrose started growing facial hair last week, but everyone pretended not to notice including his parents. Shiver ruined it though by telling him to shave the moustache off. She made up for it later by telling me that Ambrose told her his parents refused to believe he had any facial hair.

  Also, in case you’re wondering, no he isn’t really a crooker or in layman’s terms a young STDS-ridden person. Word’s maybe a combination of crooked and hooker?) and yes, he does start every single entry by informing us that today I, ____________ insert boring pointless happening in average Joe retards life here.

  To be truly fair to the original author, Ambrose, his poetry never actually rhymed and was therefore far worse and less poetic than anything we could create. He basically just lists everything he says, thinks, and does in a stream of babbling consciousness. His poetry is usually restricted to one specific subject (usually some random, unstable, sociopathic slut, like Isabella or that God-awful Shiver for example.)

  Shiver: Mist!

  Mist: It always follows this same pattern. No flow, no meticulous or skilled sentence structure. Even more hilarious though was when he performed a Chopin piano piece for our public enjoyment in the Monovalent realms universe.

  Shiver: He considers himself quite the musician and piano player.

  Mist: He’s not.

  Shiver: Anyway, someone viewing it, who visited his little virtual world did so politely inquire, “You could use a lil practice, don’t you think.” So apparently the child can not only not rhyme or write poetically but he has no musical capabilities either.

  Mist: Do pretensions towards poetry and music count? Cause he’s doing alright there.

  Shiver (again) No Mist.

  Welcome back to the OCEMA.

  Entry five: Date April 8th Subject: Mystery E-letter and Pornographer Extraordinaire.

  Ambrose has delighted us by showing us a virtual version of a picture on his blog. It’s an imbecile of a girl who sent this rather “unfortunate” photo of herself willingly around the virtual universe to anyone who accepted the "viewing" offer. He has then commented on what he posted to her in response to it.

  "I’m very sorry but I really must insist on issuing a warning to all potential viewers that they might suffer shock and heart attacks due to pleasure overload at seeing such a deity. "

  Shiver: Well, we're very sorry too but we must throw up. If you just vomited we're hardly nonplussed so would any sane person who heard this grossness.

  You’re gorgeous please come home with me,” he goes on to say. Okay fine, he doesn’t actually say “Please come home with me” I made that part up. He does say “You’re gorgeous” though.

  MIst: He finishes( not that kind) with “You’re so bravely artistic, wonderful, and feminist putting a picture of yourself up that is so sensual yet beautiful for all to see.”

  Shiver: Ouch well feminist isn’t what springs to mind must have missed that part. Men drooling over some hardly-attractive woman(huge mouth, think fish-lips) with all her personal information including address willingly available just because she’s scantily-clad, seems more stupid and inviting stalkers rather than artistic and brave to me.

  Part two of this entry is an anonymous message sent to Ambrose. Here’s an extract.

  I used to think everyone had something positive going for them till I met you, you’re like seriously pathetic. No wonder you’re mother left, poor woman. We have all been laughing at you behind your back haven’t we Grace? Haven’t we Ava, and Isabella too. I can’t believe you actually think we are your friends. You really believe we could ever like you God-damn, dickless, little faggot?

  You are so hideous and everything about you is utter arse, we feel sorry for any future kids you might have with some poor, very.... Drunk girl. Thank god for the fertility crisis. You’re the worst caused by being hard fucked-in-the-ass, cancer in the world. Stop always using your full name Ambrose Luther Kliendefer, seriously who does that? Also, stop wearing such tight, girly pants we all can totally see what a small “manhood” you possess Its hilarious. Just grow a bloody clue and kill yourself you fat, worthless sack,

  Mist: Well, it’s nice to know when Ambrose can’t count on any support at home, when his mother has deserted him, and his beloved cat’s died. When the only thing he has to look forward to is the next time he has a mini-stroke or heart episode, and he is feeling most blue his friends have got his back right Shiv?

  Shiver: He never told me his cat died! Mother left. We’re ignoring him since finding out about his sleaziness and journal though to be fair. Anyhow Ambrose inquired on his V-blog if anyone knew who the V-mailer was (like it matters they all think of him like that. That was the point of the email rather.

  I like how the first person commenting gives a whiny plea not to use the word “fag” as it’s demeaning to homos, make fun of poor disabled kids all you want, just leave the gays alone.

  I guess all loser bronzers who failed “life's competition” like him deserve to be beaten, berated, tortured and in the street, die. So moral. Well-done humanity.

  Mist: On to that manhood comment, ouch! Shiv and I knew his friends only used him and laughed at him behind his back. Also, interesting Ambrose has the facts shoved right in his fat face yet still chooses to stick with his vapid little comrades. It must be true love.

  A disclaimer from Virtualhanger.com: The opinions expressed by little miss malcontent Shiver are not necessarily shared by us Virtualhangercom, though whether that actually could be considered reassuring to anyone considering our credentials is dubious.

  Finale: Author: Ambrose Luther Kliendefer Mood: sexually frustrated.

  Music I’m currently listening to: Funkrats new rap, sex, Baby, and S-e-x

  Isabella my bubbly and vivacious, little socialite you have broken my heart again today and know just what to say to hurt me most badly. You are so very smart, beautiful, pretty, and destined to be great if only you’d try.

  Isabella, you hide effectively how intelligent and deep you are, and I feel the throws of passion for you. Oh, how I have adored you from afar. Isabella like Ava is so sassy she knows just what to say to upset me.

  Also, my father had a screaming fit today and broke the door handle. He also keeps calling me Ditch his name for me since I was little because I am apparently a piece of shit, he's stuck with and a disappointment as a son. I can write this because I know Lily and the rest of you overhead him calling me Ditch, so everyone knows now.

  Good news as well as bad to report for today’s entry. Lily’s party is tomorrow; finally, an excuse to drink and smoke pot which Isabella did last week and ran around shrieking and thought she saw merpeople or something so cute.

  Also, Ethan "met" Carrie at the party I held at my house and is now dating her, so Charlotte is not happy. Carrie apologised to me but don’t do that at someone’s house if you don’t wish to be caught pantsied.

  Also, we are using fake IDs to get into The Blusters Club and dance and order numerous alcoholic drinks till we eventually puke. Miles the teacher has announced he is leaving the school to retire not surprising really, as it’s his seventy-seven birthday tomorrow. Isabella tragically is also leaving these grounds. We’re having a party for their send-off.

  She is going back to regular school. It’s so sad I never got to do her, I mean love her. Oops, I meant love my darling little sociopath truly.

  On another note, the bible and books about girls falling in love with abusers, they should really ban them I mean would you want your daughter reading them? Don’t forget to join the Blue Fire boycott (sorry Ava it’s for your own good).

  How can you be against government invasion of privacy yet support and share celebrity images taken by publicity hounds? Or consider yourself a supporter of equality but put up with all this new shaming language like “slap the bitch out of her,” “And dick away the fat” or “beat her dick back into a cunt.”

  I would also like to dedicate a song( I didn't write it) and a poem( I did) to Isabella.

  Re; to Isabella

  I saw you and I knew you would be my one (in bed)

  It has never gotten to a touch yet (in bed)

  Yet I have known we were going to be one (in bed)

  Shiver: I don’t know how the rest of the ode goes because my eyes started bleeding after the first three lines. I had to stop or risk mass hemorrhage.

  Okay, I take back secretly wishing he’d pen something romantic for me. I’m sure glad he didn’t write a love letter or any poetry to me.

  I mean how would it have gone?

  Shiver marry me,

  Always I will love you

  Marry me so we can grow old together

  I have never kissed you, but I know it’ll be great

  Just awesome.

  The end.

  By the way, most of this entry’s not a parody, it’s exactly how he stated it. We know what you must be thinking right now, yes, truly is that bad. Most banal and literally worst free verse I have ever seen he’s too pretentious to rhyme, though frankly, it would have flowed better if he had.

  The only parts we went and changed were adding “in bed” to the end of each line of the poem and the remark about doing her instead of loving. I do have sympathy about his dad though my dad broke the screen door about a year ago go team aggressive, short-tempered fathers!

  Mist: Really? This poem goes on so long in this self-same, tedious manner that we didn’t even find it worth mocking in its entirety. This is the best Mr grade-skipper I’m so eloquent and elite and sophisticated in my manners has to offer? I guess it is modern poetry.

  Besides Shiver, he did pen poems and romantic entries about you. He just "coincidentally" did a purge of his holos and somehow deleted them right after you rejected him . On a different subject of his calling dear bull-bitch Bella, sassy. Whenever anyone describes a woman or girl as sassy know that it's a synonym for a bitch who happens to also be hot.

  It’s basically a pink-clad, loud-mouthed brat in an underwear-revealing, short skirt to attract drooling Neanderthals and Ken dolls. Her impertinent attitude mostly consists of petulant pouting, which her friends deem oh-so-cute. Clichéd insults as she derides authority figures and everything else.

  Pseudo-edgy sarcasm. Constant swearing/ mouthing off, getting loads of tattoos because, for some bizarre reason, she and society won’t accept/realize that everyone does this and the world isn’t exactly made up of Jesus-figurine clutching, Christian Puritans anymore and her rebellion is just mainstream behaviour. She’s rebelling against something that would have been outrageous a century ago, how brave.

  Worse though, Isabella deep or intelligent she’s a semi-illiterate, partying smoking, swearing, drinking cesspool with a very rich, versatile vocabulary of words including shit, ass, bronzer, like, hot, and wow. She is below the IQ of a mosquito which gives her a superiority complex. Everyone knows how to hurt him, but that doesn’t make that imbecile special it just means she’s willing to say things others wouldn’t, to be crude, crass, and cruel to the lowest common denominator.

  Shiver: Adding to her usage of words squeal don’t forget squeal. Anyhow, does he mean throes of passion? Also, Isabella Rose Bulldog sorry Blitzer responded by telling him she’s far too pretty for him and Ambrose’s face is a contraceptive.

  Mist: No condoms? Don’t worry all you hormone-crazed teens as long as you have your trusty Ambrose photos, you’ll be right.

  “On Gary Stu, Gary Stu this is so great but… do you have a condom?”

  “No Mary Sue… I do have this photo of Ambrose though to drive away any rampant desires.”

  One virtual reaction simply says.

  Ambrose crush two million, three? eff it I'm not counting this anymore.

  Also, here’s Isabella’s attempt later at toning down her comment (note she really is terrible at consoling)

  No, but seriously, I’m just kidding Ditch darling. I mean I don’t hate you I just don’t understand why you still like me like that. Speaking of which my boyfriend Will is looking so hot lately squeal! Also, I have a poem for you( I didn’t write it).

  Poor little almost-man was hanging rather low

  Parents blocked him from sexy parts of virtual-realm, oh-no

  There was no hope

  For him only a rope

  For real women, he was a total no-go

  But then he heard of fake IDs and legalized prostitution hi-ho!!!

  Mist: Well, I know when I have unrequited feelings for someone the thing I most want to hear is just how attractive their significant other is.

  Shiver: Oh, she was kidding, was she? Yeah, want to bet? Seems more likely she enjoys Ambrose’s attention and constant praise of how beautiful and desirable (yeah right) she is and doesn’t want to risk losing it. She makes gratuitously cruel, offensive comments to him, sneers, and doesn’t treat him with any respect or act like she cares for him at all. That darling, sounds rather sarcastic. Also, that poem eww. It is crass, crude, and disgusting just like her.

  That explains though what Lily scribbled on his locker, “Ditch hangs low,” I thought she was hinting he should hang himself? I still don’t quite get what it means but I now realise it’s something sexual and has to do with being amorous.

  Mist: You don’t want to get it, Shiver sweetheart, believe you, me. On a different note, Ambrose also dedicated the song with the insipid chorus: "Some girls need to be loved for decades, some girls need fella's just one night," to Isabella.

  Typical a senseless gibberish song for a hoped-for relationship with a cretin idiot.

  I mean there's also the awe-inspiring line "Some girls like this and others don't like that, da-na-na."

  Yet, like what? Dislike what? Having sex? Smoking cigarettes? Doing the dishes? Eating at McDonalds? Clearly, he realizes she doesn’t need a lot of love cause it might overload her tiny brain and seriously cut into her drinking/partying/socializing time.

  Jacob realized he was back at the virtual table. With its woodily-pretty gleam.

  "The whole lot of you need therapy."

  "Well, we were in a school-based, Mental Unit, Jacob," Shiver said seriously.

  "Well, they probably needed to send you to a better one or up your meds."

  "True."

  "Why did you show me all this? Is this some weird guilt complex? Your weird little confession?"

  Shiver raised her head, now with great, white icicles frosted. Hair fell cold across her snowy nape, in almost a dangle of sadness.

  She gazed right at him through an iced woodland of oddly-blank, beautiful eyes. A wet, purplish tear slid down her cheek.

  "Well, If you really are a messenger for God, then maybe, just maybe, you can offer me forgiveness?"

  Jacob at first slightly bewitched and bedazzled by her virtual tricks, felt suddenly drained. Saddened.

  "Shiver, I know you didn't ask to be what you are...Perhaps when you're out from under the influence of the machine...." He put his hand on her shoulder.

  "Thanks, Jacob," she beamed. "You really are so sweet and handsome. "

  She sweetly rose, with a bird-like titter and then she skipped and flittered away.

  Well, that expression of any solemn regret lasted..." Jacob muttered in frustration.

  A note fluttered behind her.

  Humanity left the Shepherd’s flock. The rainbow Leviathan broke the white rib, during the first light of the sunflower. Past MIst's lost violins of weeping wile and wood. Shiver is to stand amid petals violet-begat in the vaes of a forsaken Greece snowed. My Sunless nymph of Wallows, I see your tears in a vined plume purplish. Others beauty you, my swan maiden, pale. Yet whence wish, can be in their outers feathered.

  Over the tears of wickedness palely dewing; the heavens once trusted, grant no clemency. Have callously fanged the once-bloodless.

  E.M.R

  Later, Jacob again wrung his hands together. How did Emanuel win if what Monovalent said was true about humanity never fully succumbing to genetic engineering? That some humans always resisted.

  “Interspecies contamination,” the Ai informed him. Jacob turned to Shiver for an explanation.

  “Because they were killed not by being engineered, but by the offshoot diseases.”

  “What?”

  She tossed a proud, coppery little head.

  “You know how diseases can cross the species barrier?”

  “Yes, I know that can happen.”

  “Well, what occurs is that the predominately bird-based DNA people get something from the birds and then it mutates so that a chimera person with any bird in them suffers from it and then eventually, it mutates to infect even regular humans. Basically, it has an easier path to mutation due to our species becoming more similar to other creatures and less diverse,” she explained. Stretching her little limbs that were no longer serpentine and tapping her black-shoed feet against the rosewood chair.

  Jacob was barely listening at this point because he was utterly certain that he finally understood what Shiver had meant by beating the AI at its own game. Shiver spoke in silly riddles but that didn't mean there wasn't a shadow of meaning coded into them. Jacob brushed back his brown hair as Shiver, with a smile that honey-held and a soft demeanor for one so wicked, gazed at him unblinkingly. His air of determination had gotten her excited.

  “Monovalent,” he said. "If a genius AI like you were able to update humanity to such a state you could control their cells and turn them into a sea of new beautiful beings and keep them immortal and healthy and safe by your overseeing AI hand and if you then at some point decided to kill them all, after you had long since slain all of the old humanity, would that be a win? For humanity and its offshoots would all lie dead?”

  There was a great silence. Shiver exhaled the air from her lungs and then lightly breathed.

  “Jacob…You may have won.”