Fair.

Udo stood before the bonfire, the flames reaching high, he had hoped it would feel better doing this but it didn’t help. He still felt numb.

“What the hell are you doing!?” Verity rushed over to find Udo throwing more books on the fire.

“I have to get away from it, all this need to understand the world, the universe… it’s what led to the white event. All those people who died across the world during those few minutes, if I wasn’t into all of this…” he threw a bundle of notes into the fire.

“You aren’t still blaming yourself for that are you? It was two years ago!”

“And millions of lives…” he picked up another book but verity grabbed his hand.

“I know you don’t believe in this, what happened to you Udo, I remember you were a handsome and brilliant man once.”

Udo looked down at the floor, constantly shifting colour because of the flickering flame light. “It was my brilliance that did this.”

“That’s a lie!” Verity tried to get him to look at her “You know as well as I do someone would have gone to the site sooner or later, and it was inevitable what would happen when they did.” Verity paused and let go of Udo. “look, don’t burn the books, I’ll take them with me, I heard there were plans to archive as much information as possible west of the cinnamon hills, they would appreciate all this.”

Udo looked over to Verity “You’re leaving?”

“Udo… you need to find something to live for, if not science, find some other way to help people. That’s what your real talent is I think… you waste it like this.”

The fire burnt out that night, but claimed no more writing.