It is quite something, to see Ransom's realization hit him like the proverbial ton of bricks. Marta has never seen his expression orient itself around this sort of shock, like something cracked open, and she has two thoughts simultaneously:
The first is pretty straightforward: It's gotta hurt. A statement of fact as much as it is an observation of how he's doing. It's gotta hurt.
The second is a non-stop emotional check-in about it, running concurrently with a timer once Ransom moves downward and into the water beneath her hands. She feels bad it hurts, despite knowing it hurting is fairly unavoidable. But this is a man who expects harm first and hasn't been let down in that regard very often; it's gotta hurt but it's probably a different kind of hurt. For better or worse, that.
It's been 7 seconds. Marta puts her arms at her sides instead of slightly elevated above the water's surface as she watched him through the murky distortion in a room much more dark than bright.
She's proud Ransom didn't just... leave. This, this sitting at the bottom of a constructed bathing pool-type... object is not the same as actively fleeing the scene.
However. It's been 10 seconds. "Oh, my God," Marta mutters to the otherwise empty, echoed chamber. This man is what theater majors wish they were. He studied a dead language because he was so disinterested in communication with nearly any other human.
15 seconds. That's all she gives him until Marta takes a breath and joins him at the bottom of the pool, folding her legs beneath her in order to reach the bottom. Then she's reaching for his hands.
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The first is pretty straightforward: It's gotta hurt. A statement of fact as much as it is an observation of how he's doing. It's gotta hurt.
The second is a non-stop emotional check-in about it, running concurrently with a timer once Ransom moves downward and into the water beneath her hands. She feels bad it hurts, despite knowing it hurting is fairly unavoidable. But this is a man who expects harm first and hasn't been let down in that regard very often; it's gotta hurt but it's probably a different kind of hurt. For better or worse, that.
It's been 7 seconds. Marta puts her arms at her sides instead of slightly elevated above the water's surface as she watched him through the murky distortion in a room much more dark than bright.
She's proud Ransom didn't just... leave. This, this sitting at the bottom of a constructed bathing pool-type... object is not the same as actively fleeing the scene.
However. It's been 10 seconds. "Oh, my God," Marta mutters to the otherwise empty, echoed chamber. This man is what theater majors wish they were. He studied a dead language because he was so disinterested in communication with nearly any other human.
15 seconds. That's all she gives him until Marta takes a breath and joins him at the bottom of the pool, folding her legs beneath her in order to reach the bottom. Then she's reaching for his hands.