"You ever see that thriller movie where a flash freeze spreads across the east coast, turning everyone and everything in its path to ice? That happened here a couple months ago. Then the storm passed."

Which is to say that yes, it had been no mean feat, and the mundanity of wilderness survival has been the least of it.

"There's a bear that was an intangible ghost until it suddenly wasn't. I'll show you my scars sometime. Things that happen here don't make sense. I don't know how to prepare you for it. You just have to go along for the ride and see where it takes you."

There's an edge of frustration to her voice, though it's not directed at Root, or even at her own inadequacies at explaining the mind-bending situation. It's just that regardless of whether or not she believes that it's real, life here reminds her too much of being in Decima's hands: where opportunities to take control of her own life hadn't been entirely nonexistent, but had still been few and far between.