In the caves beneath the midst post office, a group of refugees are bracing for impact.

A group of terrified, closely packed people getting ready to weather the worst storm of their lifetimes.

It is echoey down here, and the mood is somber. There are hushed voices. Everyone is hurriedly making preparations.

Looming above everyone in the cavern, a giant mechanical spool of inter-isletary cable slowly winds and unwinds,

creaking with the strain of maintaining tension in the post office tower

cable on the surface above. Saskia and the postmaster are more or less running this operation.

That is the operation of trying to keep people from losing their damn minds in the face of, well, they don't know.

That's kind of the problem.

With terrors, anything can happen.

And that is a point that the Postmaster is trying to impress on everyone, actually as a way of comforting them.

All right, everybody, we got to stay calm.

He's calling out right now to everybody assembled down here in the cave,

a gaggle of a few dozen survivors running around in the dark,

scurrying around trying to take cover, trying to gather their final supplies.

The postmaster has lots of prior experience with terrors.

He floats, remember?

And hovering in mid-air before his compatriots, he holds up his hands to calm his friends and fellow

residents of Stationery Hill.

Terrors aren't necessarily bad.

Anything, the good things, lots of good things.

My sister-in-law, her memory problems were fixed.

My nephew turned into a dog, and he's never been happier.

...