Jakei walked into the house, and the first word that came to mind was cluttered. An abundance of… things covered every surface. Sarah didn’t strike him as the type to buy things that she’d never use, but these, these were…things you would accumulate over the course of a lifetime.

He rested his hand on the pile of un-perused newspapers and almost toppled them. A selection of outmoded and ancient DVDs were well maintained in the living room, on the shelf over an even more outmoded television. He’d seen that in a history of media textbook once.

But really, all this paled in comparison of the books. Books seemed to overflow from the upstairs and erupt into the whole house; it was a virtual avalanche of tomes. Books stacked everywhere, manuscripts that used to be in stacks but had fallen over and spilled out onto the musty carpet. Hardbacks lying open to pages, paperbacks lying face down, the bindings with worn creases and tears. Old and redundant spiral note pads were piled neatly on the only organized desk, with a jar full of what looked to be old-fashioned ink pens and graphite pencils beside it. On the floor between the legs of the desk, there was a tall pile of used spiral notebooks. What had she write about, to fill all of those? How long had she been alone?

None of this made sense. Even if this old house was untouched by time, Sarah had absolutely no modern conveniences. None at all. From looking at her, Sarah didn’t look to be a day over 30. But, why would she need these outdated, centuries old things with her?

“Sarah,” He said. She turned to look at him, and as always he was struck with how old her eyes seemed to be. “Sarah, I don’t understand.”

She smiled a wan smile. “How old do you think I am Jakei?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

This time, her smile was unbearably sad. “Older than the hills, Jakei, Older than the hills.”