#--duel

Manousos values rules and the old way of life, the physical and the material. He leaves money and apologies for people who don't exist anymore, but he doesn't want to acknowledge the hive's existence. He is resilient and stubborn to a fault, and that's what makes him human. He won't let them do anything for him. Carol says she's independent but she doesn't care when they give her things, because that's not surrendering to her like it is to Manousos. Her humanity lies in her art, and her grief, and her love.

So while there's a clear dichotomy in Manousos siphoning gas to retain his car, his material possession, the proof of his journey, while Carol keeps switching cars whenever she wants... Manousos setting his car on fire so they can't have that part of the world, his part of the world, while Carol waits for the voicemail to finish before she orders Gatorade... Manousos struggling to survive in the wilderness while Carol has a lavish dinner... it's just there to show that they both have their own battles to fight. Carol is trying her hardest to stay connected to her memories of Helen, to art, to herself, when she has been given anything she wants but deprived of everything that gives meaning to her life. And Manousos is doing his best to stay independent, to trust himself and his hope, because that's all he has, and everything they want to give him comes at the cost of his sense of self.

So Manousos, beaten by the physical environment, has no choice but to succumb and accept physical help. Accept that he wasn't good enough to make it. That he's never going to be able to save the world. What does it matter if they help him? They've won, they're here, and he can't do anything about it. It's not his world anymore.

Carol, starved of human connection, launches into the arms of the next best thing -- the human mask of the completely inhuman entity who tortured her; who stole Helen's life, and is now stealing hers.

The vampire has been invited over the threshold and is now draining the blood that keeps them alive, that makes them who they are.

knighter is so fine bro I had to