MAG 155: Cost of Living

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Statement of Tova McHugh regarding their string of near-death experiences.

## Pre-Statement

John and Basira are concerned about Daisy as she refuses to Hunt and is starving. Basira has been urging her to hunt Trevor and Julia, who are still at large, but Daisy seems to have accepted death as the price for being free from the Hunt.

John has told them that they can be free from the Institute by blinding themselves but neither of them want to go through with it. Basira goes to check on Daisy as John settles down to record a statement.

## Statement

(Note: McHugh is referred to by both she and they pronouns in the episode)

Tova McHugh wants to make it clear that they do good in the world. They have financed a homelessness initiative that got 8,000 people into shelters, financed drug projects, organised inner city violence initiatives, and their business provides jobs for almost 700 people. Of course, every life has value, but her impact on the world is an undeniably positive one, and she does not want anyone to think she is being purely selfish.

She has always tried to live a healthy life and it did not seem fair when she had an epileptic seizure at the top of a staircase just a month before her wedding. They remember the strange feeling before the attack, then falling down the stairs and cracking their head. Then she went away.

She has never really feared dying. Being agnostic, she figured there was simply nothing after death. But now they are aware of the absence of *everything.* They are in a dark and cold place and are growing more desperate by the second.

Suddenly, she is back in the light. She is in an operating theatre and can see herself on the table. Their heart rate monitor shows a flat line and a doctor is doing CPR on them. She tries to reach out for her body, desperately trying to restart her own heart. Instead they reach into the doctor’s chest and feel the calm beating of his heart. It fills her with a hateful rage, that he can be so calm while she is dying. The rage seems to flow out of them into the doctor, and he collapses, convulsing on the floor. At this, the heart rate monitor shows their heart has started to beat again.

She wakes in hospital bed. After being pressed on it, a nurse tells her that a doctor suffered a fatal heart attack while treating her. McHugh tries to write it off as a bizarre near-death experience and goes back to their life. They heal fast and marry their husband, Daven, just a month later as planned.

A year later she slips in the shower and cracks her head on the faucet. Again she finds herself in the cold and dark place before coming back to the world as a disembodied presence. They start to suspect what is going on and are appalled, but they *have* to live. She is on the verge of closing a deal that will provide fresh water to impoverished communities in a dozen developing countries. She moves out of the house and finds what she needs, an old woman sitting by herself in a park. McHugh re-awakens in the shower, and the old lady is found dead by a stroke.

She thinks she has it figured out, but things quickly go bad. They have an allergic reaction just two weeks later despite never having had allergies before. She wonders if the woman had been too old and looks for someone with more life left in them. This time they take a young homeless man.

She is in a car accident just three months later and makes a decision. A single large sacrifice to keep going. She figures it is life she needs and takes an infant born into poverty. They justify it to themself by thinking that a life in poverty would have been a life of needless suffering. She thinks it is surely the last life she will have to take, and when her right and proper death comes, she will go willingly.

The infant only lasts her ten months. Eventually, she learns that it has nothing to do with age or health, only connection. The more friends and loved ones a person has, the longer they sustain her.

They are 40 now, and have taken so many. But she insists that she has done so much good with her life. After coming to this horrific existence, she threw herself into philanthropy harder than ever. The world is so much better for her being in it. They will not say that how they live is right or good, but it is the choice they have been given. And it is the choice she will continue to make.

## Post-Statement

John finds himself hating Tova McHugh and her callousness. He wonders if the value of a life can be quantified. He saved the whole world when he stopped The Unknowing. Does that give him the right to take what he needs? He feels weak having read nothing but old and dry statements for so long.

He respects Melanie and Daisy for resisting in their own ways, but does not know if he can follow them. He knows he could just blind himself, but he cannot bring himself to do that either, if only because the others might need him.

His thoughts are interrupted by Melanie. She is ready to blind herself if it means being free. She is certain in her choice, and has made arrangements for her care afterwards. She is mostly just worried about those staying at the Institute.

She intends to use an awl and has already left her letter of resignation for Peter Lukas. John offers to help and she simply asks him to call an ambulance in five minutes.

## Continuity

* **Related Entity:** The End, with ties to The Desolation

## Trivia

* John uses mixed pronouns for Ms. McHugh, in the statement summary he uses "their" and in the post-statement he uses "her".