Raju’s eyes are on Francis’ hand when he asks the question, on his ribs. The hopefully-reassuring smile is still on his face while he’s thinking frustrated thoughts about gauze and what to wrap those ribs with instead, and having to walk away to do it, and when Francis asks about the supernatural Raju’s smile doesn’t change. It’s a short walk from hale and healthy dead men to ghosts, monsters, gods walking on earth in living flesh. If he hesitates, it’s only to decide on the right way to answer.

Honestly, he decides. As close as he can come to honesty without making Francis put away whatever it is that’s eating at him, without putting those tears in the man’s eyes again. Making a man cry who’s older, who’s in pain, who’s been kinder to Raju than he needed to be, Raju will lie if he has to to avoid that. But at this point it probably wouldn’t be convincing if he tried it.

“I believe in what I see,” Raju says, the closest he can get to a truth which applies both at home and here, in this awful, impossible place. Then a hint at a frown comes over his face, a thoughtful one, because he can’t help but try to put pieces together even when he’s mostly certain the puzzle will be full of hallucinations and nonsense, can’t help but murmur it out loud: “Hickey mentioned gods, too. I think he said he’d seen them.”