I woke up to the weird, close air and earthy smell of underground. Stretched out on my stomach, the only thing I could really register was how deliciously cool the air was against my back. I deduced we had made it to the old mines Shane had been talking about before I'd collapsed.

That, and I could see one of the old support beams just a few feet away from me. Plus, there's just something about being underground. It's like you can just feel the weight of the earth above you. Pretty solid clue about where we were.

Granted, I was pretty sure we weren't very far in. There was natural light from somewhere behind me, letting me see a little deeper into a side tunnel that stretched into nothingness across from me. The ground was hard and uneven under me, but something soft was under my cheek and a flash of red let me know it was Shane's hoodie.

Which meant he was probably freezing.

Carefully, I moved to put one hand under me, then the other, intending to lever myself into a more upright position. Already with that tiny movement, my back was letting me know that anything more strenuous would be a poor decision on my part. But lately, it seemed like my life was just a string of poor decisions; what was one more going to hurt?

Apart from myself, that is.

Then a hand was on my lower back. "Don't. Just rest."

Tears immediately pooled in my eyes when Kyle spoke, the tense knot in my chest loosening ever so slightly. I slumped back to the ground, squeezing my eyes shut. I let out a shuddering breath, the burn on my back shrieking in protest at the sudden movement.

"When did you get here?" I whispered, my voice rough from smoke and emotion.

"Four hours ago," Kyle responded, brushing my hair to the side so that it wasn't resting on my burn. He was quiet, then, voice strained, said, "We don't know where Sam, Vik or Danielle are."

I sat up abruptly, then curled in on myself, the pain making my breath catch. I flinched when Kyle's hands hovered over my back. He immediately pulled away, then he was kneeling in front of me, helping me into a more normal sitting position. His eyes went wide and he looked straight up as he threw Shane's hoodie at me. I frowned, then flushed when I realized that the shirt wasn't the only thing Shane had needed to remove.

I was completely naked from the waist up. Here's to weird embarrassment at the worst possible times, right?

Kyle studied the mine walls with an intensity usually reserved for grad school entrance exams while I tucked the hoodie around me. It was unbearable to even think about putting it on. My fingers knotting in the material, I whispered, "Sorry."

Kyle's eyes flicked to me and he shrugged. Chewing nervously on his lip, he said, "I told Shane I'd get him when you woke up."

"Where is he?" I asked softly. I couldn't crane my head back to look up at him as he stood, so just settled for staring at his beat up boots. It looked like he could use a new pair here pretty soon. I'd have to remember that.

"He and Lauren are looking around the mines. Seeing what we have." Kyle crouched back down so he could look at me. Nervously, his eyes flicked to the mine's entrance, then back to me.

He looked hollow. Like someone had scooped out something vital and just left the wrapper. Hoarsely, he said, "Raleigh..."

He trailed off, then shook his head, taking in my own battered appearance. With a grimace, he said, "Shane didn't want me to tell you they're not here." Hurriedly, he added, "Because he's worried. That burn's pretty nasty, Raleigh. You need to look after yourself."

Forcing the words past my constricted throat, I asked, "Why weren't they with you?"

When Kyle blanched, I immediately wanted to take the words back. He obviously blamed himself enough already, and my words made it sound like I blamed him too. Tentatively, scared of any movement reigniting that terrible pain, I reached out and placed my hand against his cheek.

Kyle just shook his head and stood up, striding back toward the entrance.

No sooner had he left that Cassidy was rushing toward me, Sacha hot on her heels. I flinched reflexively and they both skidded to a halt. A little more sedately, Cassidy dropped to the ground in a huff, crossing her legs under her. Sacha hovered just behind her, eyes huge in his pale face.

I offered them the strongest smile I could muster and croaked, "Hi guys."

An angry flush darkened Cas' cheeks and she opened her mouth, then closed it with a snap.

"I'll scream at you for scaring us later," she said decisively. Sacha apparently took that as some kind of signal to sit as well, bringing his long legs into his chest and wrapping his arms around them.

By now, I was feeling woozy just sitting up, so I asked, "Would you turn away for a second?"

They both complied, and I spread the hoodie back out on the ground before laying down and turning my face to them. When I told them it was okay to look, I decided that maybe I should have just toughed it out.

Sacha looked sick and Cassidy's dark eyes were wide, her lips pressed into a thin line. Not meeting my gaze, she said, "What... how are... Raleigh, that looks like it'll kill you."

She gasped as soon as she said it, clapping a hand over her mouth. Horrified, she shook her head, still staring at the burn and said, "I didn't mean that. I didn't mean it."

Wearily, I said, "I know, Cas. It just looks bad. Honestly, if it looks as bad as it feels, I'm surprised you guys didn't call time of death and move on."

"Shut up," Cas said furiously, then inched a little closer. Sacha still hung back, staring intently at my face.

Knowing that she wouldn't lie to me, even if it was for my own good, I asked, "Can you describe it to me?"

Her mouth opened and closed a couple times, but eventually she gave herself a little shake and grimaced. "It's... um..." She stopped, took a deep breath, then plowed forward. "It's a little black around the top edge, closest to the shoulder. I can see what looks like white tissue, but it's mostly just bright red and bleeding—"

I interrupted, "How much white tissue?"

She took another fortifying breath. "Just like a patch smaller than half of your palm. It's close to the black bit, up high on your shoulder."

I closed my eyes. "How much of the black?"

Hurriedly, she said, "Not much. It looks like a burned bit of paper, the way it curls up and crinkles? It's not much. Just like maybe two inches long but not a lot of skin. Just a really little, thin edge."

I nodded. "And the rest?"

"Just red. Some of it's bleeding but I bet that's from where your shirt was stuck."

When she fell silent, I opened one eye to find her russet skin looked a little green and took pity on her. Softly, I said, "Okay. Well, it could have been a lot worse with that fire." I bit my lip and said, "Someone's going to have to clean it."

Cassidy leapt to her feet, like I was going to make her do it here and now. Shaking her head so hard it made her thick braid whip around crazily, she said, "No. Sorry, Raleigh. I can't, I can't. You're gonna have to enlist someone else."

Sacha had pressed himself against the wall, apparently trying to blend in with the stone. Closing both eyes again, I said, "Nobody's making anyone do anything right now. I need to find some way to make sure I'm not going to shock out in the process. Until then..."

I sighed. I had no clue how to do this. Physician, heal thyself probably didn't really know what it was talking about when it came to burns. I could barely move, much less consider how I was going to find anything like antibiotics and keep a wound like this clean in this world.

The crunch of boots through the gravel let me know someone else had joined us, and I opened my eyes once more to find Shane kneeling next to me. His fingers gently brushed my cheek and he said, "How are you?"

"Feeling distinctly crispy critter-ish," I rasped.

When this didn't elicit even half a laugh, I said, "It'll be okay, Shane. I promise."

He just nodded, but his eyes told me he had no clue how this was going to be even remotely okay. Looking over at the other two, he said, "Cas, why don't you and Sach go and talk to Kyle and Lauren about find—"

When he cut himself off, I said, "I know they're not here."

Later, I would think it was kind of funny that none of us had said missing. Like missing was somehow worse than simply not here. Not here meant they'd be back. Missing meant that anything could have happened.

Shane frowned and I said, "Kyle saved you from my wrath. I would have been pissed when I found out later. Don't be mad at him."

He shook his head, a grim smile flashing briefly across his face. That was all he could seem to manage today. Sitting cross-legged next to me, he brushed my hair away again, staring at the burn.

Quietly, he said, "Tell me what to do, Raleigh. I don't know what to do."

I could feel what it cost him to say that. I flipped my hand over, fingers stretching toward him and he clasped my hand hard, squeezing the bones together. I didn't complain, but eventually he seemed to realize he was crushing my hand and loosened his grip.

A small moment of silence reigned, then Sacha asked, "How are we going to find them?"

"Did Danielle know about this place?" Cassidy asked, her question right on the heels of his. 

"What if Sam and V-Viktoria aren't with her?" Sacha stumbled over his sister's name, then ducked his head, hiding his face as he pressed his forehead into his knees.

Concerned, I watched Sacha. His hands were clasped together so hard his knuckles were white. He was trembling from the effort of trying to keep himself together. All I wanted to do was hug him, but I couldn't, and that hurt more than the burn.

Steadily, Shane said, "Danny's with 'em. She'd never let them go by themselves."

"But what if..." Sacha trailed off.

Here's #36: Don't 'what if'. It's dangerous and painful

Of course, Shane's supposition was in direct contradiction to Rule #1: Never, ever assume. But it was a nicer outcome to think about than any of the other possibilities, so we all let it slide.

Just because cynicism is a decent survival method doesn't mean you have to let it rule your every decision. Compassion still has a place in this world. It just needs to be used sparingly and with great care. I think I've said it before, but bleeding hearts don't belong here anymore.

Saying that Viktoria couldn't possibly be out there by herself, or not out there at all, was all Shane could give us at the moment.

Shane took a deep breath and said, "Sach, I hate to say it but we've got other things we need to think about too."

Both Cassidy and I looked at Shane, appalled. I opened my mouth, possibly meaning to say something reproachful, but Sacha was already on his feet, hands clenched into fists. Shane winced at the look of betrayal Sacha gave him before he turned and ran back outside.

Cas raised an eyebrow at me and I flicked my free fingers, telling her to go after him since I couldn't. Shane hung his head, rubbing at his eyes. Sensing that I was staring at him, he whispered, "That's not what I meant. All I want to do is find them. It's killing me, Raleigh. But we don't have any food. We don't have any water, unless we can find a stream or something. We don't have enough clothes and it's still cold at night. You're hurt and we don't have anything to help you."

"Shane, sh," I hushed him softly, and he let go of my hand. I made a small sound of protest, but all he did was lay down next to me.

I bit my lip, heart broken by how utterly defeated he looked. Ignoring the way it pulled at my skin, I stretched my arm out toward him, resting my palm against his face. His eyes closed immediately, and I said, "You and Kyle need to take Sacha and go find his sister. You need to find Danny and Sam. And you need to bring them home."

Shane's eyes flew open and he started to argue. Fiercely, I said, "You can't help me. You don't know how. You can help him. That you do know how to do. I need you to find them."

Hurt flickered briefly in his eyes, and I said, "Shane, go."

He stared at me for a minute, then got up and left without another word. I closed my eyes, aching in a whole new way, then turned my mind to the other problems on hand.

The biggest was the burn. Cassidy hadn't told me how big the whole thing was, but it felt like it stretched from the top of my right shoulder to my spine. She had said that she could see white tissue.

That sounded like she could see the layer of subcutaneous fat—the layer of tissue under the skin. Which meant the fire had burned deeper than both of the layers that made up the skin. Basically an entire section of my skin was completely gone.

Gruesome, I know. And I'm sorry, but it is what it is. I know your people stare. I know they feel uncomfortable when I wear a tank top and they can see it. But I don't believe in covering up your scars.

They aren't anything to be ashamed of

Anyway, the black skin I knew was going to have to be cut away. It was necrotic. Dead. The whole burn was probably covered in dead flesh which would rapidly become a problem since it made me much more susceptible to infection. But the idea of having it cleaned was terrifying.

I wasn't familiar with the overall procedures for one, but what I did know about it seemed terrible in the extreme. Basically, the one I knew the most about involved putting on a wet dressing, letting it sit on the wound until it was dry, then wetting it again before peeling it, and the dead tissue, away. I knew that there were chemical debriding agents as well, but figured it would be impossible to get those.

And that didn't even address the parts of the wound I knew would have to be mechanically removed. And by mechanically, I just mean with a knife.

Not to mention I would need those antibiotics. Painkillers would be nice too, but if there is one thing I have learned in these two extremely long years, it's this: Pain won't kill you. Infection will.

I let my eyes close, meaning to drift off. I was confident that we would be safe enough for the moment, and since I couldn't do anything else to address the treatment of my wounds, I knew that sleep would help, however minimally.

When I woke up again, it was black. And it was cold.

The burn on my back appreciated the cool temperature but the rest of me didn't. Something in the back of my mind was reminding me that however much it seemed to go against common thinking, burns placed you at huge risk for hypothermia.

I was shivering, and that was bad.

"Cas?" I croaked.

"Lauren," a soft voice answered me, then I was blinking in the beam of a flashlight. I shuddered again, my teeth chattering and heard a scuffling sound.

Then Lauren was kneeling next to me. The light gave her skeletal hollows under her eyes, and I couldn't decide if she was pale or if the light just washed her out. When her eyes flicked to the burn then away, I decided that the first one was a pretty good guess. Not to mention she'd just lost everything.

Softly, I asked, "Did Ash—"

Lauren shook her head hard, short blonde hair flying out around her shoulders. She bit her lip and brusquely asked, "Did you need something?"

I wanted to say something, but there's never anything to say, is there?

Instead, I asked, "Where's Cas?"

Lauren pursed her lips. "She's with Kyle and Shane, helping Sacha look."

I frowned, wondering why Lauren had elected to stay here with me, but I shuddered again and decided that the questions could wait. Teeth chattering, I asked, "Do we have any blankets or anything? I'm cold."

Immediately, Lauren jumped to her feet and I heard her retreating footsteps. She'd left the flashlight with me, which was nice. The darkness in the mines was thicker somehow than the darkness outside.

She probably didn't take that long. It felt like forever and, by the time I heard returning footsteps, my intermittent shivers had turned into one continuous tremor as my body tried to compensate for the fact that I currently had a giant hole in my skin letting all of my body heat go. I looked up to find her hesitating, trying to figure out the best way to drape the two or three coats she had in her hands over me.

Quietly, I said, "Just don't put it directly onto the burn. Try not to touch it if you can help it. Can  you start a fire?"

Lauren tucked the coats around me—which helped only slightly—then sat back down. She shook her head ruefully, hooking a strand of hair behind her ear. Softly, she said, "Shane thought it would be too risky. Anyone could see the fire from here."

By anyone I knew she really meant Justin. Closing my eyes once more and still shivering, I asked, "You said they're still out there?"

"Mm-hm," Lauren answered. "Shane said they weren't coming back until they found them."

I sighed. "That's my fault, and I don't think he means it."

"Does he ever say things he doesn't mean?" Lauren retorted. "They're still out there. In the dark."

"You said Kyle's with him?" I asked.

"Yes," she said shortly.

"If he thought it was too dangerous, he'd never drag Kyle out there. He just wouldn't, okay?" I sighed. "Have a little faith in the love he has for his brother if you can't find any other faith for him."

"I know," Lauren finally admitted after a long pause. Nervously, she said, "It just scares me that Kyle's out there. Things are..."

She trailed off, and I wondered how long they were going to cut off their sentences before they just told us. When she held her silence, I offered, "Good?"

A shaky laugh escaped her and she muttered, "They might have been."

My eyebrows pulled together. A little sharply, I said, "You're alive. He's alive. That's good, Lauren."

"I know, I know," she soothed, running a hand through her hair. Then burying her face in her hands, she asked, "How did this happen? Any of it?"

"I've found it's better n-not to ask that particular question," I said, trying not to bite off my own tongue. The coats weren't really helping.

Lauren stood up abruptly. "You know what? Screw it. You're freezing."

"Wait! What?" I asked as she walked away again. I didn't have it in me to do anything more substantial as I heard her leave again.

I shivered violently and huddled under the coats, moaning when one of them brushed the edge of the burn. It was getting hard to keep my eyes open. I yawned, then bit my lip hard enough to draw blood.

A nearby clatter scared me and Lauren said, "Christ, Raleigh! Your lips are blue."

My eyes wandered over to her. I was hardly fazed by the frightened look on her face as she fell to her knees and started scrambling with the wood she had brought with her.

"N-not s-safe," I reminded her.

"Neither's this," she shot back, her fingers trembling as she tried to strike a match. "I can't let you just die. I- we need you."

The match finally flared, the scent of sulfur sharp in my nose, and I watched as she held it to some dry, mossy looking tinder. The flame lapped eagerly at it, and she carefully fed it tiny sticks, then thicker kindling until we had a nice little fire merrily crackling away.

Muttering, I observed, "I should be scared."

"What?" Lauren replied settling a little closer to me so that her leg pressed against mine, offering me her body heat.

Dryly, I observed, "I almost died today—"

"So did I," Lauren pointed out. "We all did."

"Yeah, but it was the fire that almost got m-me," I said, closing my eyes in relief when heat started to seep into my arm and side where I was closest to the fire. "But I'm not scared of it."

"You aren't scared of the zombies either," she said by way of explanation, though it didn't really explain anything.

Lauren chafed her hand along my bare arm, trying to get rid of the goosebumps there.

Slowly, slowly I stopped shivering and it felt like I could breathe easier. The burn prickled uncomfortably at the waves of soft heat lapping at me, but I could ignore it in lieu of not dying from hypothermia. Lauren leaned back against my legs, her own body heat helping matters as well.

For a long time, we stared in silence at the flames, which wasn't the wisest thing to do.

Shane had taught me a long time ago that it was dangerous to stare into the fire at night. As soon as you looked away from it, you were blind until your eyes adjusted to the surrounding darkness. If something was in the dark that needed immediate attention, like a zombie or crazy person trying to kill you, those few minutes it took for you to be able to see again were deadly.

Eventually, Lauren made up for it by staring out toward the front of the mine, rather than the fire.

She folded her hands over her stomach and said, "I'm pregnant. That's why you can't die."

Until then, I didn't realize that time freezing was actually something that happened outside of books and movies. It actually does freeze, shocked as you are when someone says something like that.

For what felt like a small eternity, I couldn't even breathe, much less speak.

So she did it for me. "It's Kyle's. He knows. We've been trying to tell you for a while, couldn't figure out how."

Air rushed into my lungs harshly, making me wince. She brushed her hand at her face and said, "I don't know what to do, Raleigh."

"You don't really have a whole lot of options," I said, then flinched at how cruel that sounded. Softening my voice, I said, "It'll be okay."

"Don't lie to me please?" she requested. "It might have been okay. We were careless, one time. But it might have been fine. We had you. We had a home. Now..."

"You don't have one of those things," I said. "We've all made do with less."

She brushed at her face again and said, "I'm afraid."

"You'd be crazy if you weren't," I responded. I was quiet for a moment, then said, "We've got time to figure it out. How long do you think..?"

"Three, maybe four weeks. I missed a period. Took a test next time I was out on a run."

I nodded, my cheek rubbing against the hoodie. "Okay. We'll find something, Lauren. In the meantime, I guess I'm going to try and brush up on how to deliver a baby."

"How do you sound so calm?" she hissed, her voice cracking. "I can't even... I could barely think about it when I..."

"Because it would do no good for me to explain how much of a mess I am on the inside." I bit my lip. "Do you not want the baby?"

Her breath gasped out. "No! I mean, yes? I-I... Kyle was..."

"Does he not want it?" I couldn't believe that Kyle would leave her alone in this.

"He was better than I was when I told him. I just mean that I'm..." She growled in frustration. "I don't know what to do, Raleigh. I don't know how to be a parent. I don't know how to do this! I want the baby. And I love Kyle. But I'm scared about what comes next."

"You're not alone, Lauren," I reminded her.

She shuddered. "I know. I'm still scared."

I stretched my fingers out until they found her wrist and clasped it. She looked down at me and I said, "We've got eight months. That's a long time. We'll find someplace safe and you'll have a baby. Congratulations."

She lay down, resting her head on the back of my leg, still watching the entrance to the mine. Quietly, she asked, "Can we just keep this between you and me?"

"Um... for as long as we can," I said dryly. "If that's what you really want."

"I just don't want the others looking at me like..."

"Like you're pregnant?" I asked and she snorted. "They're not going to look at you like anything, Lauren. They'll just get more than slightly overbearing making sure you're okay."

Lauren shook her head and whispered, "Thanks, Raleigh."

I made a noncommittal sound, trying to find space in my head for this new worry.

But I guess that's the biggest apocalypse life lesson right there. Life goes on, the world keeps turning, the wheel in the sky and all that jazz.

It doesn't really care about your personal situation.