Epilogue

Epilogue 0.03

     I roll over onto my side, yawning. The ground is cold and hard, but at least it's not wet. I turn on my phone and flip through my photos for a minute. There's Colby, setting down the needle on his vintage record player. And there's Olivia, cosplaying at an anime convention. There's one Olivia took of me and her down by the lake. The crack in the display obscures my face. I stare at that one the longest.

     Comma crawls over to my little corner of the cave. "Whatcha got there?"

     I flinch away from her defensively.

     "Not those photos again?"

     "Look, just let me have this okay?"

     "No."

     "Why the hell not?" I'm a little too loud. Dominik stirs, and there's a gap in his rhythmic snoring.

     "What are you going to do when the battery runs out?"

     That hadn't occurred to me.

     "Em, what's our priority?"

     "Getting out of here?"

     Comma shakes her head. "Surviving. Our number one priority is staying alive. Keeping each other alive. I can't have you breaking down on me when you start forgetting your parents' faces. Your best friend's voice. Your lover's smell."

     "Olivia wasn't my..." I squeeze my phone. "If she's still out there somewhere—"

     "Forget it, Em. If she's still alive—and that's a big if—she's not thinking about you. She's thinking about how to stay alive. And you should be too."

     I pocket the phone and sit up. "What happens after we leave here? You said something about us being off-path. What does that mean?"

     Comma shakes her head. "Don't worry about that for now. You better get some sleep."

     Sleep doesn't come easy. I teeter on the border of consciousness for about an hour, after which I'm wide awake. Sitting up, I notice Eloise standing by the mouth of the cave. Tiptoeing around Comma, I go to join Eloise. She doesn't acknowledge my presence and continues staring blankly into the dark.

     "Can't sleep either?" I ask.

     Even her breath, visible puffs of white escaping her lips, remains silent.

     "That's okay; I'm not big on the chit-chat either." My thoughts turn to Colby and Olivia. Are they out there somewhere? Are they safe? I think about that boy, the one we saw being eaten by the glowdarks. Only I'm seeing Olivia in his place. The thought makes me want to hurl—which, for obvious reasons, only makes things worse.

     "Are you okay?" Her voice is fragile, shaken by the wind.

     "I'm..." I swallow stomach acid. "I'm fine."

     Eloise stares at me without turning her head. "None of us are," she says. "The beast will kill us all."

     "Well aren't you just all rainbows and sunshine."

     "We mustn't intrude on its territory."

     "Yeah, good luck convincing Comma to change her mind."

     "We mustn't." Eloise begins to tremble. Her voice escapes, a whisper. "I don't want to be alone again. First it was Mum and Dad. They promised they would keep me safe. But the beast got them. Then Jack and the others. The beast got them too. Trisha said she would never leave me; she swore. But in the end, the beast took her, just like all the others." Eloise glances back over her shoulder at her sleeping companions. "The beast will take them too. It will leave only me. Alone. Always alone."