Heather Thomas

So for now, all I could do was follow.

At some point, she would have to stop.

And then I could do... I didn't know what.

Something.

but we walked on and on for hours.

I was exhausted, my legs burning, my shoulders aching, when finally we broke out of the forest and started across a flat expanse.

In the moonlight, I caught a glimpse of her leg, horribly swollen, the shape distorted by lumps under the skin.

Then I saw people ahead of us in the moonlight and almost called out, before I saw they were shambling along, just like she was.

It was a long walk across the field before we came to the burned place.

It was a low valley, blackened and dead.

Some crumbling stubs of trees still stood, but mostly it was just ash as far as I could see.

The man we'd met at the stream walked ahead of us.

He waded into the ash without hesitation.

He stopped and laid down and buried himself in the ash like a kid playing in sand at the beach.

And the rest of them followed suit, including my mom, lying there like so many nurse logs, ready to rot and feed the newborn forest.

She was probably too far gone to save.

I knew that already.

But I knelt down next to her and somehow stuffed her limp and unprotesting body into the sleeping bag and dragged it out of the ashes.

As soon as we got out of the cinders, she started to struggle.

She clawed her way out of the sleeping bag and back to her place in the ashes.