Heather Thomas

I'm going to get help, I said out loud, more to convince myself than anything else.

I walked and walked, and when I got to a forest road, I sat beside it for a long time, hoping a vehicle would come along.

But no one did, and so I finally hauled myself back to my feet.

When I did see a Forest Service truck, I wasn't sure it was real.

I figured they wouldn't believe me and I'd have to beg and plead to get them to listen.

But I only had to say a few sentences before they nodded.

I realized this wasn't the first time they were hearing about people burrowing into the ashes.

It was happening everywhere.

It was happening in so many places that despite some initial hand-waving about classified information and national security, those of us who survived were able to compare notes.

My mom was one of those survivors.

She was sedated and pumped full of countless medications whose names I couldn't keep track of.

I was on some of them myself.

They made us both terribly sick.

My mom lost the 20 pounds she'd been talking about wanting to drop, and then another 20 pounds after that.

She lost other things, too.

When they let me in to visit her, I drew the blind shut when I realized how much it was upsetting her to see a tree through the window.

Plenty of the others did not survive.

The ones who had been there a little longer, who had roots growing down through their backs into the soil, and seedlings poking out above them.

Most of those people died.

They dug them up and burned the bodies.