I had to crawl then, moving across the floor of the living room, forgetting why, no longer aware of the thirst but only of the crawling, the need to move just another few inches, not even aiming at the kitchen now but simply pulling myself forward with my fingers, sometimes able to rise up onto my knees, no further, and it seemed as if there were long gaps, times when I might have passed out or fallen asleep, because it seemed that hours went by between one movement and the next.

I did not know, did not care, where I was, just pulled on vaguely in the direction I had started; and with one movement I found myself bumping over a rise and then a dip in the floor like a threshold, and then I was in the kitchen and everything was high above me, so that I might never reach any of it. I lay there, panting, sweating, hopeless, believing I was going to die, that this was death and a relief.

And then I looked up and above me stood the McAllisters, three of them, Belle and her husband and her child, watching me, and he was holding a gun. Belle and the child were smiling; he stood there, silent, the shotgun pointed at an angle to the floor, holding it loosely, looking at me, assessing me, his eyes squinting slightly. I tried to speak to them but no sounds would come out, and I didn’t know whether I wanted to say “yes, please” or ask to be allowed to survive, surely I would make it. We were like four statues, none of us able to shift, frozen into shared time, staring, and it went on and on.

But then gradually light came into the room and the three shapes began to disappear into it; the sun was coming up, absorbing them slowly until they were gone, and I was lying on the floor, still wearing my clothes, cold now, terribly cold, and yet still sweating, and I looked high up and saw the cupboard where the sink was. I rolled toward it, hearing some faraway animal sound that must have come from myself, and slowly, gripping handles and the edge of the sink, pulled upright, reached for the tap and turned it, leaned further and put my head down into the water, the weight now on my stomach at the edge of the sink, feet no longer touching the floor. I let the water run into my mouth, over my face, careful not to choke, and then my stomach hurt, too full of too cold water, and I could not believe I had been thirsty, did not think I would ever be thirsty again. I started to fall and caught myself, aware in some dim practical place that I must not leave the water running, reached out and turned the tap, and let myself drop. I could not move then, and I fell asleep.