And it was true. They’d gotten too comfortable. What was supposed to be their safe room was filled with toys, shoeboxes of knickknacks, old diaper boxes filled with art supplies.

The doorbell went off when the ambulance pulled into the spot outside their house, and then they heard the EMTs come inside.

“Masks on!” they shouted. “Confirm.”

“Masks are on!” Izabel yelled back.

The EMTs unsealed the room, put Cami on a spine board, and connected her mask to an oxygen tank. Izabel and Kaito followed them out of the house, through the double set of doors, passing the small robot that was already repairing the air filtration system.

The ambulance was so covered in pollen it was yellow. It was early April and peak pollination for cedar, elm, and willow.

“Bad night?” Kaito asked once they were inside.

“The count is high,” one of the EMTs said. His nametag read ben. He touched a screen inside the ambulance and told it to return to the hospital.

The other EMT’s nametag read uzair. He set to work putting sensors all over Cami. Screens began to show her pulse and her oxygen level.

A green light went on in the ambulance that meant it was safe to take off their masks, but before they could raise their hands to their faces, Uzair said, “We’d ask you leave those on given the level of exposure you’ve already had tonight.”

Izabel and Kaito nodded.

Finally Ben said something about Cami. “We see this a lot in children. They’re the most affected.”

“But they’re usually fine,” Uzair added. “We’ll know more at the hospital.”

And they weren’t far. Izabel could make it out faintly through the yellowed windshield. There was a button to clean the windows, but it was behind the EMTs.

Kaito took Cami’s hand, which made Izabel want to touch her. She put her hand on Cami’s foot and watched Cami’s eyes. They were still. She wasn’t dreaming. Izabel remembered how, as an infant, Cami laughed more often in her sleep than at any silly thing Izabel did. And Izabel wondered if Cami’s body was only practicing this new behavior or if Cami had figured out something truly funny in the dream. Like Izabel slipping and falling. Like Izabel choking on a piece of corn.

Izabel didn’t like going to the hospital, because of all the time she’d spent there with her mother. She’d spent even more time there during the Turning, but that’s when everyone lived at the hospital—everyone who survived—and it didn’t feel like a hospital then, but an elaborate fallout shelter, with taped-over windows and doors and the constant buzzing of filters and generators.