She was grateful Mama Vivian wasn’t in a cleaning mood these days. The detritus of grief became Dune’s comfort, the house her prayer ground. She believed in Kama. She lived somehow, being in the house, not wanting to leave it, or let anyone in, adrift in the life of her mother.

Dune was frozen. She was unclear if she was dreaming or awake, but she could feel, very clearly, the desire to move. She could hear it like a shout, the synapse shooting from her brain down through her motor neurons and down the thread of axon to her finger. To her toe. To her whole hand. Move. Move. But nothing in her body was responding. She could feel her effort, and she could feel the breathless pressure of drowning inside of her stillness.

She closed her eyes, willed a calming breath. Tears gathered at the precipice between her internal and external worlds. Dune realized that she had closed her eyes. She reopened them. The choice, that motion, unlocked her from the trap of her body. She gulped in a greedy breath and shook herself, shook her arms up over her body and out to the sides, flinging the freeze out of her fingertips. She tantrum-ed her legs against the bed, tingling in every atom, aliveness all over her.

Dune realized, in this unfreezing, that even if she didn’t really have an idea of why she would continue living, she didn’t want to die. She particularly didn’t want to die from H-8.

Feeding Mama Vivian was getting harder. The old woman pursed her lips and turned her head away. When Dune spoke, begging her grandmother to eat, Mama Vivian would eventually take a bite or two. She only wanted drinks now: Ensure, milk, water. And strong Screwdrivers.

Dune started creeping out after dark to get what they needed, not wanting to run into anyone. She went to University Market on Warren, which had less people rolling the aisles each time. There hadn’t been much in the way of grocery stores in the city for decades, it was a major point of contention and organizing. The stores that remained now had selections of picked over canned goods, boxed foods and the strange sweet stench of ripe produce and meat. She bought rice, beans, oatmeal, broth, stuff she could theoretically spoon into her grandmother’s mouth.

Whatever had taken Kama was now a month old, sliding through the streets, swallowing people from their wakefulness. It was becoming normal to find people standing still in the middle of a sidewalk or street, grocery aisle or sitting in a running car, their faces contorted with some personal, mysterious agony. Their lips whispering random words, bodies rocking.