It took until eleven for the kids to settle down. Some were sleeping on mattresses in the well-lit hall; these were the kids who were terrified of the dark. Others could only sleep alone in a pitch-black room. Others still required music or white noise or, for one child, a ticking clock simulating his lost mother’s heartbeat. We set up everyone accordingly.

For Lucy’s first night, I did nothing special. Just sat with my back to her doorway and read stories to the other children. From time to time, I’d catch Lucy’s reflection in the silver half dome mounted in the ceiling above me. The mirrored half domes dotted the broad hallway at strategic intervals—our version of a security system, as they reflected back activities from inside each patient room.

Lucy seemed to be listening to the story. She’d curled up on the floor, waving one hand through the air, the way a cat might study its own paw. If I read faster, her hand moved faster. If I read slower, her rhythm adjusted accordingly.

Then, twenty minutes later, she’d disappeared. In the dome’s distorted reflection, I’d finally spotted her foot sticking out from beneath the mattress. When she didn’t move, I turned around to study her room directly. It appeared that she’d pulled the mattress over her body and had finally gone to sleep. From time to time, her foot would twitch, as if from a dream.

I settled in myself, sitting on the floor with my back against the wall. There were over half a dozen other staff members scattered down the hall. Nighttime in the unit was paperwork time. Gotta catch up while you had the chance.

None of the kids would sleep for long. Some of the more manic ones required food every three hours, though you’d never know it to judge by their skeletal frames. Others just couldn’t sleep.

Nighttime meant old terrors and fresh fears. A subconscious buffet of every evil thing ever done to them. Kids woke up crying. Kids woke up screaming. And some woke up primed for battle. Fight or flight. Not everyone was born to run.

I flipped open the first patient chart, and felt my eyelids already getting heavy. I’d been working a lot lately. More and more shifts. Less and less sleep. I needed to keep busy, especially this time of year.

Four days and counting. Then it would be twenty-five years down, and one more to go. Keep on trucking, the duty of the lone survivor.

I wondered what Lucy would think, if she knew that for years I’d slept tucked beneath a mattress myself.