Ashley pulled off her tunic, revealing ragged skin, and walked into the water. Fitted the tunic to a ring of sticks and scooped the fish in one go. Lifted them up. Show-and-tell. That was for the audience; Mara felt the difference. And then Ashley was talking to her again.

“Mara, we did it! Oh my god. This is real. Mara. You can stop filming now. We did it!” And Mara dropped the camera to catch her, as Ashley flew into her arms. Her moment of glory on-screen, and she’d stopped the performance to be with Mara.

It wasn’t a tactic. Ashley wasn’t bribing her, or using her. Or if she was, it didn’t matter. They were using each other. They needed each other. It was the only way to live.

Mara turned the camera off and on again. Then she turned it on herself.

Her own face looked back from the screen. Not green with darkness, but gold from the afternoon sun. Mara’s hands trembled, but she wasn’t hungry or cold. She had clothing now, and food. She was trapped, but she was here. She couldn’t tell if she was trapped anymore. She pressed record.

“My name is Mara,” she said. “I worked in Mukilteo, Washington. I came here for a television show called Civilization, which was produced by a man named Lenny Simmons. There were five of us in the beginning. James left. I don’t know his last name. Then there were four. In early June, the crew disappeared without warning. It’s almost September now. We have not all survived. I don’t know if the rest of us will make it. I don’t know if we’ll make it out.”

She told the story of what had happened. Parts of what happened. How Kyle climbed the big maple and fell while trying to signal for help. How he had asked her to amputate, but she couldn’t do it. That she had failed him in that way. That he was brave and funny, even at the end. How much he loved his family. He died painlessly, she said, after holding on for a long time. He had come to peace.

She talked about Bullfrog’s shelter, how it kept them safe through every night and every storm. How steady he was in his work. He was the toughest walker; he could have left them many times. But he always came back. He saved her from a bear. He found the cabin somehow, hidden in the trees, a lifeline designed to go unnoticed. And the cabin had revived them, and now they were strong enough to leave.

She talked about herself. How she had foraged, trying her best; how she had fired the flares. How, with help, she’d built a fish trap that fed them. How she had come back now to take it apart.

Ashley. There was so much Mara could say. How determined she was, and how clear-eyed. Sometimes, at the cabin, Mara felt that Ashley had broken for all of them. For her. So that Mara could care for someone, care for Ashley, and it was almost like caring for herself.