A gust of wind rips through my coat and I steel myself against it. I think about the woman on the roof asking the same question. How terrified I was that I’d die like her: alone, no one to mourn my absence. I think about how quickly that’s changed. “I’d find a way to survive,” I tell her, my teeth chattering.

She tilts her head. “And that’s all you want? To survive?”

I shrug, jumping up and down a bit to push the blood through my body. “Seems like a good idea right now,” I say, jerking my chin at our surroundings.

She’s silent, dancing from foot to foot to stay warm.

“What about you? What would you do?” I tuck my hands up in my sleeves.

Raising one eyebrow, she says, “Nope. I’m not telling you my dreams until you tell me yours.” She crooks a smile. “It’ll give you incentive to make sure we both survive this mess.”

I laugh and lean against her. “We’ll survive,” I tell her. “I promise you that.”

The storm intensifies, making it hard to stay standing and difficult to hear the moans of the Unconsecrated or see if any have washed ashore. My sister and I continue to huddle together in the nook of the wall, arms wrapped around each other as we try to stay out of the wind.

My breath comes out in pants, and each inhalation is like ice, its sharpness stinging my lungs. “We need to go back,” I shout at my sister. “They can’t keep us out here like this.”

She nods, her face buried in her thick coat. We struggle down the wall, letting the storm push us against it. I try to hold the shovel out in front of me in case any of the dead are still moving in this weather, but my muscles are so exhausted they shake, trying to wring out what little warmth they can. I’m barely able to keep myself upright. Everything’s just so cold. So cold and so hard.

Inside I feel empty. I can’t even remember the last time I ate. The last time I slept I cycled through nightmares, feeling my hair being torn from my body over and over again.

A figure stumbles toward me from the direction of the water and it takes me a moment to remember where I am. What I’m supposed to be doing. I swing. Sloppy and uneven, the motion throws me off balance. I take two steps. Three. Fall to one knee and use the shovel to pick myself back up again.

The body lurches, slow and jerky. I can just barely hear the moan. Out of the darkness hair whips through the night, tangled around a woman’s face so that it’s hard to see anything but her mouth.