When she heard the scream, Emma's eyes snapped open, and she felt like her heart had been frozen in her chest. It woke up in the next second, though, beating faster as she threw off the covers and scrambled over Chase, who made a noise of protest. She didn’t bother to wait, to see if he would wake, if he was okay. She nearly stumbled, somehow managing to right herself as she ran out of the room to see what was happening.
At the last moment, she realized she was unarmed. It didn’t make her stop, though, as she burst into her sister's room, eyes roving around the room frantically until they fell on her sister.
She felt like her heart stopped again, just for a second, then it was slowing down to a normal pattern as she relaxed a little, relief washing through her and making her dizzy so she had to hold on to the doorjamb or she would have fallen.
Merry was sitting up in bed, thin arms wrapped around her with her knees pulled up under the covers, and she was rocking slightly. Her face was pale and drawn, heavy bags under her eyes that meant she hadn't truly tested, but that was usual for her. What wasn’t were the tears dripping down her face as she breathed in ragged breaths. She must have been woken by a nightmare.
Emma sighed, moving forward to sit by her sister, previous ire with her practically forgotten. She tugged on Merry until her sister leaned into her, holding her tight, and tried to sooth her. No matter how angry she got at her sister, she wouldn’t turn her away when she was like this. She guessed she'd been selfish again, fooling herself that she was the only one facing problems.
If Merry wasn’t joking—no matter how crazy it sounded, if she had somehow predicted that crash, then she would have seen something close to what Emma had. Even if it wasn’t true and she just saw something else, she would have seen something horrific that kept her up at night. Merry wasn’t an insomniac, but she rarely slept through the night, and Emma knew it was because her dreams were almost always disturbing.
Emma was reminded of how her father used to do the same for her, soothing her when she had a nightmare. She knew most of Merry's nightmares centered around the death of their parents, whatever horrors she dreamed had usually had them in it, and Emma had to act in their place to comfort her sister. It was after that accident when she'd absolutely refused to step out of the house and her condition deteriorated.
Emma stroked Merry's head, her hand freezing momentarily as Merry muttered something about the apocalypse. The emotions that overtook her the evening before were back, momentarily, but she made her hand move. She tried not to lose patience with her sister.
It had been a while since she'd tried to soothe her after a nightmare, and holding her this close made her aware just how frail her sister was. She started humming, rocking her body lightly as her sister trembled in her arms.
Eventually, Merry went back to sleep. She wasn't sure it was the best idea, but her sister was going to need to be well rested. Whatever came in the next few days, or even longer than that, she wasn’t always going to be able to stand for her, and she wanted her family to be able to look after themselves, even just a little bit.
Well, she was awake now and she didn’t think she could go back to sleep. She went back to her room, to find Chase had somehow slept through the commotion. She sighed and picked out a change of clothes, then left for the bathroom.
Emma decided to combine her usual morning jog with seeing what was going on in the town. Instead of going her usual route around the block, she headed for town. She ran to the site of the crash, and found the place eerily quiet, with only a few people milling around with medical equipment.
Nothing much had changed since the day before. The plane was still there, all the cars. She remembered taking this route every day for weeks on her way to school and, wistfully, wondered how her day would have gone, yesterday and today, if she was taking the same route as usual. If she'd known and imagined what she had seen yesterday before, she would have been content. No matter how bad she thought her life was before, she now knew it could get so much worse.
Knowing she wouldn’t be much help, she left the area and stopped at a local store on her way back to pick up some basics. She added more food, even though the groceries had been delivered just a day ago, but it would be tiring to have to go so far to keep getting food.
As she paid, the store owner glared at her, and she flinched, wondering what was wrong. She thought it was her, that she had done something wrong, until he spoke, just as angrily as he looked.
"My latest food shipment hasn’t come in, and I don’t know when it's going to make it, so food is going to run out quickly at the shop."
She was confused for a moment, wondering why he was warning her, and then the words registered in her mind. Emma panicked and held up her finger, motioning for him to wait. She went back around the store, taking more food, stocking up in instant meals that only needed hot water instead of the kind she'd have to put in a microwave to cook. She bought a lot more food than she ever had before, as much as her budget would allow, afraid of not being able to get ahold of any later.
Why hadn't she thought of the possible food shortage? With no cars going anywhere, no electricity either, it should have occurred to her. There was no indication how long this was going to go on, but she didn’t think it would be something so easily solved. Even if, by some miracle, one she found incredibly unlikely to happen, the lights came back on and everything went back to normal, she had a family to feed. Not to mention, how was she going to get money to pay for whatever supplies they were going to need, when she couldn’t access her bank accounts?
Carrying so many bags of food was tiring, and it slowed her down considerably. She was sweating when she arrived home, but she just put the stuff down, wiped her forehead and opened the door to transfer everything inside.
Janice was up and about, looking better than yesterday. She looked confused, though, when she saw Emma, and she had to remind her who she was and where she'd been. The older woman still looked confused as she led her to the couch so she could sit, but she was showing some recognition. If there was one thing she would be glad for, though, was if her grandmother forgot whatever fear she'd felt before.
"Sorry. I shouldn't have been gone so long but after my jog I stopped by the store to get some food. Why don’t you wait here for me to get you some breakfast?"
She was gone before Janice could protest, taking everything to the kitchen. She was going to go up to her room to wake Chase up when he came down the stairs. She motioned with her hand for him to come down and join her in the kitchen so her grandmother wouldn’t hear and become concerned.
"What is it?" he asked, then he looked at what she was wearing, her hair a little wet from all the sweat, and he frowned. "And where have you been?"
She shushed him, glanced over at her grandmother, then tugged him closer and explained everything, keeping her voice hushed.
"I went out to check the crash site this morning—"
"You—"
"I was out for a jog and I thought I might as well. I stopped at the store to buy some food. Chase, the store owner told me he hadn't received his latest shipment."
He was confused for a few seconds, before it dawned on his face. "The shipment won't be coming in," he stated.
She nodded, wondering why he still looked calm when Emma's insides were churning in unease. She was lucky enough to have realized it this soon, but there was no guarantee it would be enough to save them.
"I don’t know how long the food in that store is going to last, I don’t think I can get any more, anyway. I don’t know how long the situation will last, but I think we need to start preparing for the long haul."
He glanced behind her into the open kitchen, where her overfull grocery bags were left on the floor. He gave a sharp nod as he looked back down at her. "Of course. We can sit down and work it out together."
She spared him a smile, and then tugged him into the kitchen with her so they could start.
