For a long time there is nothing. Then there is light. The grinding of rock on rock. The whir of a cable and a hand being extended down to me. I settle in and wait to be rescued.

#

“Six weeks,” he says. He wears white and sticks the X-ray over the light. Inside, the delicate lines of my bones criss-cross across my body. He is a doctor. “How’d you survive?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know,” I say, the words pulled from some pit in the back of my mind. They come out grating and odd at first. The more I use the easier it becomes, like oil loosening my tongue until they slip out unimpeded. “It was hard.”

“I can believe that,” he says. The skin around my ribs has shriveled into little. The gauntness of my face. The hollow of my eyes. There is much that has changed. He walks to the computer, and I turn my gaze outside. The afternoon sunlight is dull and orange between the plastic shades. It cuts through in sharp lines along the floor of the office. I reach my hand out and feel the warmth.

He shifts behind me. I feel his eyes. The steady beating of his heart picks up, as their hearts all do when they watch me. When they feel I cannot see them. Their eyes trace over my body and attempt to turn me back into what I was. The before thing. The thing that was lost. Rick.

Antiseptic overpowers all other smells. The room hums with fluorescents and electricity. In the cave all was quiet. Insulated from time and progress. Now my senses are warped. They send out impulses with impunity. It is hard to tell which are struggling and which are surviving.

“Your vitals are okay,” he says at last, drawing my attention back toward him. He looks down as my eyes find his. “Cholesterol is a little high, but I guess they didn’t have a Whole Foods down there.” A weak chuckle follows his words. He wants to say more. He taps his pen on the desk three times. Asks, “What did you eat?”

There are honest answers. I say, “Fish, mostly. Raw. There was a pool of water. I could find them by their splashing, even in the total darkness.”

“Like a shark,” he says. “They can sense a struggling fish from thirty feet away by the electrical impulses. Did you know that?”

I smile at him. It is hard to smile. “No, I did not.”

“I saw it on Shark Week.” He looks back at the computer. He sighs. “Six weeks,” he says. “I can’t believe you survived that long alone.”

“They did not find her?” I ask. I search for the name. “Laura?”

“They did. Not far from you.”

“Not alive?”

“No, not alive.”

I look down. I remember Laura. She was too small.

“She must’ve hit her head in the fall,” he says. “You’re lucky.”

“Lucky,” I repeat.

He finishes and he lets me go. Then the Police do, saying I’ve been through enough and deserve some rest. I can come back to the station tomorrow.

There is a train ride home. I feel the keys sharp in my pocket. I feel the ache of hunger. Many people. Some sit and slouch forward gazing at their phones. Others stare unengaged out the windows towards the darkness of the tunnels. Waiting there in the glass is their reflection. What do they see in it? There are others who look at me. The wool scarf covers much of my face. They turn away fast. What is left visible they do not want to see. Across from me there is a woman texting. Her thumb moves fast over the keys. Her heart pumps faster. The electrical impulses racing through her body move erratically. There is someone who no longer wants to see her. Her breathing becomes frequent, heavy. She is not too small. Her hips are wide and her face has a sharp plainness to it. She is struggling.

We are still far from my home. The woman stands and moves towards the doors. I wait and follow.

In the streets, darkness is falling. It will not be complete. It will not be the cave. And yet, I feel a certain assuredness in it. In the knowledge that soon their senses will be dulled, and I can move about them unseen.

I whistle the simple tune. She does not turn. Rick whistled it in the before times, when he believed in rescue. Before he found Laura. Before me. He found it comforting. Perhaps she will too.

She stops at an old house and enters. A light turns on inside. The door locks. No matter, despite the half-starved state there is much this body can still do. I feel her move from room to room, disturbing the heavy air. Light after light flicks on until the house is awash in a dull yellow glow that spills softly out into the yard. A prayer against the fading sun.

Her body will be more pleasing. Her simple face has a trust to it. People do not expect a woman. Not like they do a man. Rick knew this. I know this. A few hours, maybe, until the lights turn off. I can wait for that. I’ve waited longer.