Post Dawn

33. Evacuate

Sam let out a breath as she put her phone down on the couch next to her and leaned back.

She hadn't been paying attention to the tv. She didn't really want to. She stood up and looked over at Jess to see that she had stopped paying attention to the tv too.

She started to walk into Matt's bedroom to plug her phone into a charger. She had gotten used to not charging it anymore. She had barely used it when they were up on the mountain.

The only time she had was so she could watch the video Josh had made. And then after that she hadn't been on her phone at all.

She came back into the kitchen to see Mike and Matt come in from being outside. She looked over at Mike and he just looked at her for a brief second and then looked down on the floor.

Sam started to walk over to the two as Matt walked over to the couch and sat next to Jessica. Mike continued to avoid making eye contact with Sam and then walked over to the couch himself.

He sat down on the other end of the couch and put his arm on the arm of the couch and then held his face up with it.

He looked over to the tv and then blew out his breath from the side of his mouth and then looked down at his left hand, again curling his fingers.

He was stressed to say the least. He didn't want to tell Sam about what happened with Matt. He also didn't want Sam to go off the hinges again. He wouldn't ever use the term with Sam. He didn't want to make it seem like she was insane.

Which she wasn't. To Mike, she was handling the situation better then most. He hadn't had an episode as bad as she had but he had his fair share of nightmares as he had told her.

Sam walked over to him and sat down in the space between him and Matt.

She leaned forward and pretended to be paying attention to the tv and then looked over at Mike from the corner of her eye. She saw him curling his fingers.

She noticed that he would usually do this when he was thinking about something or worrying. Sometimes both. She decided not to comment on it, knowing that he most likely wouldn't talk about it even if she tried to get him to.

All four of them sat there for a while in silence. They all were either watching the tv or just pretending to be since there was really nothing for them to do.

Sam's thoughts started to wander as she watched the weather and other news headlines that ran across the screen. She wondered if it would snow again soon. It had a few days before they had all gone up to the mountain.

She liked the snow usually. It always looked pretty to her. But now she knew she would be reminded of the lodge every time it snowed.

Even if it did, she told herself that the fact that it was pretty wouldn't be faded from her mind.

"Alright. I'm gonna take a shower I think. It's been a while." Matt said randomly. They all looked over at him as he stood up and made his way into his room to grab some clothes and then go take a shower.

After that, they had all went back to the silence that they had all apparently become comfortable with. Jess wasn't really looking at the tv anymore and Sam noticed that Mike wasn't either.

She shrugged to herself and decided to change the channel. She grabbed the remote and then flipped through the channels and tried to find anything else to watch.