Desirae jerks awake in absolute darkness. A mind-jarringly loud noise violently rouses her. She is momentarily lost her thin feline body slicks up with cold sweat and her undershirt soaks through immediately. She blindly searches for him with her hands. She needs him to remain calm. Her frantically flailing hands find his shoulder first, then the rest of him, hard muscles beneath her fingers comfort her as she traces his right arm down to his hand. At last their fingers interlace and she squeezes, he squeezes back, acknowledging her. His palm is calloused and rough like the rest of him. She works hard to ignore the rising blare and its jolting loudness. The grating is magnified in the closed space, the noise deafens and punishes her head, climbs down into her intestines, travels the length of her spinal cord, jabbing with vengeance into her aching, dehydrated brain. She cannot see a goddamn thing. Absolute darkness envelopes her, and there is nothing to hear over the rising noise, but she knows, or rather, she senses, the countless survivors surrounding her. She knows they are trying to get going just like she is. Her short, disturbed sleep was a restless, shallow and agitated stupor. She does not feel ready for what's to come.
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