The three of them stayed in the hotel that night, watching the snow come down and talking quietly between themselves.

"I hope the chickens are alright." Rust said for the tenth time, and Shim leaned over and poked her. He had decided that he was going to do this every time she lamented over the chickens, but he was a bit worried that by the time morning came, he would be cold and she would be horribly bruised.

It was eerily silent outside, and they were trying to fill the space with talk, with human chatter. Cities were not meant to be this quiet. They were meant to be places of hustle and bustle, of roaring and beeping, alive even into the deepest parts of the night. Instead, this strange, silent world felt more like a gravesite.

"Is it our grave?" Quilt questioned, and the other two shrugged, still staring out at the drifting snow.

"None of that." From Rust, "we've already agreed, we're here and we're alive. That the world is still waking up, and that we're merely premature. Children born a bit too early. It will wake up, I'm sure of it. We just have to give it time."

Neither of them said anything in response. This also was not a new conversation, and the silence weighed them down, like the pressure at the bottom of the ocean.

Shim stared out at the road until his eyes stung with tiredness, trying to dredge up memories he simply didn't have.

At some point, they all drifted off to sleep, lured there by silent weather.

-

They awoke together as dawn broke, the bright light reflecting off the snow blinding them through the big glass windows. As they unwound themselves from their stolen blankets and pushed the stolen mattresses out of the way, they discussed what they would do next.

"I need clothing." Quilt picked at her nightdress, and Shim felt a sudden urge to blush and look away, a new and strange feeling. "Do you have a sewing machine or something?" She indicated Rust.

Rust shook her head, "My mother was into that kind of thing, but I never took to it, I'm not really the crafty type. There was a woman in the village who did that sort of thing, if I ever needed it."

"Shame," Quilt shrugged, "me neither, but I was hoping. Wouldn't even know how to thread the damn thing, if we did find one."

Shim stared out over the pristine, untouched snow, and wondered if he should mention that he got top marks in his high school sewing class and that he had had a machine in the corner of his bedroom. He wondered if he should mention that he used to sew little pillows and dolls as gifts for friends of his mother.

The light stung his eyes and he had to look away, blinking. It wasn't worth it, and it wasn't like they had a machine anyway. His bedroom was elsewhere too, if it even still existed.

He missed his ma.

What if he'd been stolen away from his world? What if she still existed out there somewhere, going about her normal life, but minus one son? Did she even remember him, if that was the case? Did she think he was dead? Was there another him out there, walking home each day through dark woods, staffing the tills alone at midnight in a dying grocery store?

He realised he was staring at the snow again, and that his eyes hurt.

-

Rust looked over as Shim sniffed, rubbing at his eyes, and felt an emphatic pang in her stomach. Grief for those she barely remembered, and also not a small amount of hunger. That was getting stronger every day, as they slowly came back to life, and one couldn't subsist on lemon BRICKs forever.

Shim jerked as she laid a hand on his shoulder, before shaking himself out like a dog. "Everything ok?" he asked, blinking at her.

"I was about to ask you the same," she said with what she hoped was a comforting smile. He looked away again, brushing down his front, and she spoke to fill the gap, "I think we're ready to go."

He nodded, glad of the subject change.

"Yeah, we can always come back later for the extra blankets or whatever, we should get outta here."

He shot a questioning gaze at Quilt. "Is it safe for you to be out there in the snow like that?"

Rust spoke up first, as Quilt was busy wrapping herself up in a sort of bedsheet toga. "Ideally, we'd leave her here until we found some warmer clothing, but we don't want to risk splitting up. What if this place is gone tomorrow?"

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Yeah, that's sensible." Shim nodded, "I wouldn't wanna be left behind neither. I'm pretty sure we walked down here twice yesterday and there was no hotel here either of those times, chances are it might stop existing once we're out of sight."

Quilt shuddered, and then glared outside. "If only it would stop. Bloody stuff. At least we can run for the cottage I guess?"

Rust patted Shim on the shoulder again, and Quilt stepped up, wrapped in her improvised dress, giving the snow a baleful look.

"Let's hope it's not too cold out there."

-

Luckily, despite the heavy snowfall, they weren't blocked in, but once they started walking they discovered that the drifts were almost to their knees. There were more sheltered parts- the wind had blown steadily in one direction all night- but Quilt was shivering almost immediately. They offered to go back to the hotel, but she insisted they press on.

Rust seemed to know the way back, so they let her lead.

"I can hear the cockerel." Rust nodded in a seemingly random direction, "He'll always lead me home. Plus, I can still see your building from here."

The other two squinted, but the mixture of cold, snow, and sun-glare made them unwilling to argue. "Just-" Quilt's teeth chattered, and she spoke rapidly, "Just, just get us home, ok?"

She pulled the sheets more tightly around herself, "I just wanna be warm."

Rust nodded and they trudged faster, letting her travel in their wake, leaving a deep trench in the snow behind them. Luckily, it didn't seem to be building up any deeper, but that couldn't be relied upon forever.

-

The breaking of the city in return for trees was a welcome relief, the branches whispering a promise of shelter from the incessant snow.

Then their first step onto the path back to Rust's house sent up a flurry of birds above, pelting them all with fresh, cold drifts.

"This sucks, this sucks, this sucks," Quilt repeated, and the other two silently agreed, "this sucks, this sucks so much, this sucks, this..."

She brushed the snow out of the back of her neck and shuddered as they hurried onwards.

"I hope I have spare wood for the fire," Rust said breathlessly, as the cottage came into view, "Shim, you should grab one of the chickens, pick Gertrude, she's the biggest, they should be in their coop."

Shim nodded and headed towards the coop as the other two headed inside. He had no prior experience with chickens, that he could remember, but he was rapidly becoming familiar.

Around them, in the trees, birds were stirring, and their noise was a welcome, blessed relief after the dreadful silence of the city.

"I wonder if this is how people feel when they first go to the country," he mused to himself as he peered into the coop. "Everything so weirdly quiet."

With one chicken under each arm and another balanced on his shoulder, he stomped back towards the house.

"Probably," he told Sightmind, and she pecked at his ear.

Trying to get most of the snow off his clothes and shoes before entering the kitchen, he was greeted with the sight of Rust and a half-naked Quilt, huddled around the warming oven.

She nodded thanks as he passed Gertrude over, who seemed a bit worried about this whole turn of events, as a fat chicken dragged into close proximity with a warm oven should be.

A brief scuffle of feathers, some more wood out of the cellar, and an hour later they were all sitting relieved in the humid kitchen, blanket wrapped, with clothes drying up near the ceiling.

Rust had mentioned the parlour, wondering if it might be warmer, and realising she had never even checked it in this life, had insisted they take a look. A peek through the half-open door revealed a dim, cold room, filled with sheeted furniture. The stove in the corner was cold, and the windows were covered by thick curtains.

That idea had been shelved almost as soon as it was born.

As they sat, Shim stared up at his steaming uniform, a frown creasing his forehead. "You know, I don't think my place even had a uniform."

"How did people know you was staff, then?" Quilt questioned, and he shrugged.

"I had a badge I guess? Maybe like a jacket, but nothin' as fancy as that up there."

He held his wrinkled feet up to the oven, slowly regaining feeling in them but wishing he had socks. "It wasn't a great supermarket, and it was only me there most of the time, I liked doing the late shifts."

He wiggled his toes.

"I dunno, maybe I was happy sometimes. It wasn't a bad job."

Rust petted Samantha, the little red chicken burbling to herself as she dozed. "I think what we're missing," she said suddenly, "is leaves. The hot water is meant to have leaves in it."

The other two startled at her, unsure where this had come from.

"Leaves?" said Quilt, struggling to catch up. "For your missing drink? That sounds mad."

She nodded back, "Leaves, the more I say it, the more I'm sure of it."

Quilt cast an eye towards the snow outside, and then back to Rust. "Do you know what kinda leaves?"

Rust, so confident a moment before, deflated, "I- I don't. Drink-leaves, leaves to make the drink."

Quilt humphed. "Well, if it ever stops snowing, I guess we can go strip some of the trees. Aren't some leaves poisonous though?"

"Are you sure it wasn't beans?" Shim interjected, struck by inspiration, "I feel like it was defintely beans."

Rust squinted her eyes and Quilt frowned.

"Wouldn't that just make it be soup, as it were?"

Quilt bit her lip in thought and Rust fed another piece of wood into the stove.

"We could try making soup, then?" She suggested as she shut the door, "if we can find some beans, but we're gonna be short for breakfast tomorrow, unless either of you have something hidden away. The chickens won't lay for long in this weather."

Shim stared out of the windows, at the buildup of snow, and sighed a long breath out through his nose.

"Fuck it. Let's go back to the big store. If there is something that could erase me, then I wanna know."

For a moment there was only the burbling of the chicken and the crack of the fire, as the two women looked at him.

"Are you sure?" Rust said finally. "We don't have to. I'm fairly sure we can't actually starve, not yet anyway."

Shim shrugged, not making eye contact. "Yeah. I..."

He took a deep breath, and the two of them gave him space.

"Yeah, I'm sure. I need to know. I can't have it hanging over me forever, the idea that I could just be erased at any moment."

He bit his lip, "not again. It already happened once with... It already happened once, when you found me, and then again when I didn' wake up here. I have to know if it'll happen when you leave the shop."

Quilt reached over and laid Gertrude on his lap, and he rolled his eyes at her.

"Sure, thanks I guess. Maybe I can take a chicken with me for self defense."