"It's not like in the movies." Violet's voice was almost monotone. "I had to go to an appointment to get the medication. My boyfriend picked me up. There were no picketers. No one telling me I was going to hell, or how my baby had fingernails like in that one movie... But on the way to the car-" She chuckled to herself, "This is so stupid, but on the way to the car there was this tiny ball. A balled up pair of baby socks must have fallen out of someone's stroller nearby." She looked up to Elizabeth. "I took it as some grand sign from the universe that I was doing the right thing and it would all be ok."

"Was it ok?"

Violet shook her head slightly. "I honestly don't know. I mean, I know I couldn't be in med school and living the life I have with a kid. Even with adoption I'd have all the markers of a mother so I couldn't do the job I currently do to get me through. I know now that sharing a kid with Damien would have been absolute torture. That boy wasn't even ready to clean up his own puke after playing goon of fortune..."

Elizabeth watched the confident medical student shrink further into the cinema flooring.

She contorted her mouth, "But it's not something I wanted to jump from the roof tops and sing about how I reduced the potential for life into what felt like a really painful period. You know?"

Nodding empathetically, Elizabeth remained silent to give Violet the space to unload a burden she'd clearly kept to herself for a long time.

"I was angry. I was angry at the people who told me I should be happy I had the opportunity. I was angry at the people who were telling me I should be sad. I wasn't either. I was scared. I was scared that when I was ready to have a child I would look into the face of my living baby and remember the one I discarded to give that one a better life. I was scared one day I would regret it because people said I would. I couldn't talk to anyone about it because no matter which side I spoke to I was either a murderer or a heroine when all I really was, was a scared and confused teenager who had to make a really fucking hard decision while trying to get out of the poverty my parents never managed to leave." Tears welled in her eyes. "I just wanted them to be proud of me."

"Thank you for telling me." Elizabeth said seriously. "I won't tell you how to feel. It sounds really hard." She met Violet's eyes. "I am nobody. I get that. If no one has told you, I am proud of you."

Propelling herself forward, Violet began sobbing into Elizabeth's shoulder. Elizabeth could feel the warm tears seeping into her blouse. She placed her hand lightly on the back of Violet's head, stroking her silky, dark hair. As she pressed the side of her head to Violet's and rocked back and forth to help soothe her, she couldn't help but smell the light floral perfume Violet wore. She closed her own eyes, trying to hold back her tears. Her emotions never helped anyone.

It was not clear how long they sat on the perimeters of the shadows. Eventually Violet was able to calm herself. She took slow, deep breaths until the interruptions of short, involuntary sobs lessened significantly.

Elizabeth stood up and held out her hand. "Are you ready?"

She nodded her head, grasping Elizabeth's hand. "I just... I just can't shake a feeling in my stomach about that child."

As they walked down the aisle, they looked to Tanda sitting with Donovan. "It's ok, I'll make sure that we can keep you two apart. I don't know what you're going through, but I know what it's like to have a face that makes a memory impossible to move past." She smiled warmly at how gently Donovan was interacting with the child, a huge juxtaposition from the way he'd previously engaged with the group. "It looks like Donovan has a handle on it anyway."

Plastic cups were scattered around Donovan and Tanda. Donovan rummaged in his tote bag for thumbtacks as he asked Tanda how high she could count.

"I can count to one hundred!" she said excitedly.

"Wow! That's so many! Can you help me do a really important experiment to help our friends?" He punched a thumb tack through the base of the cup.

Tanda nodded.

"Do you know how they told time without clocks?"

"Sun clocks!"

"Yeah! Sundials. That's right. Woah. You're smart, buddy! When it was night time though-"

"There was no sun!"

"Right again! They used these things called water clocks. They were lucky because they could use the sun to time the water clocks." He used thumb tacks to affix the cup with the hole to the wall and then placed another cup below it. "We don't have that. So we'll have to count each minute to find out how much water goes through that little hole in sixty seconds."

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

Tanda handed Donovan another cup. "We have to count every minute!" she said excitedly.

"Well," he began, fiddling with the cup on the wall, "the good news is that we only need to know one cup. Then I can do the maths to find out how many times that many minutes goes into an hour. We can then make a looooong line and the water can trickle down. So it's still a lot, but it's less work. So I will make the markings, and you can count out loud for me."

"Yeah! I can do it!" Tanda ran her hands over the plastic cups, pressing them and making them crinkle.

"Awesome! That's a great attitude!"

They continued to build and giggle as they used water for their new invention.

Masina smiled warmly at the scene before she was snapped back to reality as Matthew sucked in a sharp breath as the antiseptic stung his wounds. She tried to distract him. "He's really good with kids, hey?"

"Yeah," he winced, "he has younger siblings. He's from one of those super big families."

"Oh, cool!" Masina re-applied a dressing and passed him two codeine tablets. "Me too. Hey, use those wisely. We're running low." She tried to hide her worry about the warmth coming from the slash, even with the best care they could manage.

Matthew threw the tablets into his mouth and washed them down with water. "Not so cool. They're one of those big religious families." He looked over fondly at his boyfriend. "They weren't really fans of, you know," he changed his tone to one of mockery, "his lifestyle choices."

"Ah. So that's why he's so..." Masina struggled to eloquently address the topic.

"Yeah. His dad's a real dick. He came to live with my parents for a while after his dad left him with a black eye. It was really messed up."

"Why did he go back?"

"I think his family realised kicking out their gay son wasn't a great look."

"Yeah, but why did he go back instead of stay with you?"

"What man with a shitty father doesn't hold out hope that one day their dad will love them?"

"True."

"Oh, sh- Sugar. Sorry. The drugs get me chatty. I shouldn't be telling you his business. I just love him so damn much, you know?"

Masina smiled gently, raising her hand up and shaking her head. "Nah. The secret's safe with me."

The groups were scattered around the floors of the cinema auditorium: Emilio placed his hand on his wife, who had simply begun sleeping through the apocalypse. Elizabeth and Gowan were deep in hushed conversation while rehydrating after nervously sweating through the footstep saga. Victor was holding the bible that Donovan had liberated from Book Nook after decimating the rollerdoor.

Violet was sitting beside him, making any conversation that she could to keep her focus off of Tanda. Eventually, she had to look over as Donovan announced the success of the experiment that he and Tanda had been working on.

"Alright!" he called out to get everyone's attention, "I've gotta show you how this works." He pointed to the 12 cups tacked to the wall with multiple pins each. "We take the cup at the bottom, make sure it's filled to the long black line and pour it into the top. Each cup holds five minutes of water. When this cup is filled back up down the bottom, an hour has passed... ish." He pointed to a blank piece of paper beside the line. "If you notice that the water has made it's way to the bottom of the cups, make a mark and pour it all back in the top. That's an hour."

"But we don't know how much time has already passed." Emilio protested.

Donovan went to argue but looked down at Tanda and took a breath. "Right, but obviously that means if we get to 72 tally marks then we need to worry."

"Or stick our heads outside to see if it's light yet." Gowan said, attempting to be helpful.

"Yeah, or that." Donovan noted.

Victor sauntered over tentatively to the new addition to the cinema. "You don't think that we'll know that the darkness will end?"

"I think it's smart for us to consider that-" He mouthed the word demons, "can deceive us."

Violet stood up from the seats where she had been talking with Victor. "Oh, so now you think demons can be deceptive?"

"Yeah. I think they might fake us out with either a false ending or a lengthy apocalypse. You know, something powerful. Not coming in and faking the ability to count to sixty."

Tanda's tiny hand tugged on Donovan's pants. "Did I do something wrong?" She sounded like she was about to cry.

"Oh, no!" He comforted, kneeling down to put both his hands on her elbows so she knew he was at her level. "No, no, no. Not at all, mate. You have been a great helper. You haven't done anything wrong." He glared at Violet before taking her hand, placing it on his nose, and scrunching it up which made her giggle. "Some adults just don't understand fun."

Tanda let out a small whine. "She was never mean when I was up there..."

"Up where?!" Violet rushed over with terrified eyes. "Up WHERE, Tanda?"

"Hey!" Donovan shoved her away. "She thought she'd be safe in the vents. She could hear us talk so she felt less alone."

"You mean the vent where the blood came from?" Her brown eyes were filled with anxiety.

Donovan simply blinked. "Have you considered that children drink juice, and additionally, they can spill said juice?"

"Can you confirm it was juice?" she shot back.

He looked upwards to where the vent was above them. "I assume whatever happened, it came out of this vent?" He walked to the floor and, with disgust on his face, touched the sticky cinema floor. "The floor is sticky. You're a med student." His voice turned to condescension. "Can you tell me if blood is sticky?"

Violet stood with her mouth agape, searching for a response.

Elizabeth rushed to Violet who had tears welling in her eyes again. "Hey, it's ok. Come sit with Gowan and me." Elizabeth ushered her over to their corner.

Violet was biting down on her bottom lip nervously. Her mascara was still smudged, but was subtly running again as she tried to hold back the tears that were threatening to begin again. "There's just something wrong."

"We thought of something that might help sway your fear." Gowan's smile was always so comforting. "She told us the name of her mother. It's not Violet."

"What was it?" Violet asked.

Elizabeth and Gowan took a moment to dive into their recall.

Elizabeth started stammering random syllables to jog her memory. "M... Pa... Mahp... Marcia..." She clicked and pointed. "Maya. Maya Pa-"

"Maya Padua." Violet's body was as still as stone.

"Yeah." Elizabeth smiled warmly before her smile turned to mild concern. "Wait. How'd you know that?"

Violet leaned forward to rummage through her bra. Gowan let out a soft exclamation and shielded his eyes until she had finished. She had produced her drivers license which she handed to Elizabeth.