28 tally marks were added to the paper. Matthew's screams were getting louder. The air was heavy with waiting, but not reinforced with any hope.

By 30 tally marks, Elizabeth was crouched beside Masina. "We really can't do anything?"

Masina took her hand off Matthew's forehead. She shook her head. "At this point, we'd need a debridement and the only person even close to having a proper medical background floated away in purple smoke."

"Don't you have some kind of training?" Elizabeth was a little more desperate now. "Surely anything is better than-"

She was interrupted by Matthew coughing violently, then wincing in pain.

" ... that."

Masina shook her head. "I'm already so far out of my comfort zone. To be a pharmacy assistant I went to TAFE, not Johns Hopkins. Everything else I learned was through osmosis, to be honest."

Donovan walked over from the water clock, after adding the 31st mark. He stammered a little, "What about prayer?"

Masina and Elizabeth exchanged a glance with each other. It was partially pity, and partially the absolute lack of energy to deal with Donovan's outbursts if the prayer didn't work. He was a powder keg that was easy enough to deal with, but when their diet for 2 days had been handfuls of processed, beige snack foods, it was harder and harder to be a solid rock for his waves to crash into.

Victor casually walked over to the huddle. "I think that's a phenomenal idea."

Donovan rolled his eyes. "Oh, so you've found it in your heart to pray for people like us," he said sarcastically.

"1 Timothy 2 has always been in The Bible. The instructions to intercede for others have always been clear," Victor said plainly.

He walked over to Gowan who had been napping in the cocoon of blankets that had been moving closer and closer to Elizabeth's blanket pile. With a deep inhale, Gowan groggily woke up.

"Is it over?" Gowan looked to the tallies. "Ugh." He had to focus all his energy to sluggishly make his way over to the gathering.

Emilio stopped his push-ups to join them. He called over to his wife who awkwardly stood over Matthew's body. She looked down, somewhat in shame, at the wounds she had abandoned in the days prior. Amy was just so tired.

When everyone had gathered, Victor re-joined them. He walked from the corner of the room where Elizabeth and Gowan's bedding was set up to the center of the room. He picked up one of the candles and brought it over to the existing candle set up near Matthew's body.

The orange glow only seemed to exaggerate the textures on Matthew's side. His arm wound was mild and easily under control. His abdomen was bruising and seeping. There were glitters across his golden, autumn skin. It could have been considered beautiful if the moisture hadn't come from the pus and blood that Masina had missed while trying to keep Matthew clean with the ever dwindling resources.

Victor cleared his throat. "Lord, we gather here today to ask you to heal this man. He was used as a tool for you, to help keep those gathered here in safety. We don't see, Lord, how his wounds can be of any more assistance. Matthew has been a soldier for you, Lord. It is time now to heal his wounds." He stopped, waiting. "Heal his wounds, Lord!" he commanded.

The room was silent. Masina and Elizabeth shared another look. The wounds did not change at all.

Victor looked at Masina. "Bandage it up."

Masina changed the dressing while most of the group looked away. Amy covered her ears as Matthew let out more cries of pain. Donovan desperately stroked Matthew's hair, whispering frantic attempts at comfort to his boyfriend.

"Lord!" Victor said, even louder this time. "Lord! I call upon your name to heal Matthew like you healed lepers. Heal him like you healed the blind! Take the wounds away, Lord!" He used his free hand to gesture upwards dramatically. He clamped his eyes shut as he continued to beg the Lord for the deliverance of Matthew's wounds.

After some time had passed, he pointed to the bandage. "Remove them."

Masina hesitated. She wanted to believe. A miracle would provide so much hope in a dark time. Her inner voice was begging God to have worked through Victor. The fallout of failure was something that she didn't even want to think about.

Gowan had his eyes closed, muttering to himself. Elizabeth had grasped his upper-arm in anticipation. Emilio's strong arms held Amy who had simply buried her head into his chest. Victor stared at the bandages.

Donovan was squeezing Matthew's hand. "Do you feel any different?"

"No." Matthew managed.

The wound looked no different.

The breath the room was collectively holding fell to the floor, deflated.

"I need to eat." Masina walked over to the food as the silence continued.

Without thinking, Emilio just wanted to break the tension. "Maybe God doesn't work for the queers."

Elizabeth's mouth dropped.

"What the fuck did you just say?" Donovan sprang up.

"I was just making a joke." Emilio shrugged. "Sorry, I-"

Gowan twisted towards Emilio, "What the hell, dude. That's an awful thing to say."

"Oh, come on." He groaned. "It's just my humour. You know I'm fine with queers."

Donovan shoved Emilio. "Say it again. Say it the fuck again. A man is dying and you want to fucking try me?"

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Fine, I won't say it," Emilio huffed. He remained in place, and Donovan was pushing on his chest to goad him into fighting. "Don't be so soft. We had gay guys in the unit and they were fine with it. At least I didn't call you a fa-"

Masina called from behind them. "Uh, guys?"

The fighting snapped off like a light switch as they turned in horror.

"I guess I didn't see the egg warning on these." She held up the pack of food she was holding.

"Fuck." Donovan stated. He walked over to a cinema chair and begun swinging at it in a blind rage. "FUCK!" he screamed louder, "FUUUUUUCK!"

"What do we do? What do you need?" Elizabeth ran over, placing her hands on Masina's upper arms. "Do you have an EpiPen?"

"I must have left it," Masina wheezed.

Gowan was ferreting through the medical supplies. "Nothing in here."

"Do we have antihistamines?" Masina began lowering herself to the ground. "Someone needs to run to go to the pharmacy to grab an EpiPen." She lay on her back, looking up at the roof. Gowan handed her a box of children's liquid antihistamine he had grabbed while they were emptying the pharmacy. "They're behind the counter. Just ..." her breathing got more laboured, "grab anything."

"I know CPR, I'll stay here." Amy said to Elizabeth.

Gowan nodded to Victor, then raised his hand to get Elizabeth's attention. He ran to their bedding to fish out the knives while Elizabeth organised the others.

Elizabeth began pointing. "Donovan, stay with Matthew. Emilio, come with us in case we need you to break something." She grabbed a candle and sprinted to the doors.

Gowan grabbed the second candle and handed it to Emilio, telling him to run ahead if he could. He seemed much fitter than Gowan or Elizabeth and time was of the essence. The third candle left the faint glow from the cinema floor as the double doors slammed shut behind them and their footsteps clanked down the stationary elevator.

Emilio zoomed past Elizabeth as Gowan jogged beside her. He waited until Emilio's flame was far in the distance before he passed her the knife. Elizabeth placed the knife back in her waistband, lest Emilio saw.

"You got yours?" she asked.

He continued running straight ahead. "One's missing."

"Shit." Elizabeth muttered. "So Victor's knife is AWOL and now so is one of ours?"

"Yeah."

Elizabeth was huffing now. She tried to speed up. "If Emilio or Donovan has one of them..."

They arrived at the pharmacy and ducked back under the roller door that Emilio had yanked off the floor when the end of their worlds were just beginning. The man-mountain was already shoving things off shelves behind the counter in an anxious flurry, swearing to himself.

Elizabeth noticed a small set of plastic shelves under the counter labelled "Autoinjectors". She grabbed the entire box and shoved it into Emilio's hands. "Run."

He darted out of the store, leaving the pair alone in the candle light. The two collapsed behind the counter as the boxes of medication were littered around them.

After allowing himself a moment to let his shoulders drop, Gowan began scanning the boxes. "Maybe we can find something for Matthew."

"Nah," Elizabeth shook her head, "you won't find anything here."

"My friends in high school used to take some medication for their ..." he looked uncomfortable, "lady... times." The moment of relaxation was slowly crawling away.

Elizabeth chuckled, "Oh, the low dose pain medication? Nah. The government made it so you can't get them over the counter anymore."

"Because people were abusing them?"

"Probably. Although I find it easier to believe they wanted to continue the age old tradition of handling menstruation by just telling women to deal with it and calling them hysterical if they object."

Gowan made a small noise in agreement and continued to awkwardly scan the boxes.

Elizabeth rose to her feet, "Let's check the safe again. Amy's got this, and as much as Emilio is," she contorted her lips, trying to find a non-scathing indictment, "as much as he sucks, he'll be able to help out. I think it would be better if we tried to find something for Matt."

"Yeah." Gowan looked towards the door before nodding to himself and following Elizabeth through the door.

The safe was still open, but it was completely empty.

"Did we really take everything?" she asked Emilio.

"I guess so."

She clicked her tongue. "Dammit." Frustrated tears welled in her eyes. Each time they threatened to finally spill over, they were harder to fight back. Her sinuses were waving a white flag as she felt her nose begin to run. She had never been a pretty crier.

Her façade fell as she plopped to the ground and put her head in her hands. She started to rock, gently tapping her head on the safe behind her. The tapping helped her soothe herself. She'd always been that way.

Gowan lowered himself beside her. He wasn't sure of where to place his arms. Scared that she might rock back too hard, he placed his arm around his shoulders to impede how far back Elizabeth could move. Embracing her, he began to rock side to side.

He tried to soothe her. "Emptiness isn't always a sign of despair. It can mean better things. The empty tomb was a message of hope."

"But we have a nineteen year old kid bleeding out on our floor," she sobbed into his chest, "even if he makes it, what world is left for him? What's he surviving for?" She froze and softened with a realisation. "What are any of us surviving for?"

Gowan stopped rocking and wiped one of her tears away, "Love."

"Love?" she asked flatly, between sobs.

"Do you know how I decided to go into ministry?"

She shook her head.

"My friends went out drinking one night. We'd just finished high school and I was a real rule follower so I didn't go with them. They called me at 3am, and loudly and obnoxiously asked me for a lift home. I said no and went back to sleep."

"And they died?"

"Yeah. The next day I woke up to the police wanting to speak with me, since I was the last person they called. Four of my friends died in the drunk driving crash. Later it turned out one of them was pregnant. I held that guilt for years." He paused thoughtfully. "I still do."

"So we just keep living even though bad things happen?" Elizabeth hadn't even realised she'd stopped crying amidst trying to figure out the point.

"We do, but the point is that there were numerous ways I could move through the guilt. For a long time I thought I couldn't live with it." He looked downward. "I moved through the guilt by finding how I could use the situation to help others. I chose youth ministry because every emotion is big at that age and all you want is someone who understands. Every mistake feels like the end of the world, and I wanted to show them that nothing was too awful to prematurely declare that their life had ended. It was too hard to live for myself, but it was easy to live for others."

"Thank you for telling me," Elizabeth said. She took a deep breath. "But how can we be living for others if we're the only ones left?"

"Please." He was now holding both of her hands. "For me. Let's just pretend there are people to live for."

Elizabeth felt his gentle breath on her hands as he brought them to his soft lips, and kissed her fingers delicately. He bent his neck to place his forehead against them. She smiled.

"We should get going," he said, jolting himself out of the moment.

Elizabeth shook a little, embarrassed at how easy she melted. "What about the filing cabinets? They're combination locks. Do you remember the safe combo? Don't older people tend to just use the same thing for all their locks?"

"Yeah. I don't remember the combination, but I don't think the notepad would have gone far." He stood up and began scanning with the candlelight. His brow furrowed. "Is it on the floor?"

Elizabeth looked in the spaces between the safe and the nearby desks. "Nothing here." She maneuvered herself on her hands and knees towards the door to check behind it.

Her blood ran cold.

Shadowy figures were in the pharmacy and moving towards them. A slow scratching noise across the carpet made it's way closer and closer. Soon they were behind the counter.

She should have closed the door, but once again all she could do was freeze up. Not even a sound escaped her mouth to alert Gowan.

A stocky woman looked down at Elizabeth, then knocked on the door to alert Gowan. As she came into view, the light gleamed off her short hair that Elizabeth guessed had been coloured red with box dye. The shadows aided her fringe to keep her face rather concealed.

One of the men behind her was carrying a plank of wood. The other was carrying a trolley bar. They moved past the woman in the doorway, grasping Gowan and Elizabeth who had no other exit.

"You'll be coming with us now and I'd prefer it if you didn't scream."