Chapter 2

  I heard the sheets next to me shift, and slowly opened my eyes. At first I was worried one of the dead bodies deposited outside last night had turned and made it into my house, but when I saw it was only Alexander getting up, I remembered we had broken the rules last night.
   "I'm sorry I woke you," he said when he saw me looking at him.
   "It's no problem, I said quietly. Soon we would have to go outside and begin digging again, but I was feeling particularly lethargic. "Did someone find out?" I asked vaguely, knowing he would know what I was talking about.
   "Not that I know of..." he said slowly, the words hesitant to come out of his mouth and into the air.
   "Alright..." I said, unnerved by his hesitance. We got up, put on our work clothes, and went outside. The fresh air made Alexander's cheeks turn pink, and made my feet instantly cold, and I started longing for an animal called "sheep" my father had told me about when I was young, back in the days before we had to have tunnels and fences.
    "They are white as snow, and they have wool, which is like fur, except when you line your boots, socks, and mits with it, you are very warm," I remembered him saying to me while sitting on his lap in front of the fire.
   As the day wore on, I realized we didn't have to move as fast. "Do you think the virus is dying out?" I asked hopefully, ready for Alexander to look on the bright side of things.
    "Maybe. We can never be sure." Something about his tone made me feel unnerved again, just like this morning, and just like it had been all day. I felt he usually told me things when the time was right, so I just waited patiently for him to finally tell me what had been bothering him.
    Bodies stopped arriving around sunset, so that was when Alexander and I went back inside my house.
    "What was bothering you all day?" I asked while we sipped tea, finally thinking he had kept it inside long enough.
    "Nothing, Melinda, I mean Hazel," Alexander stammered. Who was Melinda? Was there a Melinda in town? What did she mean to Alexander? Why was he thinking about Melinda? All of these questions went unanswered that night, as they stayed inside my head, scraping at the inside of my scull like imprisoned people who had turned early did on the walls of their jail cells.
   He left at curfew, and I went to sleep in mental agony. I couldn't figure out who Melinda was until right before I fell asleep. A desperate girl the same age as Alexander and me who always flirted with every man she met, hoping she would finally have someone to be matched with.