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closed her eyes. Soon she, too, fell asleep.
       As they slept, the sparks from the pages slowly faded and complete darkness settled around them.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    5
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
       Silence enveloped the cavern as the new inhabitants slept. Zaac and Ramira were exhausted. Anyone looking at them sleeping so peacefully would never know what they had been through.
       Ramira was the first to wake. Her head was resting on Zaac’s shoulder. Sometime during the night, without knowing, she had leaned over. When she first regained consciousness, she wondered why she wasn’t in bed. Opening her eyes did no good. Everything was still in darkness.
       An involuntary “What?” escaped her lips.
       The sound aroused Zaac from sleep. Opening his eyes, he too was confronted with total darkness.
       “Ramira, are you alright?” he asked. He located the flashlight and turned it on.
       Taking a moment to readjust in the light, Ramira responded. “Yes. I was just startled. I’d forgotten where I was.”
       “I can imagine. Hold on and I’ll get another fire started.”
       He tore a couple of pages from her trig book and ripped them into little shreds. Using another cotton ball, he soon had a fire going. He added a few pages to the fire and turned off the flashlight.
       “How are you feeling?”
       “My body is a little sore. It also seems to be feeling kind of strange. Like something unusual is going on with it.” She wasn’t sure how to describe what she was experiencing.
       “Is it the same feeling you had yesterday when I came back?”
       “Yes, only now it seems to be worse.”
       “You remember yesterday when I first found you. You had some lacerations. I asked whether they were from the fall or whether bats had bitten you. I wonder if it has something to do with that.”
       He turned on his flashlight. “Let me take a look.”
       He first checked her neck then each of her wrists. There appeared to be a little redness around the marks but they weren’t overly inflamed.
       “What do you think?” She held up her wrists to look at them.
       “I can’t say for sure. There’s not much redness. It would be nice to have something to put on them but I don’t have a first aid kit.”
       Zaac wished he had more medical training.
       “Let’s eat something. The most important thing is to keep your strength up.”
    Adding another page to the fire, he turned the flashlight off. “Want an energy bar?”
       “Sure. I have a Mountain Dew. Would you like to split it?”
       “Yes. Mountain Dew is probably my favourite soft drink.”
       “Mine too. We have something in common.” She said it with a smile that lit up her face.
       “Yes. Another thing is we are . . .” he stopped in mid-sentence.
       “Another thing is we are . . . what?” she asked, looking at him.
       “Nothing.” Zaac held his head down.
       “Well you were getting ready to say something. You might as well finish it.” She wasn’t letting him off the hook.
       “Well I thought another thing was that we were stuck down here together.” He glanced at her. “I got ready to say it without thinking. Then I thought the better of it so I didn’t finish it.”
       “Well, you’re not wrong. That’s definitely something we have in common. It’s okay. We can’t change what is.”
       They ate their energy bars in silence for a few minutes. Ramira took a couple of swallows of Mountain Dew and handed the bottle to Zaac.
       Sensing the awkward moment was past, he took a swig and said, “This is good.”
       “I know. I shouldn’t, but I often drink it for breakfast instead of juice.” She giggled.
       After finishing the Mountain Dew, Zaac threw one last page on the fire. Standing up, he asked, “You ready to go? Let’s see if we can find a way out of here.”
       “I guess I’m