Shoko stared at Tommy as he bent over the ragged pile of wood. It was strange to see the logs splayed out across metal as they were. It was even more strange to look beyond him and see the gaping doorway. They had tried to get it shut again, but that quickly proved useless. Even if they reattached the door, Tommy had said that there was something wrong with the electronics. That meant that there would be no temperature controls, and that many of the other electrical functions would begin to fail. The refrigeration seemed almost stable, but Shoko didn't know if they could be trusted. If those went, they would have no food, or at least none that could last.
Tommy struggled with the wood and the sparks. They had been shown a thousand times just how to start a fire, but somehow it had become a daunting task with the previous night's events. Everyone was hurt and shaking, inside if not out. Shoko had tried to get it started, and Peepers too, but no one seemed able to. Still, Tommy continued to fumble with the feeble sparks and cinders. As always, he seemed either unwilling or unable to give up.
Though it was barely dark, cold air had already begun to sink down into their silvery lair. For once, the air above was not hot and dry. Shoko would have laughed if not for the terrible circumstances. Everyone seemed between laughter and tears, or else hammered on grimaces. They each had their own place on that spectrum.
Sam sat in the corner, leaning back against the cool metal. She was staring, though not at anything in particular. The girl had been strong before, but that had faded quickly as reality dawned. That realization had quickly turned to horror and from there to stark, stunned silence.
Somewhere else, James was with the littler ones. He was trying to speak with them, or do anything at all to keep them from the violent sobs which always seemed imminent. However, he was not without his own reaction to the events and could not muster any enthusiasm into the display. Every word was weakly monotonous, always betraying his own uncertainty. The children were not impressed, and began to cry, one at a time. Soon that nerve-wracking noise filled the air and filed its way into Shoko's head. Her heart sank with each repetition of that downtrodden sound.
Through the noise, Shoko heard Jessie whisper, "I'm scared…"
Peepers who was sitting down beside her said with an obviously false front of assurance, "We're going to be okay. We will."
The forced words seemed to comfort her, but then Shoko realized that they hadn't at all. Jessie had wanted comforting words and had wanted to be relaxed at their sound, but that too was a front. She was as terrified as always, and Peepers was still mired in his uncertainty.
In the center of the room, Tommy continued his work with the strips of firewood. For a moment there was flame, small and flickering, but a chance circulation of air dashed it out. Tommy sat crouched, staring at the tragedy before him. A minute area of scorch dotted the wood, but no more.
Sighing with a wordless voice like an old man, he returned to the task.
"We don't have much food…" Linda, the already thin girl, asked worriedly, "Do we?"
"I don't know," Meg muttered in answer, "I don't know."
She was too tired to be comforting. Linda stared at her, then at Tommy, then out the maimed door and into the endless stairwell. It was all different now, and they all knew it. Nothing could ever be like before. Never again would they know safety, or comfort, or sunshine, or happiness, or anything good. All those had gone with the deaths and with the door and departed with the multitude of other children.
From now on it was a different, colder world.
Surely they would find a way to manage this life. Every one of them had come from a place of hardship. That was what they had done before, manage. They would survive. They would take care of themselves and they would take care of each other and they would face tomorrow with whatever it held.
All that would come later, or not at all. All that Shoko knew, that any of them knew, was one fact: they were lost. The old world was lost and the new world a cruel mystery. This present was grey and it was slow and it was heavy. This was the loss and the summation of all they'd lost.
Cold and crippled, they sat in the broken anteroom, the haunted dream of an idyllic past. That was gone, so wholly and irreversibly gone as to be etched in that metal of forever. There was nothing more concrete than the walls of this place and those all held the tellings of the past night. There was blood to stain and pit the metal, and ash worked into the very fibers. The wall were bent and disturbed.
Everyone in that room was bent, and everyone in that room was disturbed, and they all knew too well the irreversible nature of these disruptions.
There was no road back, and no apparent road forward.
And so they sat and they stared and they cried. Tommy struggled with the fire and Shoko watched them all, trying the mask her despair with theirs. High above, the cool air conjured clouds which in turn brought down rain. The parched plateau was finally watered, and this watering served only to drive home the loss of that old, dry world. The wandering children were soaked, and every bit as lost. Though most changed their minds with the first drop, none ever found their way back to the Dojo.
Even to those who never left, that place was gone. It had was faded with Mr. B and crippled with Mrs. B and finally killed by the death of Stephen. These silver halls were not home. No familiarity remained, or recognition for the place that had kept them for so long.
It was dead, and those ten were only poor souls who took refuge in the bones.