Sometime while listening to Mattie's voice, Nicholas found himself [i]cuddling[/i] the jacket she'd lain over him. Now that she was finished speaking, he became even more aware that he was doing this and carefully folded the garment over once before setting it beside himself. For a while, he thought about Mattie's story. He had some questions - how many had died because of her mistake? How in the world, like she mused, had she survived in that type of mess? How did she dispose of the bodies? How long had it been since she did so?

These questions were on his mind, but never voiced. Instead, he rolled back over and tried to see her through the dark without success. Alissa had stopped whimpering and there was no sounds of movement - was she breathing?

Not knowing what he could have said to comfort Mattie anyway, he asked, "Can you check on Alissa? She's right behind you."