#lb;

[Lumen]: Oh jesus. If you need anything, let me know. Michael and I can bring food if you need it

[Lumen]: Er. I can ask Michael to cook probably and /I/ can bring you food. Idk about finding a job. I’m here if you need anything.

[Nadia]: Thank you. I'm good on food. Steven probably wouldn't object though.

Day one wasn’t so bad. Nadia assumed the power would be back on soon. Twelve hours later, it wasn’t. Then twenty-four. Then it was Sunday, when she normally would have been taking the bus to New Jersey to drop off Alma.

Then Monday, and Alma wasn’t the only one getting scared. She didn’t know if the shelter would be open, so she went to work anyway, her niece in tow. As it turned out, people didn’t stop abandoning animals when the power went out; they just stopped adopting and donating. By the end of the day, they were out of sterile equipment and low on medication, and there was little for her to do.

Come Tuesday, her composure was a façade. Emotions were pushed down to let logic and strategy rise up in its place. Alma took her cues from that, and stifled any tears she wanted to cry. She remembered a life without electricity, hiding out and always moving to stay safe. Crying and complaining didn’t help---it only irritated others, chasing off Vanessa and making Jacen sad and angry.

The pair was somber, taking a walk before it got dark and they would be cooped up inside until dawn. Nadia knew Alma wouldn’t sleep well regardless of how much sugar she consumed, so the young girl held a cup of cocoa in one hand, and held Nadia’s with the other.

Nadia’s arms prickled with the sense that she was being stalked. Scanning her darkening surroundings, she spotted a man with a sickly green pallor, postured low to the ground. For a moment she thought he was a homeless man, bent over from some sort of illness or disability, and then she saw him lick his lips with an abnormally long tongue. She knew then that he was a mutant, and moreover, a Morlock---Mortimer Toynbee, the Toad.

Nadia rolled up her sleeves, ignoring the cold. Her mutation offered more protection than any jacket could, and she made that clear by forming spikes along her forearms and her right hand, leaving the one holding Alma’s little hand smooth.

Before she could see if her message was received, she heard another set of footsteps and tensed just enough to alert Alma, who spilled a bit of her hot chocolate and pouted.