As Mattie trudged along beside Nick, she found her mind wandering. This was always a bad thing, but the more she tried to pull her thoughts back to the present, the farther they went. For some reason she was frustrated: it was as if this had all happened before. As if she'd just sat through a mediocre movie, and then to her distaste it rewinded and started to play again. Except she couldn't get up and leave. She couldn't even ask for some popcorn. 

Things were a blur right now. She tried to sort out her thoughts, but the idea that she was in a rerun wasn't quite graspable and it always escaped just as she almost had a hold on it. That combined with the memories of her weird fever dreams, and her desperate efforts to prevent the cholera outbreak, and just plain loneliness, made it all even more confusing. One foot after another. She walked on auto-pilot. 

Mattie glanced at her newfound companion. He was clutching his chest. A chill of alarm seeped through her bones. He wasn't sick, was he? She stepped away at the thought. Perhaps he was just unfit. Unfit in a zombie apocalypse. That would not do for either of them. 

"Are you okay? Do you need––water?"