Since Azad was resting on the sofa, I made my way over to a corner nook of the den and laid down on the soft ground; it was mostly soil with sparse bits of foliage peeking from underneath the adjacent wood panel wall.

  After tossing and turning for a few minutes I drifted off into a deep sleep.

  Much later, just when I thought I had suffered plenty, I was lucid enough to detect the oily smell of fast food.

  The sloshing sound of ice cubes inside a paper cup entered my lucid dream.

  "B?" said a familiar voice, "C'mon, get up."

  My eyes didn't want to open. As much as it was awful to smell fast food in my dream, I also didn't want to wake up. But someone had other ideas because I felt a hand digging into my armpit.

  I forced myself upright, my bleary eyes struggling to open.

  Xandra was crouched in front of me holding a Big Burger fast food bag in one hand, and a large soft drink cup with a plastic lid and a straw in the other.

  "Hungry?" she said.

  "No way," I said, in sleepy disbelief, "You got Big Burger?"

  Xandra smiled, "Yeah," she said, "It's still warm so hurry up before it gets cold."

  I rose from the soil, with lots of it falling off me, and moved over to a small plastic table nearby which was about the size a child might use.

  Xandra set the Big Burger bag and the drink on the table.

  "What's left is yours," she said.

  She had moved over to the sofa and was sitting on the arm. Behind her, Azad, awake and sat upright, was devouring a triple-cheese-burger, along with his own box of large fries and a large soda nestled between his knee and the sofa cushion. He ate like he hadn't eaten in weeks, scoffing his food down.

  I was about to open the Big Burger bag but then stopped myself.

  "Aren't you going to eat?" I said to Xandra.

  "I've already had mine," she said, "I was starving so I ate mine right away."

  There was a pause. The question of how she had come to get the food hung in the air.

  The moment passed and I opened up the bag. Inside was a quarter-pounder cheeseburger, and a large box of fries, and numerous little packets of ketchup.

  It was enough to make me cry. I didn't, but I almost wished I could have cried on demand because of the sheer joy seeing the food in front of me brought.

  I reached for the burger and bit into it.

  For a single, horrible moment, I remembered the taste of human blood on my tongue. All at once I lost my appetite.

  I set the burger down, wondering if I might throw up.

  "B?" said Xandra, concerned.

  She sat down next to me.

  My appetite returned, the hunger was too much to go away so easily, and I forced myself to think only on how good the burger tasted. The ketchup, the chopped onions, even the little gherkin slice which I often took out and threw away growing up, but had come to enjoy more as an adult. I used my right hand to do most of the eating, since I hadn't yet regrown the fingers on my left. I had almost forgotten to do so, until I tried picking up some fries only to find my skin-mitten-hand not up to the task. The same arm still had the bandage from where I had cut myself on the thorns earlier.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  "What time is it?" I asked.

  "About seven PM," said Xandra.

  "Oh wow," I said.

  I stuffed the last of the gloriously salty, thin-style fries into my mouth. I then followed it up with several big sips of coca cola. It was still fizzy. Amazing!

  "Did everything go okay?" I said, a little bit later.

  I tried to keep my tone casual.

  "Oh yeah," said Xandra, "I only got food, since that seemed to be the priority. First I got a basket from the back of one of those supermarket vans. It's got someone's week worth of shopping in it."

  Xandra pointed to a plastic blue basket filled with all sorts of supermarket groceries.

  "How'd you get it?" said Azad.

  He still looked rough, but he moved much better, setting himself down opposite me at the table.

  "You've got something there," said Xandra.

  She rubbed the corner of her mouth to show Azad where the mayo glob was in the corner of his.

  He licked it off.

  "Did I get it?" he said.

  Xandra nodded, smiling a little.

  "Thanks," said Azad.

  "At first I was going to go to the supermarket in the town that's a few miles from here," said Xandra, "But it was broad daylight and I figured they would probably have decent security to prevent me just going in and stealing some stuff like that. So when I was looking around outside I spotted one of their delivery vans. You know the ones where you can make an order online? They're kind-a new."

  "Uh-huh," said Azad.

  He sat with his legs crossed and hunched forward a little. He seemed to be focused on Xandra's every word.

  "So I followed the delivery van around town for a half hour," said Xandra, "And when the driver went into one of the houses to make a delivery, I just took a random basket from the back."

  "Did you have to rip the backdoor open?" I said.

  "Nope," said Xandra, "He just left it open whilst he went into the house. It was super easy. Probably won't be so easy in the future if other mice on the run get the same idea."

  "And what about the Big Burger?" said Azad.

  I noticed he talked in a sort of gruff voice, somewhat breathy and deep.

  "I saw a bunch of guys our age hanging out, outside a Big Burger," said Xandra.

  Xandra looked from Azad and over to me.

  "You know what I did, B?" she said.

  "You stole it from them?" I said.

  "Nope," said Xandra, "You'd be proud of me. I walked up to them – after hiding the other food I stole – and I just asked them for their food. I think they took pity on me because I look like a hobo right now."

  Xandra lent back and stretched out her legs, showing her jeans that were cut off below the knee and her dirty feet.

  "That," she said, "Or they thought I might blow up on the spot if they didn't hand the food over."

  I nodded. I felt guilty and something of a hypocrite. I had started out adamant not to steal anything, but I had been painfully naive about the reality of our situation. It wasn't as if we could just go buy food in a store anymore. What other choice did we have but to steal?

  "Xandra?" I said.

  "Yeah?" said Xandra.

  She seemed to catch onto the change in my tone.

  "I just wanted to say sorry," I said, "I didn't realise how hard it would be to be on the run like this. I think I judged you a bit harshly."

  "Yeah," said Xandra, grinning.

  She jabbed me playfully on the shoulder, "You were so high up on your high horse!"

  She laughed, and I couldn't help but laugh too.

  "Stealing isn't good," said Azad, "But we've got to do what we've got to do to survive."

  "Are you doing okay?" said Xandra, "I was starting to think you weren't going to be…"

  "I'm good," said Azad, "Now I've eaten I'm going to heal a lot faster. Though I'm still hungry…"

  Azad looked over his shoulder to the blue basket.

  "Can I?" he said.

  "Help yourself," said Xandra, "There's a ton of stuff in there. Maybe eat the stuff that's meant to be in the fridge first, since it'll go off sooner."

  Azad grunted an affirmative and shuffled on all fours over to the basket. He started going through what was inside. It was amazing to see how good he was faring even after a day's rest.

  The hair in the back of his head had grown back.

  "Didn't someone with you steal a chicken?" I said.

  Azad stopped rifling through the blue basket and turned back to me.

  "You know about the chicken?" he said, amused.

  "Yeah," I said, "I met Donald and Sienna."

  Azad looked confused for a moment.

  "You mean the old people?" he said.

  "Yeah," I said.

  "Oh. Yeah," he said, "They were nice."

  Azad retrieved a large bag of tortilla crisps with a victorious flourish. He then made his way back to the table, opened up the bag, and, without any hesitation, poured the contents of the bag onto the table. Not exactly fridge food, I thought, not that it really mattered.

  Xandra and I hesitated a moment, but then saw to taking handfuls of the tortilla crisps and stuffing them into our mouths.

  "That was my brother, ," said Azad, with his mouth full, "He stole the chicken."

  My stomach tightened. Obviously his brother wasn't around. Or maybe he was?

  "Is he okay?" I said.

  "Yeah," said Azad, still chewing, "He handed himself in."