I awaken with a start. How much time has passed? A while. Water has completely soaked the carpet. The front of my clothing and right side of my head are drenched. The headache I had before is now pulsing, pounding, and throbbing. I feel dizzy and nauseated; I squeeze my eyes shut against the fluorescent glare. I think I have a concussion. Hopefully there isn’t a brain bleed.

  After resting on the wet floor for a while I determine I must get up. I wiggle all my fingers and toes and test the movement of my arms and legs. The injuries are piling up, but nothing debilitating. I gradually pull myself into a sitting position despite the piercing pain in my skull. There’s a pool of blood around where my head had been resting. So much for keeping the wound clean. I look up at the water gushing down. I was going for a trickle. I take off everything I am wearing and spread them on the counter to dry, then go to stand under the water, letting it wash away the debris from the ceiling and the blood from my hair. It’s freezing and I don’t do a very good job. The cold water makes my headache recede a bit I cannot tolerate it very long before I need to step out again. I drink some water directly from the flow, fill my water bottle, place it on the counter, and then climb up myself. I curl my knees up to my chest and rub my skin to warm up. I survey the room as I sit there with chattering teeth.

  I’ve made quite a mess. A quarter of the drop ceiling tiles and grid supporting them are on the floor or hanging precariously. I’ll have to somehow wall off the bathroom corner of the room to keep that contained and be careful of the corner speckled with broken glass. The lights were independently supported and did not come down with the parts of the drop ceiling that fell around them. One must have been shaken a bit because it is flickering, humming, and buzzing even though these were recently reset. The doors shake and I hear the bear’s huffing, but they are still holding.

  My mind wanders away from my current situation. My parents had rented a beach house for July. Was it July yet? Would they still go with me missing? They should since being home wouldn’t make a difference. My disappearance was recent enough they were probably still hopeful I’d walk in the door or there’d be positive news from the police. They would stay home so they were easy to reach. I think of my sisters. How would they be handling things? My older sister was out of the house and married, but my younger sister was just eight. How much would she understand? I’m crying. I can’t do this now. I pull my thoughts back to trying to survive.

  Having air dried for a while I get dressed in my running clothes and laceless shoes. I carefully peel back the carpet on the side of the room with the broken glass and roll it up all the way across, past the doors, to wall off the bathroom side of the room. The carpet is incredibly heavy with the weight of the water and I have to get down and shove it with my shoulder at multiple points along its length towards the end to continue rolling it.

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  Next, I rip up the carpet padding from where the water is pouring from the sprinkler along a channel to the door and then use more padding and the downed ceiling tiles to direct bank the channel forcing most of the water to flow out the door so the rest of the room won’t be so sodden. I climb back onto the counter to dry again and lay back with my eyes closed. I try to relax my whole body and alleviate the tension in my head. It is aching somewhat less.

  Now that I have water, maybe I can outlast the bear? Both of us are at a caloric deficit. I have the two smoothie bottles and drank one. The bear has whatever nutrition it can gain from long dead corpses, which might even poison it. It probably hasn’t eaten anything else since we arrived. It will now have a nearby source of water so it won’t have to travel back and forth as it waits for me.

  I don’t hear the bear in the next room though the noise of the pouring water would cover most sounds. I climb down, go over to the doors and push one door out and then the other to the limit of the belt and shoelaces so I can see into the next room. The beast isn’t there. It must have left to go out looking for easier prey but unless someone else stumbles into the rooms, there is none. It will be back.

  I’m very hungry, so I take a large drink of the open smoothie and let it settle into my stomach. I take a few more until the hunger subsides. I should ration it, but I’ve gone to long without food to restrain myself.

  I try to tidy the room some more. I move all of the fallen short pieces of metal to under the counter and rip down the longer pieces hanging from the ceiling. This causes more tiles and parts of the grid to fall. I pull everything down I can reach and pile the new metal pieces under the counter as well. I add additional ceiling tiles to my dam around the water falling from the sprinkler. Are these the kinds of ceiling tiles that have asbestos? Hopefully the wetness will keep particles out of the air.

  I go back to the doors and look through the crack. The bear has returned. That bear does not look malnourished. Looking at it makes it clear there’s no outlasting that animal with the supplies I have. It can probably last months without food and if it gets anything from the mummies, even longer. I’m a runner. I did not have that much in terms of fat reserves before I came here, and I’ve hardly eaten in a week or more. I must do something before I start getting too weak. I’ll soon be in no condition to do anything at all.

  The bear starts coming towards me. I back away from the doors in case it charges again. I’m increasingly skeptical about trying to shelter in place until the danger passes. I can’t flee. There is only one option left. I only have one advantage over that creature and I have no choice but to use it.