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waist.
    “Relax. I’m not trying anything. I’m sorry for how I’ve been
today. I just can’t lose you again.”
    Again? When had he lost me the first time?

Chapter Two
    I wish I could say the next day felt more hopeful, that the birdsong
filling the air awakened a sense of adventure in me, but it didn’t.
I woke up sore and tired and still feeling weak. I was beginning to
wonder if I’d caught some exotic illness out here, a thought made
more terrifying by lack of hospitals.
    Looking out the window of the tower, I wished it was still night so I
couldn’t see outside. Much of the park was overgrown with kudzu,
the aggressive vines winding and twisting through and around many of
the rides and shops.
    It crawled over the concrete, determined to let nothing stop it in
its quest for total park domination. I had my doubts that this would
be a feasible place to stay for another year. Kudzu is like The Blob.
The humidity paired with the kudzu almost guaranteed we were in the
south.
    How did I know that?
    Trevor made eggs for breakfast, collected fresh from the chickens
roosting in the kiddie rides. There was no milk or orange juice, just
water. I had a feeling milk and juice were now rare luxury items as
likely to be acquired as a private jet. On the bright side, there was
some turkey bacon that had survived in the deep freezer.
    “Are you cutting back the kudzu coming our way?” I asked when we
sat down in the kitchen to eat. The vines were the most pressing
thought on my mind.
    Trevor gave me an odd look. “I thought you lost your memory.”
    “What does that have to do with anything?”
    “You were a botanist... before.” Before the world went away. “When we first got here, the kudzu problem was your first concern.”
    And it still was, apparently.
    “Well? Are you? You have to cut that back. Some of those vines are
heading right for the castle and could climb over the wall. If they
grow strongly enough to the top, they could cover the solar panels.
Then we’re fucked even worse.”
    “I’ll take care of it.”
    “You’d better do it fast. That stuff grows a foot a day. In less
than a week it’ll reach the base of the castle. We need the
freezers to keep working. Speaking of which, how long will this stuff
in the freezer last?”
    “Maybe another six to eight months if we’re lucky. Though I’ve
started hunting and freezing local game already, so once this stuff
starts going off, we can just start eating what I’m storing up.”
    I didn’t want to think about being here with him another six to
eight months. I didn’t want to think about living here for another
six to eight days. Even six to eight hours felt awful, like arriving
at a menial job you hated, knowing you were trapped for an untenable
block of time.
    “A-and the canned goods?”
    “Those have about another year on them. The challenge is going to
be getting fruits and vegetables when that runs out. We may have to
survive mainly on meat and eggs. Maybe some berries. At least you
still seem to have your botany knowledge. It’ll keep us from eating
the wrong berries.”
    I had the strange feeling that he was happy some of my knowledge
survived primarily because he didn’t want my amnesia cutting into
his berry foraging. What a prince.
    “We don’t have running water, right?” I asked.
    “That’s right.”
    “So where do we... you know?”
    Trevor chuckled almost as if he were enjoying this. God, was he that
petty that he was still holding some asinine grudge over whatever
we’d been fighting about before I fell and lost my memory?
    “We go outside, princess.”
    “Like a bear?”
    “Yep.”
    That sounded fucking terrible. Of all the shitty things so far, this
whole going to the bathroom outdoors sounded the absolute
worst.
    “You’ll get used to it.”
    Sure I would. Just like I’d get used to his charming company.
    I laughed suddenly at the utter bizarreness of being a plant
specialist but being freaked out by too much of the