Inside the cave, Amy and her family had been safe from the hailstones. But one of the first meteorites struck the side of the hill in which they lived, and caused a cave-in near the opening of the tunnel. There was still room for air to get through, but the family laboured for three days to shift enough rock to make room for them to exit the tunnel one at a time. They left most of the debris there, seeing it as yet another deterrent to intruders. The path in and out involved a bit of climbing over smaller rocks and weaving around some of the larger ones, but everyone soon learned to negotiate this course easily in the dark. Amy had the most difficulty because of her age, but she preferred the discomfort, if it made their location more secure.
The forest itself was a mess, with fallen trees everywhere, and most of the vegetation burned away, so that people moving on the road through the forest could be just made out from the hill as they walked along it. Fortunately tourism was virtually non-existent now, and the only people coming to the forest were poor villagers in search of firewood. But the family still had to stay inside the cave much of the time, and do their harvesting under cover of darkness until the trees grew new leaves.
Much of the animal life in the forest had been killed, and that included leopards. But the danger of attack at night was still very real, and they prayed constantly when gathering food. It seemed that they had miraculous protection, because in all of their time in the forest, both before and after the fires, no one was attacked.
*
Meanwhile, Moses was fighting his own battle for survival. "I have no 1 2 talk 2," he wrote in a text to Ray. "Amy + Rosy r gone, + now I can't even talk 2 GD."
Ray knew about Jiddy's disgusting addiction to violence. Moses felt safe opening up and expressing his anger about the sacrifices to Ray without fear of being betrayed. Maybe it was the distance between them geographically, but it seemed like Ray shared his feeling, even he was more careful about expressing it. "It's not EZ, I no," Ray wrote back. "But friendships r like that. No 1 can b there all the time. Sooner or later, every 1 will let u down." Was Ray admitting that he didn't care either? Moses knew that if Amy had been there, she would have at least given him a hug, and a hug was what he needed at the moment. Even Kyme would have known that, but Kyme was gone too now. "U need inner strength, Mo," Ray continued. "Something 2 carry u thru when others fail. Do you pray?"
Moses ignored the question when he replied: "I'm getting stronger. What doesn't kill me will make me stronger, right?" And he added a winking smiley at the end of the message before typing in, "Gotta go." In his heart, however, he felt that he had done his best to send out a plea to Ray for help, and the plea had gone unnoticed.