Matt fell against the bars of his cell, overtaken by the sense of pain and grief in his body.
What happened to Elise!: The only thought that passed through his head the entire time he rotted away in his cell. Every night he would play it back in his head. Every night he thought about what he could have done differently to have avoided this; this horrible, excruciating result.

It started when Thomas went out on a food run. They had just gotten to Salt Lake City, and were drained of their resources; thanks to Elise's "wise" thinking of bringing more medical supplies than food. Matt remembered in detail how Tomas had snuck out of the 2 bedroom apartment, and walked around the block once to check for anyone who might have already found them. Then he was supposed to walk towards the common convenience store in crowds, but ended up isolated, due to the lack of population that night. If Thomas had entered the store just 10 seconds later, or if he had risked just the smallest glance around the store, maybe, maybe he wouldn't have been shot. But of course, like he normally did, he just went straight in, determined to snatch a nice box of Twinkies for the group. Matt specifically remembered how he had seen the two men in flannel shirts and blue jeans through the hidden camera in Tomas' shirt collar. Matt could still hear the ear piercing scream that left Elise's mouth as the small muzzle flash illuminated from the man on the right's hand. Even as the camera view crumbled to the ground, Elise didn't stop screaming. She just screamed and screamed, and screamed, until the sound was engraved in the brain of anyone within a 10 meter perimeter of her.

That's when we started rushing. Elise packed the medical supplies, and the few cans of food we had, while I stuffed our clothes back into the two small duffel bags laying by the practically untouched beds. In three minutes, we were running down the stairs of the apartment complex, intend on finding a new location to go incognito, if they could. after 10 minutes of relentless shadow crawling, and following back alleys, they arrived at a train station. It was small, and not clearly distinguishable from the scattered buildings surrounding it, other than the four tracks leading out of either side. Matt could fairly remember how he nudged Elise inside, and into a well surrounded corner, but not as clearly as he wanted to, because sure enough, he hadn't been paying attention to the people in the station, just the station itself, and in a matter of seconds, pairs of flannel shirts and blue jeans began to inch their way towards the duet. In half of a second Matt had realized what was going on, but it was too late. He was able to avoid being shot, but at the expense of being separated from Elise. Eventually, the flannel men resorted to brute force, and got Matt, which ended him up in here, a stinky, cold, damp, cell block. The only thing that was missing was sound, because, from what Matt could tell, there wasn't another soul within earshot.

Maybe not within his world. His reality.