In A Hotel Room In Kansas City

Ugh. We ate at some diner - big, greasy burgers and fries that take as much of your life as cigarettes. Gloriously unhealthy, but I am so stuffed I'm pretty sure that beef is going to start filling my sinuses. We're all back at the hotel, reading or checking up on their loved ones over Facebook and the like. There's something soothing about getting lost in a TVTropes binge or spending an irreverent few hours on Tumblr.

That said, almost as unnerving as the presence of our assailant is the absence. We've all spent months, if not years, with the constant paranoia of attack, and yet nothing whets that paranoia's edge like...nothing. We're surrounded by an epicentre of his activity, and yet there's not a trace of the tension in the air. It's like we've been out in a vicious storm, gale-force winds pushing us this way and that, and suddenly the storm subsides and we're no longer moved by some invisible force. It's calm.

We're prepared to uproot if needs be, but if this is the end...

Everyone's feeling it. They're mellowing, opening back up. Rachel seems more vivacious, more animated. She'd retreated so far inside herself after all that death that to see her re-emerge...it's good to have her back. Shannon and Roland have gotten easier-going as well, cracking jokes and having a much more carefree attitude about them. Natalie's still coping the best of all of us - I've never seen her so optimistic. Exactly what she thinks has happened to deter the aggressor, she has yet to share, but she seems halfway convinced that, as we are now, we aren't under threat.

I'm the most restless one of the lot of us. Whenever things get better, they always come back worse than ever. That's what's happened so far. Every day, I practice with my knife a little more. I'm planning on practising with the guns Roland has on order. I don't trust this lull.

Rule 1. It's never over. There's always another nightfall coming. Always.

Right?