Jan has mixed feelings on seeing Stan awake, partly down to guilt that two women had died under his watch and he'd all but given up on Stan as well. There was relief that Stan was alive and well which tempered the negativity."Good to see you finally up and about, Stan. I'm Jan. You had me really worried for a while there. How are you feeling?? Let me look you over once I've done this..."

He wanted to check Stan over, but first he knew he needed to remove his snow covered outer garments and sodden footwear and socks to allow them to dry off by the fire.

Drying his feet with a top that was too small for anyone, he quickly checked his own feet for untoward signs before putting fresh, dry socks on to keep his feet warm.

Then he asked to look at both Stan and Bob to check them out and make sure their injuries were healing and not infected, and that the cold hadn't taken hold during their enforced sleep.

Jan checked the two men over.  Stan had some obvious frostbite on his toes, but he could still move them.  The head wound swelling had gone down as well.

Bob's feet and hands were fine.  His abdomen seemed to be healing, but it could be hiding some internal injury just lurking under the surface.

"Bob told me about the break room," Stan said.  "You don't know what it's for at all?"

"It's a mystery," Kirsti replied to Stan.  "I'm Kirsti, by the way.

"So far, we haven't found any clues as to who built it, why it's there, or why they seemed to have left in a hurry.

"It's just a nice break room in the middle of nowhere with an elevator that has no power."

She shrugged, at a loss to improve the description.

"Let me grab some clean snow and we'll get some hot water going," Alison said, taking up both of the coffee pots to fill outside.

"How are we doing on wood?"

"We do need more wood," Bob said apologetically.  "I didn't want to go out while you were gone in case I pulled something and started bleeding again.  And we really don't have enough warm clothes for everyone.

"Sorry."

"I'm worry about this abdominal injury," Jan says to Bob. "On a scale of one to ten, how much pain is it causing?? And can you describe the nature of the pain?? For example does it feel sharp, a dull ache or hot??"

He was used to emergency first aid, not tending long-term to the injured and was only following the logical process to identify infection. When the next dressing was due to be applied, he would investigate further and see whether there was any sign of blood poisoning or infection. For now this would have to be enough.

"There aren't enough clothes, but if the two of you keep the blankets on that should keep out the worst of it, and once we gather more wood we could increase the size of the fire. And Stan, you've only had water while you've been unconscious. Some warm food inside you and a decent drink will help warm you up as well, will it for all of us.

If someone wants to gather more wood, I'll see about getting some extra clothes and drying them off tonight." The thought of scavenging clothing off the dead did not appeal, even now, but the living mattered more and there was a chance that the clothes they wore would mean the difference between life and death.

"All right," Alison said. "I'll fill these pots and then Kirsti and I can collect up some more wood."

She crawled out with the coffee pots to fill them with clean snow.

Jan is true to his word and spends time gathering extra clothes from the corpses in the front part of the cabin using the improvised padsade to limit cold and water tt.

Of the three frozen passengers, there is only one male.  The only improvement in clothing would be a blazer for Bob.

The blazer is better than nothing, and he removes it from the corpse checking the pockets for any items that could identify the dead man when they finally escaped this freezing hell.

Using some of the larger sticks of wood, even the spears that were made earlier, he'll setup an 'A' frame to lift the blazer off the floor so he can place it close to the fire while keeping it off the floor and allowing the cold water to drip off to help dry the blazer.

"I'll go grab some more wood," Kirsti said as she left to collect more wood.

Alison returned with the snow filled coffee pots and set them near the fire to melt before retracing her steps to help collect wood.

Kirsti and Alison returned with enough wood to last through the next day.  Everyone then had some hot soup and settled in for the night.

As with previous nights, it was uneventful with the occasional wood added to keep the fire going through the night.  They were up early the next morning to discuss their plans over another round of noodle soup.

Wednesday morning, Alison said to herself as she checked her phone in the morning before turning it back off again.  They had a full day before Jan missed his lecture.  Time to get cracking.

She stoked the fire and put the two pots on their makeshift hot plate to heat up.  She'd been working on a song about Ramen and she hummed it as she worked.

"Ramen in the morning,
Ramen in the noontime,
Ramen in the evening, too."

That was as much as she'd put together so far.  Becoming a singer/songwriter was probably not in her future.

At this point, she'd settle for any future.

Jan woke, sore and stiff, to the sound of movement. He pulled the coat as far round him as it would go trying to maintain any semblence of warmth within it. Knowing the task was futile he instead untied the clothing wrapped around his body and performed a check of his own body. Checking for pain response and circulation in each of his extremities and limbs, starting with fingers.

He smiled over at Kirsti as he self-checked, "Coffee, white, two sugars place. I'll head to the store and get some pastries for afterwards." His sense of despair had lifted from the previous day, he knew they had a lot to do today. "Smells good though."

Groaning with stiffness as he stood up, he checked the clothes he had hung to dry to see how they were doing. Finally he checked on his shoes to make sure they were still functional.

"Actually," Kirsti admitted as she pulled on her shirt hat, "they did have tea in the breakroom.  I don't remember seeing any coffee, just the coffee maker.

"Maybe that's why they left. They ran out of coffee."

She found the paper cup she'd been reusing for soup and thought they could use some new ones. This one was getting a little soft. Maybe they had mugs somewhere.

"Can we make bringing coffee back a priority?" Bob asked earnestly.  "And sugar?  Creamer lasts forever, doesn't it?"

"I think they should be focusing on staying safe," Stan admonished the younger man.  "We're all going to get out of this if we take things slow and steady."

"We'll take a closer look for coffee," Alison allowed, "but the elevator is our main priority today.  If we can just figure out where we are, we may be step closer to getting ourselves out of here.

"Or there may be things we can use down there, like better jackets for you guys."

She poured hot water over her cup of noodles and added, "In any case, we should eat up and get on the road."

Jan chuckles. "Am definitely more a coffee man, myself. But under these circumstances I might stretch to a cup of tea..."

He considered Bob's words silently. He'd never thought about it much, if he was honest. He was one of those that had what he had and assumed he always would have it. Till now, he'd never considered whether it was safe to drink old creamer or powdered milk. Or drank ancient coffee or tea for that matter. Tea was a dried plant, did it go off?? Coffee was ground from beans. Did that count as processing?? Processed food, didn't that last longer than natural, unprocessed??

He supposed a lot of things would need to be considered. Like catching animals. If they could catch them, how do you skin and prepare them?? How do you preserve them?? He knew that salt used to be used, but they didn't have any salt. They could use the frozen snow to preserve meat, but wouldn't that attract scavengers.

"Yes," he agreed with Alison, "we have a lot to look at today, and see what potential this break house has for us."

Bob and Stan wish you good luck and you set off once more for the trail with snow shoes and pointy sticks.  It's not snowing today, but the wind seemed to have picked up a little.  It's not too bad in the forest, but it does make a racket in the canopy overhead.

Once again, all previous tracks have been erased along the trail.

"I still don't know why we haven't heard any search planes or helicopters," Kirsti lamented as she turned off and put away her phone. She was definitely timing how long it took them to get to the break room this time.

"Don't they have satellites and things that can see people on the ground by the heat they give off? They have it on TV all the time and our camp fire should be making a nice hot spot through the hole in the ceiling.

"Are they even trying?"

"That is a good question," Alison agreed.  "Even if we were off course, that fire is an obvious stationary heat source in the middle of nowhere.

"That is, if they use that sort of thing to search for lost planes.  Still, it has been awfully quiet."

Perhaps she had grown accustomed to the hustle and bustle of a city, cars, people, construction, but the silence of the forest struck her as just, eerie.

"Bad weather blocking line of sight, cold thermals cooling the air and preventing satellites from spotting us." Jan suggested.

"It's the lack of communication that concerns me. No phone signal, which in its isn't a worry here," he says, "and the pilots moments before the crash. Their radio is more powerful but they couldn't get a response. And what about the black box?? Even small planes have one and it includes a tracking device. They should have reached us by now, or at least we should have seen signs of something..."

They trudged along for nearly two and a half hours, according to Kirsti's calculations, before they came in sight of the partially cleared break room windows and door.

Jan could see a few large glass pane windows previously uncovered and a glass door with plastic covering the upper half.  They seemed to be built into a steep hillside and the trail ended in something like a clearing before the mysterious construction.

Alison and Kirsti noted the snow had already begun to recover their discovery.  Given a few more days of snow, they probably would have disappeared into the snowy hillside once more.

The door was still closed and the plastic bag covering the broken door window intact.  They saw no tracks and had no indication the break room had been visited in their absence.

"Weird, huh?" Kirsti said of their discovery. She plowed through the snow to the door and cleared away the new snow to pull the door open.

"Mystery awaits!" she declared, holding the door open for the others.