I didn't understand what I was hearing. I didn't understand even as the great pillar of granite above me started tilting, stone crumbling and rocks starting to cascade down. Years of rock climbing instincts made me press myself against the face of the cliff as chunks of granite came thundering down, even while my thinking mind froze, uncomprehending.

My hand clenched around the rope, sweat breaking out over my whole body as I watched the gendarme collapse to the left of me. The roaring cacophony of the tortured stone almost drowned out the sound of James screaming. I watched it like a movie in slow motion, unable to do anything but stare.

All those tons of granite fell, picking up speed, and James fell with them. His gear, set perfectly in the deep crack he'd followed, caught the rope, and I was no match for the mountain. The slack of the rope whipped taut and I couldn't let go fast enough, the force of it ripping the skin off my right palm and slamming my hand up into the belay device. The dead rope sang with hissing anger through the metal; the jerk of that immense weight against me, even with the rope being pulled through my gear, ripped two of my three anchors out of the rock wall, and then the belay device off my harness.

They struck me as they whipped by, cracking across my face, my abs, my left arm. Stones pelted me and I swung through the air, hard, slamming into the rock wall and cracking my helmet against the granite face. I ricocheted, unable to stop the motion, dangling by one small piece of gear. Blood ran down my face and off my hand and from a long gash across my stomach.

The stone smashed into the ground hundreds of feet below me, everything sounding far away. Something whined like a mosquito near my ear.

No. Screaming. That was screaming. James was screaming, James was—was—

It was me. I was the one screaming, as the last stones slid down and clattered onto the ground. I was screaming, oh, God, I was screaming and I couldn't stop, as the wail of agony tore at my throat and as tears poured down my face and blood dripped down my numb fingers.

"James! James! Jaaaames!"

More rocks broke loose above me. A fist-sized one smacked into my helmet, snapping me out of the blind grief and horror with the ringing pain. I hung there, panting, tears dripping off my chin and my throat closing with grief and agony.