She lowered her head and thought about her parents and sister several blocks away. They’d all be in her room right now, waiting for the sirens to stop wailing. Maya’s bedroom had been designed as the apartment’s safe room, featuring reinforced walls and a blast-proof window. Her family would be safe from shrapnel or nearby blast effects, but a direct hit to the building would likely kill or injure all of them. Slim odds, she told herself.

When the usual cacophony of distant, sharp aerial detonations didn’t materialize, she started to worry. Something wasn’t right. The interceptors would have reached their targets, and the sound of the explosions destroying the enemy rockets would have traveled back to the beach by now. She lifted her head a few inches above the rock to check the sky, catching a distant glimpse of an explosion toward the harbor. Something had gone very wrong with the Iron Dome system. There was no other explanation.

The beach shuddered, a searing flash and earsplitting crunch hitting Maya almost instantly. She pressed her body flat against the sand next to the rock wall, as fragments of glass and steel ripped overhead, peppering the sand behind her and splashing the water. She stayed put after the last concussive boom washed over the promenade, remembering the primary purpose for the deployment of an Iron Dome battery to Haifa: to protect the critical oil refineries and prevent a devastating secondary explosion that could vaporize much of the city.

After a few excruciating minutes listening to the screams and cries up and down the promenade, she got up to help with the wounded. Maya didn’t get very far before coming across a young female soldier tying a tourniquet. Maya knelt next to the unresponsive man’s chest and checked his breathing. She didn’t need to confirm a heartbeat. A thick stream of bright-red blood pumped rhythmically from the mangled stump just below his knee.

“He’s not breathing,” said Maya, immediately beginning chest compressions.

“Keep that up,” said the soldier. “I need to find a pen to twist this tighter. I’ll be right back.”

She kept up the rapid compressions long after the soldier returned to tighten the tourniquet—long after it had become obvious that the man had passed away. The soldier checked his vitals one last time before shaking her head.

“We did everything we could,” said the soldier. “Let’s lend a hand closer to the explosion.”

Maya followed her into the dense black smoke washing over the promenade, catching a glimpse of a thick smoke column rising from the direction of her family’s neighborhood. She stopped and backed up until the column appeared again.

“Over here!” said the soldier, barely visible on the promenade.