As her eyes readjusted to the darkness Chloe felt the trembling begin to subside. Suddenly she could hear nothing but the sound of her rasping breath, and then the roof overhead groaned, tiles loosened by the tremor, only the aged wooden beams holding them up. Ignoring the danger, she reached the hall and peered into the darkness. Approaching the first of the bedchambers, her own, Chloe’s stomach lurched when she saw the damage ahead.

The ceiling at the back of the villa, where the bedchambers were located, had fallen in.

The area was now open to the sky. To her immediate left and right was solid wall, but going further into her own bedchamber revealed a ruinous mess. Clambering over the rubble, Chloe pushed her way past, heading deeper into the section where what had once been a ceiling lay in piles on the floor.

‘Sophia!’

Chloe coughed, the air thick with dust. She could see that past the bedchambers the rest of the villa appeared to be mostly intact; it was only this area where the solid walls now held up nothing but themselves. She prayed she would find her sister unharmed. But when she finally reached Sophia’s doorway and looked inside the blood drained from her face.

She couldn’t believe that a moment ago she had paused in this same place to speak to her sister. The interior was now filled with stones, broken beams, and baked clay tiles. The cloud of dust was so thick that the light shining from the night sky overhead showed particles swirling and swimming like sea creatures.

She continued calling her sister’s name and then, unbelievably, impossibly, she heard a thin voice wailing from under the pile.

‘Sophia?’

Following the voice, Chloe threw herself at the tiles, scrabbling at the debris and tossing rubble to one side in frantic haste. She picked up a rectangular stone and lifted it with all her strength, then cast it away before grabbing another, tearing her fingernails in the process. She worked in a frenzy, her teeth gritted and every movement focused on freeing her sister.

Chloe knew that if another tremor came, whatever was keeping her sister alive, holding her safe from the weight above, would shift . . . and Sophia would die.

Time passed, stretching into endless labored breaths as Chloe wheezed and gasped. She choked on the dust. Her heart hammered in her chest. She prayed to the gods that the last of the quake was past.

She didn’t know how long she fought against time and the prospect of another tremor before she saw a patch of pale skin and then a slender leg. With renewed vigor she lifted still more tiles and carried away the heavy stones, fighting the burning fatigue in her back and shoulders.