Sam saw his lips move. But she couldn’t hear a word the boy said. The explosions were too deafening.

Sam’s ears rang from the noise. Startled, she tried to turn in her seat, locate the source of the blasts, but the harness was too tight. The boy tilted his head forward, hands over his ears, eyes closed. Clouds of smoke and grit began to fill the tunnel. He coughed softly.

Could this be the ride? Sam wondered. It didn’t seem right. She pulled the top of her shirt over her mouth to keep out the smoke. Sam recalled the sky, how it had shimmered strangely just before they entered the warehouse. Her feeling of being watched from above. Then came another explosion, louder than before. A jagged crack formed on the ceiling. Large chunks of rock and granite crashed behind them.

Sam yanked fiercely at her harness, pulling an arm through and twisting herself around. She saw that they were cut off from the rest of the passenger cars. Separated by an avalanche of rock. She heard screams, muffled from behind the fallen rocks. They were the screams of frightened and desperate children, who might be injured, bleeding, buried alive.

“Something has gone wrong. This should not be happening,” the boy said. He clutched at Sam’s hand. His fear charged through Sam’s body like an electric current. “Those kids back there…”

He dared not finish the sentence.

Sam knew he was right.

Something had gone terribly wrong.

And the car rolled on through the smoke-filled dark.

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