What is wrong with me? A strong desire turns me around. I need to see Ruth or Sefina or . . . someone because I don’t want to be alone right now. I reach for my notebook, but my bag is empty and it makes my heart beat faster. Why don’t I have it? I hurry back through the tunnel and down Whittier Street toward the Buckner Building, but today I don’t want to stand in front of that sad place. So I cut through the parking lot by the city offices and head back to BTI. Just as I’m rounding the corner, something catches my eye, and when I turn I see the backside hump of a bear running past the Buckner and into the trees. My eyebrows meet. Food must be scarce if the bears are coming out to eat. Then I see something that stops me. A small figure—a little kid, I’m pretty sure—disappearing behind the building. I hurry up the road. Kids should not go inside that building. It’s dangerous. I should know. Especially now, when the mountain obscures whatever light is offered by the winter sun.

I set a reminder on my phone. Kid in Buckner Building. Tell them to come out. I notice that my battery is low and hurry up the hill, where I stand at the base of the building.

I look up. The building has been dying for decades: rotted flooring, ceilings splayed open like festering wounds. It looms above me, all hollow eyes and mold growing in black strands down the sides. “Hello!” I call.

No answer. My phone buzzes. Kid in Buckner Building. Tell them to come out. “Hey, kid, you can’t be in there. It’s dangerous!” No answer, and I feel a twisting in my gut.

The windows give away nothing but an opaque blackness that hides whatever is inside, and it occurs to me that I have no flashlight except for the one on my phone. My leg muscles tingle, and I feel the emptiness of my hands, my entire being bound to the fickleness of time and memory. From deep inside I hear what I think is a scream, and my heart races. The Buckner was once called the city under one roof. A city. And a kid is somewhere inside amid half-rotted floors and mold and God knows what else.

Another cry, I’m sure of it. My body jerks ahead of my brain, and before I know it I’m climbing through a side door by the freight elevator, where the fence pulls away enough to slip through. Once inside I’m met with an iron coldness that spreads across my back, coats my tongue. Panic races a loop inside me. What am I thinking? I send Ruth a quick text. Followed kid into Buckner. Might need help.