He blinked vaguely and twitched one hand, moved his lips as though to speak, but the word came out as an unintelligible mumble. I grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him down, headfirst, through the half-meter hole in the floor. It was harder than I expected to push him against the flow of air, but I was able to maneuver him far enough to make room for me to follow.

The air coursed around me like a strong wind as I tugged myself into the hole and pushed Malachi’s legs aside. He groaned and said my name, and my heart stuttered with relief to hear it. I fumbled for the crank again, turned it closed as frantically as I had opened it, blocking the light but also the air rushing out. The hiss grew to a higher pitch when there was only a sliver of light left, and I turned the crank the last few rotations.

And it was quiet, and it was dark.

I let go of the crank, fumbled in the dark for one of the handholds.

“Zahra?” Malachi said. His voice was still slurring, weak, and he coughed on the exhale. “I don’t want to, um, alarm you. But I can’t see.”

I couldn’t help myself: I laughed. It hurt, laughing as my lungs filled again with air, as oxygen flowed through my blood, and the feeling of clammy cold returned to my skin, with the pain in my hand and the bitter metallic taste of every breath. The air was stale.

“Zahra?” Malachi said again.

“Yeah,” I said. “I can’t see either. There’s no light.”

“There’s—oh, shit.” A clank as something hit metal with a dull thunk. I hoped it wasn’t his head. “We’re in the maintenance tunnels?”

“I guess so,” I said. “I don’t suppose you know how to get us out?”

“Uh,” he said. “Not exactly.”

I started to laugh again, but it turned ragged, rough, and I slammed my mouth shut before it could turn into a sob. I was not going to cry. My head, my heart, every pulse of blood through my veins, they all ached with my failures, and I was not going to cry.

I reached down, down, feeling blindly until I found Malachi’s hand. After a second he squeezed mine in answer. I closed my eyes, and we stayed there, breathing that bitter, precious air, clinging to each other in the darkness.

Fragment