Paul ran away from the pile, craning his neck to look up at the mountain as he got farther away. Though full of cracks and missing pieces, the building wasn’t shaking or falling apart anymore. The ground wasn’t trembling. The air had grown still and silent, the dust already settling to the ground.

“Sofia did it,” Mothball said, waving Paul back over to help. “Come on, gotta clear this pile. Gotta find ’er and Master Tick.”

Encouraged for the first time in awhile, Paul sprinted back and started sorting through the rubble with renewed vigor, knowing his hurt arm would be some kind of sore tomorrow. Piece after piece, chunk after chunk, the Realitants worked together until a shaft of light escaped from within. They’d found a way through.

“We did it!” Paul shouted, grabbing more pieces. Soon they had a hole big enough for them to enter the damaged building.

Mothball went first, then Sally, then Paul and the other Realitants. They regrouped inside, sweeping their weapons back and forth in case of an attack. There wasn’t a sign of anyone or anything dangerous, only dust and debris.

“Come on, let’s—” Paul started to say, then stopped when he saw movement up ahead in the hallway. He couldn’t make it out at first—it looked like an injured animal crawling along, slide-and-stop, slide-and-stop.

But then the dust settled and the figures came into the light. Everything became clear.

It was Sofia, her back to them, dragging Tick’s battered body down the broken hallway.

~

Somehow, Jane finally quit screaming.

She lay on the floor, her mind trying to shut down in order to avoid the sheer agony of her pain. It filled every inch of her, every organ, every cell, every molecule. Her nerves bristled with it. The slightest movement of her ragged breathing sent fresh pinpricks shooting across her skin, through her skin, into her blood and muscles and bone. She hurt, she ached, she stung. The pain consumed her. The only thing that kept her from weeping was the promise of even more pain.

I tried to help him, she thought. I was only trying to help him. How? How could he have done this to me?

Her eyes had been closed for a long time, the prospect of seeing the damage to her body too horrific. But finally, she allowed her eyelids to slide up. The movement sent a new wave of agony across her face and through her head, as if needles had pierced her skull. But she kept her eyes open.

She did not, however, have the courage to move anything else. She saw only what she could from her current position, crumpled like a rag doll. But it was enough to let her know her life was over.