By now we were barely staying within the lines of the road. The earth shook beneath us, intermittently left us as we shifted up and on to kerbs. A bright, white light tore towards us at an impossible speed and Heath barely jerked the wheel to miss it. June shrieked.

She was crying now too. ‘Stop!’

‘June –’

‘Sydney, he’s not OK, he’s gonna –’

‘Oh my God, shut up!’ Heath pounded on the brakes, then immediately back on the gas. Screeching of tyres. The sudden stop and start meant the dashboard got closer then too close and my face made contact.

I recoiled, my hand shooting up to the warm, wet spot on my cheekbone. My ears rang. Everything slowed; I rested my head against the cool glass of the window while behind me June said something I couldn’t make out. I watched the rain fall down, a million tiny comets …

The rain. The Styx.

The quicksand.

The quicksand. It was just to the side of the river. And with the rain, the mud would be loose enough to hold the car, easy.

Synapses fired and words and thoughts and phrases all came from nowhere, and I settled.

Beside me, June grabbed at her hair in handfuls. Begged.

June in the driver’s seat. June in a beanie. June at the River Styx. June. June decomposing in the driver’s seat.

Too fast.

‘I don’t want to do this any more, June.’

My mind spiralled. Absolute chaos. The world hurtled past, none of it really making any sense. You don’t understand what it’s like to be in a situation like this until you’re in it, I think. You can watch movies, but there is nothing comparable to a sense of imminent death. Of primal fear. A million years of evolution had led up to this, a million years of searing, primitive fight-or-flight instinct with no way to fight and nowhere to go.

Nowhere to go.

We were halfway down the road.

‘We can’t do this here,’ June said. But her voice was hopeless; she’d realized what I’d realized: there was no way out. June in the back seat. June more frightened than I’d ever seen anyone. June resigned after her options had run out. June without a plan. Did I have a plan?

‘We can’t do this anywhere any more. I’m done, June. I’m done. I’m done. I’m done.’

Heath. Heath in the driver’s seat. Dad. Swerve, smash, gone. Lungs popped like a balloon. Popped like a balloon.

The accelerator whined; we were nearly there now. In ten seconds we’d reach the sign on the left that said RIVER STYX, and two seconds after that we’d be at the drop.

I would not fear death.

Do it. I had to do it.

And once I realized that, an explicable sense of calm fell over me.