The stairwell was a grave. We were being buried alive. I screamed again.

Pressure cinched my hand, a sharp squeeze. “Don’t yell.” The directive was Arie’s. Slivers of light through tangled limbs shifted across his face, his frightened gaze locked on mine. “Breathe. Just breathe,” he urged, as if commanding us both.

Calm. We needed to be calm.

I attempted to nod, constrained by the snarl of arms and legs. The encompassing heat intensified. I heard nails scraping walls, clawing to escape. The weight upon me grew. More whimpers below. More bodies above, binding me from all movement—except for my heart. It thundered in my chest, unyielding as a fist, while I fought to level my breaths.

Inhale, two-three-four. Exhale, two-three-four.

Through the sounds of gasping and howling and crying, chords from a piano faintly played. Not imagined but real. The girl onstage—how could she not know what was happening?

Plinking notes ricocheted in my head with snapshots of colors. I blinked hard, and the kaleidoscope narrowed to floating specks, like dots left from staring at the sun. Like snowflakes drifting at night.

My mittens? What happened to my mittens?

Inhale, two-three-four. Exhale, two-three-four. The bodies around us were waves, fluctuating, deepening. The tide threatened to drown us all. My fingers quaked around Arie’s. I found his eyes once again and recalled what brought us to this.

A fire. At any moment, smoke and flames were sure to come. My solitary comfort: I wasn’t alone.

As the minutes stretched and thinned, the sea eerily quieted. Gales of the storm were passing, at least in my mind. Moans were dwindling and screams muffling. Still the infant bawled. It paused only to choke on tears, and I lost myself in the rhythm. Waaaaaail, sputter, sputter. Waaaaaail, sputter, sputter. I could taste the tang of sweat, smell the stench of despair.

Finally, from somewhere above, came a deep shout: “Hold on, everyone! We’re getting you out!”

Arie pumped my hand, a signal of hope. We’re going to be okay. The assurance looped within me, round and round, as rescuers peeled away the layers of lifeless debris from a senseless squall.

Quite literally and horridly senseless.

For as we’d all learn in the hours and days to follow, there was more than one way to exit the building.

More maddening yet, there had never been a fire.

Chapter 9

Clearing the stairwell took close to two hours. This was the account I later heard. A genuine surprise, as I would have estimated double. I suppose when you’re on the brink of being smothered, trapped by a hundred bodies stacked the height of a grown man, your sense of time can expand in remarkable ways.