UPWARDIAnne soon discovered she hadn’t regained as much strength as she thought. Pushing herself up the powdery incline was an awful affair. She fought to cling to the sharply-slanted surface of the mountain while the snow kept giving away beneath her feet. She saw solid ground not far below, but as she climbed, this changed. The ground became more distant and deadly. She kept her eyes in front of her and above, where Ruben climbed ahead.“Take your time,” Ruben had said to Anne before beginning this newest ascent. “Don’t take any chances. We need to take it slow and steady. Just be careful. If you fall behind, I can wait.”True to Ruben’s indication, it hadn’t taken long for Anne to fall behind. Ruben strained to maintain his hold on the mountainside. He knew Anne must be struggling all the more.Anne forced herself upward. Ruben, watching her below, pushed himself to do the same. Throughout the slow, hard climb, distractions peppered their thoughts.Ruben remembered that

INTO DARKNESSIAnne flung her arms out to grab anything she could, but found nothing in the open darkness. She screamed. There was nothing else she could do. When she hit the ground, she would die a quick death at best, or else she would break both of her legs and suffer until she perished.She threw her arms out again and, to her surprise, caught something with one hand, but her descent was too rapid to be halted by this mere action. Her hands ripped free from the rough, rocky surface with a sharp sting.She grabbed out again in that general direction with both hands, and her hands slapped against a solid surface. A wall? An unexpected moment later, her fingers caught onto some indented portion of the surface, almost by accident, but she latched on and fought to better secure the handhold she had gained.Her body swung and her hands slipped away. A new wave of panic hurled through her mind. When her feet hit the ground, her mind was quick, firing a command to her body to ro

INTO WHITEIRuben opened his eyes. He thought he might have heard something. A heavy sleep weighed on him. He struggled feebly to hold it at bay.Who was there? Was it Anne?He drew a slow breath. He waited for Anne to come into view. She never did.Maybe he had only been hearing things, deceiving murmurs of the wind. He had a strange feeling then, a feeling that Anne hadn’t returned coupled with the feeling that he might never see her again.He hoped she was all right. He had no way of knowing.Ruben’s thoughts meandered, and he stared into white.IIThe passing of time was impossible for Anne to gauge in the darkness of the hole. She waited there at its bottom, alone with her thoughts in the surrounding blackness. She could hardly bear it. She had to get out of this place. Anne searched for some sense of direction through the dark pit, and almost lost her footing several times on the bones covering the ground.The flashlight flickered on and off. She shook it until th

DOWNTOWNIOn an outer edge of St. Charles, just before the downtown area thinned toward the outskirts, the flickering neon sign of the King’s Motel burned against the night. For Anne, cheap rooms were the motel’s prime selling point. She had almost two hundred dollars in cash left.The mustached man behind the counter, whose name tag read Mike, pretended not to see her at first. She stood waiting for almost a minute before he raised his head to regard her for an expressionless moment.“Can I help you?” he asked.“I need a room,” she said.“How many nights?”“One. For now.”“Eight dollars.”Anne lowered the green pack onto the floor and crouched to open it. She sorted through it until she came up with seven crumpled dollar bills, which she tossed onto the counter along with a handful of change. Mike blew audibly through his nostrils. He took the money and slid a key onto the counter.“Room 26,” Mike said, and turned his attention elsewhere.Anne took the key and exited

MINUTE OF TRUTHIThe ground steadied across St. Charles. Mike Williams still sat in the storage room behind the front counter of the King’s Motel, watching continued coverage of the earthquake’s effects.“Authorities have reported that the River Bridge has been closed due to the earthquake’s destruction,” the reporter said. “All around St. Charles, especially downtown, we continue to receive reports of damages. While many people around the city are working to pick up the pieces, a few have questioned the possibility of an aftershock. We’ll have more on this later. We will also be on the scene with officers at the River Bridge for a full report on the additional difficulties this catastrophe could mean for the residents of St. Charles in the days and months ahead. Please stay tuned to this channel for further updates as they develop.”Around the River Bridge, blue lights whirled. Police guarded the River Bridge and turned away traffic as it arrived. Below, on both sides of the rive