It stared with each eye again—then took a hop toward him.
Encouraged, he reached out and gently scooped up the wounded creature. As he rose with its warm body cradled between his palms, the ground shifted under him. He struggled to keep his balance. Was he dizzy because of the long climb? Between his toes, a tiny black line skittered across the mosaic, like a living thing.
Snake was his first thought.
Fear beat in his heart.
But the dark line widened, revealing it to be something worse. Not a snake, but a crack. A finger of dark orange smoke curled up from one end of the crack, no bigger than if someone had dropped a lit cigarette.
The bird suddenly burst from his palms, spread its wings, and sailed through the smoke as it fled out the door. Apparently it hadn’t been that injured. The smoke wafted Tommy’s way, beat by the passing wings. It smelled surprisingly sweet with a hint of darker spices, almost like incense.
Tommy crinkled his brow and leaned forward. He held his palm over the smoke. It rose up between his fingertips, cold instead of warm, as if it came from some cool place deep within the earth.
He bent to look at it more closely—when the mosaic cracked under his boots like glass. He jumped back. Tiles slipped into the gap. Blues, tans, and reds. The gap devoured the pattern as it grew wider.
He backpedaled toward the door. Gouts of smoke, now a reddish orange, boiled up through the splintering mosaic.
A grinding groan rose from the mountain’s core, and the entire room shook.
Earthquake.
He leaped out the bathhouse door and landed hard on his backside. In front of him, the building gave a final, violent jerk, as if slapped by an angry god—then toppled into the chasm opening beneath it.
The edges crumbled wider, only feet away. He scooted backward. The chasm chased him. He gained his feet to run, but the mountaintop jolted and knocked him back to the ground.
He crawled away on his hands and knees. Stones shredded his palms. Around him, buildings and columns smashed to the ground.
God, please help me!
Dust and smoke hid everything more than a few yards away. As he crawled, he saw a man vanish under a falling section of wall. Two screaming women dropped away as the ground split beneath them.
“TOMMY!”
He crawled toward his mother’s voice, finally clearing the pall of smoke.
“Here!” he coughed.
His father rushed forward and yanked him to his feet. His mother grabbed his elbow. They dragged him toward the Snake’s Path, away from the destruction.
He looked back. The fissure gaped wider, cleaving the summit. Chunks of mountain fell away and rumbled down to the desert. Dark smoke churned into the achingly blue sky, as if to take its horrors to the burning sun.
Together, he and his parents stumbled to the cliff’s edge.
But as quickly as it began, the earthquake ceased.
His parents froze, as if afraid any movement might restart the quakes. His father wrapped his arms around them both. Across the summit, pained cries cut the air.
“Tommy?” His mother’s voice shook. “You’re bleeding.”
“I scraped my hands,” he said. “It’s no big deal.”
His father let them go. He’d lost his hat and cut his cheek. His normally deep voice came out too high. “Terrorists, do you think?”
“I didn’t hear a bomb,” his mother said, stroking Tommy’s hair like he was a little boy.
For once, he didn’t mind.
The cloud of blackish-red smoke charged toward them, as if to drive them off the cliff.
His father took the suggestion and pointed toward the steep trail. “Let’s go. That stuff could be toxic.”
“I breathed it,” Tommy assured them, standing. “It’s okay.”
A woman ran out of the smoke clutching her throat. She ran blind, eyelids blistered and bleeding. Just a few steps, then she pitched forward and didn’t move.
“Go!” his father yelled, and pushed Tommy ahead of him. “Now!”
Together, they ran, but they could not outpace the smoke.
It overtook them. His mother coughed—a wet, tearing, unnatural sound. Tommy reached for her, not knowing what to do.
His parents stopped running, driven to their knees.
It was over.
“Tommy . . .” his father gasped. “Go . . .”
Disobedient, he sank down beside them.
If I’m going to die anyway, let it be on my own terms.
With my family.
A sense of finality calmed him. “It’s okay, Dad.” He squeezed his mom’s hand, then his dad’s. Tears flowed when he thought he had none left. “I love you, so much.”
Both of his parents looked at him—square in the eye. Despite the terrible moment at hand, Tommy felt so warm right then.
He hugged them both tightly and still held them as they went limp in his grasp, refusing to let gravity take them as death had. When his strength gave out, he knelt next to their bodies and waited for his own last breath.
But as minutes passed, that last breath refused to come.
He wiped an arm across his tearstained face and stumbled to his feet, refusing to look at his parents’ crumpled bodies, their blistered eyes, the blood on their faces. If he didn’t look, maybe they weren’t really dead. Maybe it was a dream.
He turned in a slow circle facing away from them. The foul smoke had blown away. Bodies littered the ground. As far as he could see, everything was dead still.
It was no dream.
Why am I the only one still alive? I was supposed to die. Not Mom and Dad.
He looked down again at their bodies. His grief was deeper than weeping. Deeper than all the times he’d mourned his own death.
It was wrong. He was the sick one, the defective one. He had known for a long time that his death was coming. But his parents were supposed to carry on memories of him, frozen at the age of fourteen in a thousand snapshots. The grief was supposed to be theirs.
He fell to his knees with a sob, thrusting his hands toward the sun, his palms upraised, both beseeching and cursing God.
But God wasn’t done with him yet.
As his arms stretched to the sky, one sleeve fell back, baring his wrist, pale and clear.
He lowered his limbs, staring at his skin in disbelief.
His melanoma had vanished.