My ears ringing, my eyes half blinded by dust, I crane my neck to see tumbling concrete knocking out Mogadorian after Mogadorian. The whole cave is coming down around us.

On the ground by the fallen gangway I see Ivanick, his head nearly severed from his neck by the collapsed steel. Dead.

Mogadorians scream all around me.

To my own surprise, I like the sound.

Something heavy lands against my shoulder, slamming my head against the floor, pinning me in place. I can’t move, and am too stunned to know if it was a minor wound or a fatal blow.

Why keep track now? I think. There’s more where that came from.

Indeed there is: concrete keeps falling, all around me.

As the entire structure gives out and collapses onto us, I know I only have a few moments of consciousness left. But I’m not afraid.

I survived my fall down the ravine. I survived the implosion of Ashwood Estates. I wasn’t even conscious then, and Malcolm said something kept us from being crushed, that it was as if some force kept us safe as the world fell down around us.

Third time’s the charm.

It may just be exhaustion, it may just be delirium, but I’m overcome by a deep, sweet certainty that I was meant to survive. That my ultimate purpose lies somewhere beyond these tumbling walls, sometime beyond this frenzied moment. That the best of me is yet to come.

I will live.

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