“How come it’s always so gross down here?” Sarah struggled to lift up a wooden sheep larger than herself while Ben swept. They both sneezed.
“Dunno,” he said. “We were here last week. Maybe Mrs. Sterling and Pastor Graves come down after we leave and make it dirty again.”
“Why would they do that?”
“What kinda punishing is it if there’s nothin’ down here?” he said. The floorboards overhead creaked, and they both jumped.
“Plenty kinda,” she said. Ben laughed until it turned into a sneeze. He puffed his chest.
“You don’t gotta be scared of the dark, Sarah. I’ll save you.” She snorted. When she wiped her face, she left behind a black smudge.
“It’s not the dark. My dad says that churches are known for high spir’tual activity. If we don’t stay good down here, then the church ghosts are going to—” She cut off in a squeak as the floorboards above them began to shake again. The concrete floor underneath them shivered, this time. They dropped the sheep and broom to cling to each other. The floor heaved again; dust rained down on them. When they dared to talk about it later, both children admitted they didn’t know whether they fell or chose to drop to the bucking concrete.
The floor overhead groaned. Sarah stared up, ignoring the dust in her eyes, at the ceiling overhead. Vertigo hit her as it went impossibly concave. She rolled with Ben into the nearest wall as the floor gave out. Wood and stone crashed into the small basement. Detritus pummeled and buried them. They squeezed themselves as close as they could to the angle where wall met floor. Each breath grew thicker with plaster and concrete.
Sarah couldn’t see. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t hear over the earthquake’s roar, but she thought she felt Ben under her screaming; maybe she screamed. A chunk of concrete slammed between her shoulder blades. The darkness behind her screwed-shut eyes bloomed with stars of pain. Another heavy stone or beam fell on top of that one, and another. Sarah felt vibrations as each fell into its dreadful place and buried them both in darkness and weight. Yes, she was screaming.
The earthquake lasted for an eternity, but Sarah spent far longer trying to wriggle her way out. A fallen timber had her legs entirely pinned; Sarah couldn’t tell whether they were broken or simply numb. She grew more light-headed with every gasp.
“Ben?” No response from the body pinned beneath her. “Ben!” Sarah tried to press back against the weight crushing her, but the only result was a burst of pain in the middle of her back and a wheeze that used up another moment of air. Sarah tried to gasp out Ben’s name again, but she couldn’t find her voice. Sarah tried to shift her arms, but they were pinned. She let her weight rest against Ben. Would this work?
Sarah folded herself down, and Ben folded with her. The children shrank in unison with a growing pain in Sarah’s head—but they did shrink. Debris that had been pressing against them shifted, trickled dust, but remained wedged against itself. Sarah took a moment to breathe; warm, stale air filled her tiny lungs. More space, but no more air. She considered the cavernous space around them. Was that—a glimmer of light in the new distance? Sarah eased herself to her feet. Her legs trembled, but they held.
“Ben?” No response. Plaster coated his dark face and darker hair, and made him a ghost. Sarah couldn’t see him breathing. “Sorry, Ben.” She pulled the other child onward toward the gleam of maybe-light.
She couldn’t lift him over the gigantic splinters and fragments of stone; soon a trail of blood mapped their path. When aftershocks rocked their tiny escape, Sarah crouched ghoulishly over Ben’s limp body. The shifting debris altered their route each time. The first such quake snatched the light at the end of the tunnel away. Those that followed ate up the children’s time: Sarah’s headache grew worse with each miniature moment and gasped breath. She followed teasing puffs of fresher that might lead them nowhere.
They couldn’t deal with nowhere. Ben’s chest still refused to move, no matter how she pounded on it and called out to him; dusty, stagnant air burned in her lungs. Crying only made it worse, but she couldn’t--Sarah dropped Ben and fell beside him. Every limb and digit shook and seized. She stared up at the tunnel ceiling as it grew closer and closer. Ben’s leg touched hers; he, too, was growing.
“I’m so sorry, Ben,” Sarah managed, before her face met the stone and she could no longer speak.
Local history books describe this as the first documented use of superpowers in the Northwest. They mention Sarah’s actions in rescuing Ben Silverlake—known now as the head of the 3MP Corporation, owner of Silverlake Hero Insurance, and a major proponent in the push for empowered rights—and his subsequent crippling due to the damage sustained in the earthquake. Textbooks stress that, had Sarah not managed to make it to the outskirts of the rubble before her power gave out, both children would have died of the damage or asphyxiation. The texts mention that Sarah belongs to a family involved in film and entertainment since the rise of vaudeville, and that her own parents are stage magicians. Or were, until their daughter’s revelation there in the rubble to a crowd of concerned onlookers.
The books typically neglect to add that Sarah’s family subsequently disowned her three months later.
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