Silence.
It was the first thing Elena noticed. The screaming roar of the mountain collapsing had vanished, replaced by a heavy, suffocating blanket of absolute quiet.
Her next sensation was pain. A sharp, throbbing ache in her shoulder, and the taste of copper in her mouth. She was lying on something cold and hard.
Dust. It coated her tongue, her eyes, her lungs. She coughed, a wet, rattling sound that seemed deafening in the blackness.
"Caleb?"
Her voice was a cracked whisper. There was no answer.
Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through the fog of her mind. She scrambled to sit up, her hands flailing in the dark. She touched stone. Rough, uneven rock. Then, she touched flesh.
Warm. Sticky.
"Caleb!"
She found his face. Her fingers traced the familiar line of his jaw, the slightly r
