It’s like a bomb has gone off—like an ancient spirit has been woken from a million-year sleep. For a moment Jocelyn can do no more than watch as the boy opens his eyes and holds his hand out—as if he’s shielding himself from the light. But almost immediately what first looks like a simple stretch turns into a plea.

“Hey—hey! Stop!” he cries, his voice indicating that he’s around the same age as Jocelyn. “Stop please—I’m sorry!”

And with that, Jocelyn—dumbfounded by what has just happened—turns off her flashlight. Part of her wants to run away, part of her wants to record a note of this, but the majority of her demands that she stays put and see what this boy is about to do. She’s really hoping these cacti can hide her.

But once he’s able to see things without a bothersome light shining in his face, the boy catches sight of Jocelyn’s head poking out from the cacti’s cover. Not realizing that she’s trying to hide from him, the boy can do little more than say “Thank you.”

It suddenly hits Jocelyn that she’s been spotted. Part of her feels like swearing; another part of her feels like mouthing “You’re welcome?”

Just then, Jocelyn flinches and takes a look to her left to see security guards coming out of the southern guard station. One of them puts his hand on his holster as he exits his post and investigates the area.

Jocelyn honestly can’t fault the boy for shouting—but if he had just stayed quiet like her, the guards probably wouldn’t have had any reason to check things out. Fortunately for the boy, the guard—a flashlight in one hand and his secured gun in the other—is only patrolling the inside of town, so there should be little cause for alarm. Unfortunately for Jocelyn, she’s headed for a world of trouble once the man finds her.

And it turns out the guard is not alone. As if responding to a distress signal, a good handful of people around town turn their porch lights on and head outside. Every person who comes outside—at least in this part of town—is either a full-time or volunteer guard for Los Abismos. There isn’t a siren or anything else like that to go along with their approach—but as far as Jocelyn is concerned, there may as well be a spotlight light shining down and revealing her location to the authorities right now.

To keep herself better hidden from the patrolling officers, Jocelyn, panicking, slips into a tiny space between one of the town’s bomb shelters and the tall fence along the border: a spot she used to crawl inside when she still had friends to play hide-and-seek with. However, small as she is now, Jocelyn has grown four years since she last played hide-and-seek with anyone—a fact she realizes almost immediately after making this haphazard move. While there aren’t any cacti to speak of in this space, Jocelyn has so little room that not only are her lips and nose sticking out from the fence’s chains, but she has to hold her breath steady to keep her tween body from being squished any worse than it already is. With every breath, she fears dropping the flashlight and recorder.

This probably isn’t a place the guards will look—hence it was the first place she thought to hide—but she feels she’ll soon suffocate with the way the fence squeezes her. How long can I stay like this? She’s worried certain parts of her body will stop working due to a lack of proper blood flow. The discomfort is making her chest shake; the fence’s wires make her flinch every time their cold, prickly points poke her skin. Though she can’t see anything outside of a few lit-up spots on the other side of this fence, she gets the feeling that some part of her skin has to be bleeding by now.

As she struggles for comfort, Jocelyn notices the boy dashing toward her—a short stick held tight in his hand—in the midst of all this commotion. He charges ahead with barely a sound at all, leaving Jocelyn to listen to little more than the crescendo thumping of her own heart. At first she's horrified, wondering what he'll do with the stick. Her mind goes straight for the worst thoughts when the tip of his wand starts glowing orange; were she not so short on breath, Jocelyn would scream right here and now.

She closes her eyes and awaits something horrible. Still the loudest sound she picks up is that of her own heartbeat—and if she listens close, she can make out a helicopter shutter from behind. In due time the helicopters take up enough of the soundwaves that Jocelyn feels comfortable with screaming—yet before she can even think to do that, a loud pop resonates in her ears.

Breathless, the tween looks down at where the pop came from and finds the stranger down on a knee as he traces the chain links along their frames with his wand. Jocelyn notices as the boy—having a perfect opportunity to take advantage of her—bends down and continues tracing the chains until another loud pop makes her ears ring. A few pops later and he pries the weakened joints apart with his bare hands. All throughout this, he doesn’t say a single word—just breaks the fence piece by piece as Jocelyn stands by.

In due time, the boy manages to break a big enough opening for Jocelyn to squeeze through—but still cramped enough that she escapes with scratched skin, torn clothes, some ripped hair, and a voice recorder left on the ground. She’s not sure if she should thank him for helping her out or scold him for potentially blowing her cover—but in either case, the nearby security guards still can’t tell what’s going on.

Saying no words at all, Jocelyn looks around the corner of the shelter and notices a quartet of helicopters drawing close to Los Abismos. Their motors serve to keep any noise she makes from being detected by the nearby guards—but just the fact that there are helicopters to begin with brings up too many questions for Jocelyn to count.

Are those the MRF helicopters? she wonders, finding it peculiar how she’s now seeing them on the same day she first heard about them. If they don’t belong to the MRF, who could they possibly belong to?

It isn’t until the boy says something when Jocelyn snaps out of it. “Come on!” he hisses. “We’ve got to get out of here.” Without another word, he goes running back into the tunnel from which he came.

“Wait!” she says, faltering behind him. “Where are we going?”

As insane as this all is, Jocelyn can’t deny that more than anything, she just wants to get a few answers. That’s what science is about, right? Finding the answers—even at the risk of one's own life? The big thing she really risks by not going with this boy is a lot of harsh words from just about everyone in her social circles; suddenly the consequences of following a complete stranger don’t seem that bad.

After taking a moment to think on it, Jocelyn looks over at the boy and sees the panicked look on his face. She can barely make out his features from here, as the only light he has to show off is coming from his wand.

Jocelyn worries that if she opens her mouth to speak right now, something unintelligible will spill out—yet she opens her mouth anyway.

If any words just came out, the boy in front of her can’t tell—for at this point the helicopters have grown too loud for comfort. Jocelyn’s blood freezes when the sound of their motors get to the point of sounding like screams surrounded by flying bullets; it’s a bit like how she imagines an antimatter test sounds right before the bomb drops. Still they’re coming from behind and not getting any quieter—and covering her ears won’t do much to help.

And so she dashes toward the stranger, settling into the little spot in the canyon and completely catching him off-guard. He honestly did not expect her to come in—much less run in.

From here, the sound of motorized propellers reverberates against the rock walls—but it’s better than what the helicopters sounded like from outside. Any more of that noise would have left her with tinnitus.

Assured there isn’t anything left between him and the cave’s opening, the boy flips a switch on his stick and suddenly a bunch of dust particles start pulling themselves toward its orange tip. Curiosity overwhelms Jocelyn as she looks over his shoulder, trying to distance herself just enough for her to avoid getting hit in the face with his elbow. He’s gotta be at least sixteen, she notes, his height giving the age difference away.

The boy flips the switch again and starts tracing the lip of the cave in an arching fashion. What was once leftover dust from when Jocelyn pointed her light at the canyon is now reforming under his command. In due time, the useless particles come back together as one sturdy barrier between safety and danger.

By the time he finishes building the wall, no light remains.