Scraping, skittering, crumbling rock. Weight shifted, and there were moments of clattering sound. Something groaned, distantly, and there was a repetitive muffled tap.

Tap. Tapping. Scraping. Clunk, clatter, and a rumbling scrape.

More rumbling thumps.

Lysa blinked herself into proper wakefulness, though it did nothing to help see her surroundings. She remembered, just barely, that she shouldn't see anything.

The first few times, she had woken in a panic. Groggily convinced that she'd gone blind.

An absence of light had created an absence of time that made it easy to forget. The absence of time led to an absence of space. Existence itself seemed sucked in by the all-encompassing darkness.

Lysa took a moment to count herself through a breathing exercise. She made an effort at reassuring herself that she was conscious. She was alive. The emptiness could easily be a dream. Maybe she was just floating in the nothingness of sleep.

Yet, she could feel Liam leaning against her side. The slow rhythm of his breathing was a touch of sanity. An external reassurance that the rest of the world existed.

They had decided to huddle together through an unspoken agreement. It had made sense, for warmth, for peace of mind, but it hadn't been a conscious process. The darkness had pressed them together with the gentle inevitability of gravity. A millennium of fears pushed them to seek comfort and companionship in the face of hopelessness.

Fumbling around her neck, Lysa found the switch for her headlamp.

Click.

A cone of sanity revealed the truth of her nightmare. The rock still surrounded them. The cave-in had not disappeared.

Scrape. Scrape. Clatter.

Yet, the noise had not been a dream. Something was moving. Something was happening beyond their confines.

"Liam?"

He stirred against her side. "Mmm?"

"Do you hear? Something? Please tell me you hear something."

"Uh, I think-"

"No, wait. Don't tell me. If you don't hear anything, I don't want to know. Let me believe I'm still sane."

Somewhere, beyond the cave-in, there was a muffled thud.

Liam sat up straight. He blinked in the light of Lysa's headlamp. "No, no. Don't worry, we're probably as sane as we've ever been. I hear it too."

"Then, what in the world?" Lysa squinted as soon as she asked that question. She must've been imagining things. "Liam. Do you see? Something?"

There was a hint of light. That, or something was reflecting from her headlamp. She switched it off.

"Oh, whoa! Now I sure as hell do!"

Somehow, some of the rocks were outlined in the featherings of an external light. Toward the mine's entrance.

Lysa turned the headlamp back on and sprang to her feet. She shook her head. "There's been nobody up here except us these last few weeks. That has to be Danielle."

"Oh shit! The tractor! I bet she drove the tractor in here!"

That would be absurdly dangerous. The site had a little miniature backhoe, small enough to look like a toy, that had belonged to the mine owners.

"Dani!? Danielle!? Is that you!?" Lysa yelled as if any sound would make it through the noise of machinery and a meter of rock.

There was no response, just more noise. More of a grumbling grinding rumble.

"Oh wow, I hope it is her," said Liam. Then he winced. "But maybe we should get back some? Away from the potentially-deadly pile of debris?"

"Yeah, probably a good idea." Lysa held out her hand. "Come on."

Liam used her help to get to his feet. They both retreated to the far end of the chamber.

The light from outside got brighter. Showed in more cracks and gaps in the rock. They watched, and Lysa felt proper hope flutter in her chest. "Oh, gods, please let the ceiling not cave in."

There was an especially wrenching sound, a groaning growl of metal on stone, and then something gave. The wall blocking them in broke apart in a tumultuous release of pressure. A boulder-sized slab of basalt tumbled into the center of the room. Scrabble and chunks of the old ceiling scattered where the two had been sitting.

They coughed in the sudden influx of dust and debris. Lysa waved the air in front of her face as she choked on the vile cloud of ground earth.

Four brilliant beams of light cut through that cloud. Headlights, on the front of a small digging tractor, filled the cave with shadows.

A figure hopped down from the vehicle. She was shouting. "Oh hell! Yes, yes, yes. Yes! Lysa! Liam!"

Lysa stumbled forward, feeling faint, and ran into Danielle's arms. "Oh, gods, you saved us!"

Liam joined in the sudden group hug. "Oh, Dani, you absolutely marvelous woman!"

Danielle coughed and rubbed at streaming tears on her cheeks. "Oh, fuck, am I glad to find you two. Let's get this hell out of this dump!"

Lysa nodded eagerly. "ASAP for sure!"

#

"It felt like we were down there forever!"

"I literally lost all track of time."

"You could've checked your phone!" Danielle laughed. She rubbed her eyes for the fifth time in as many minutes. They'd all had an emotional afternoon, and it seemed like tears sprang up for the silliest reasons.

Lysa shook her head. "My phone died after the first few hours. I should've put it on airplane mode or something, but I was so hoping I'd get a moment of signal. Or just something to get a message out."

"Mine was almost dead even before the earthquake. Was listening to music all day." Liam shrugged. "Hell though, that was wild."

"What has the news said? Heard anything about how bad it was? It felt too strong to be localized to this ridgeline." Lysa bit the side of her tongue. "It was so freaky."

Danielle's face stiffened and wrinkled into a scowl. "Not a damn thing. My phone signal was always bad up here, but now it's just dead. I'm getting nothing."

"Hell, but what about the radio?" Liam looked up from his own phone, still charging, as he chewed on a granola bar.

"There's nothing but static." Danielle glanced to the southeastern skies. "Ever since that started springing up, really. Whatever hit us was big."

"Hit us?" asked Liam. "You think, like, an asteroid?"

Lysa cringed. "Well, shit, I hadn't even thought of that. I sure as hell hope not."

They all looked to the southeast, and for a moment they shared a silent contemplation of what could be. Their horizon was incredibly close because of a sinewave line of hills covered in scrubby trees. Above those hilltops, the world was growing dark.

A darkening swath of clouds was spreading into the brilliant blue of Arizona sky. The cloud front was distant, but that made it into an unnerving beauty. What could cause such a towering cluster of ejecta?

Lysa shaded her eyes as closer, normal-looking clouds, moved from blocking the sun. She shook her head. "That can't be an asteroid impact. Or anything from space. It's growing, right? That's not just my imagination?"

"I mean, it's so far away," said Liam, "but I guess it could be volcanic. But the nearest faults are, what, bottom edge of the North American, Caribbean, and, ah?"

"Cocos," said Danielle. She rubbed her chin, staring at the ground with the look of someone lost in thought. "But that's two, three thousand kilometers from here. If that's volcanic, it's beyond big."

"How long did you say it's been?" asked Liam.

"Almost three days, now. So, it's been going for a while."

Lysa turned west and squinted as she faced the sun. "And that one's been building since the same time?"

"I think so, but it's closer, so it could've happened first." Danielle shrugged. "That's why I first thought impact. Like maybe something huge entered orbit, broke up, and we'd see a few minor meteorites and one major."

"But if this is volcanic? A shifted plate and a bit of a chain reaction? But then one must've triggered the other." Lysa glanced at Liam. "Didn't you work with Berkeley once? Got any contacts over there?"

"Yeah, if my phone was working." He swiped through a screen as he spoke before pulling up a compass. "Though I can almost guarantee that they're busy with all this shit." He glanced at the heading, then flipped to a map. "That's definitely south California. Somewhere between San Diego and the Gulf."

"Fuck, this is a nightmare." Lysa shook her head. "Well, we can't do anything more here. We'll have to call this site a loss."

"Maybe we'll get signal back once we're in town. Could be one of the towers got messed up in that quake." Danielle nodded. "Yeah, that's probably it. All the relays through these hills are bound to be shit for months."

"Alright, well lemme get my equipment from the shack. I left a few rangefinder parts, and my pack of snacks."

"Ah! I'd wondered where you hid them," grumbled Lysa.

Liam scowled. "You kept eating my fruit rollups!" He started toward a small metal building on the side of the lot. It was a storage shed, but there hadn't been anything interesting left inside.

"Well, it can't be healthy, you eating them all alone."

"So you're a thief out of kindness?" asked Danielle.

Lysa smirked. "Aren't all the best ones? Anyway, I'm gonna pack too. Let's hook up the trailer."

"I'll park the tractor. Damned glad they left that thing."

That sobered Lysa and punched away her good humor. "Yeah. Saved our lives." She smiled at Danielle. "You saved our lives. Thank you."

Danielle blushed. "I had to. No fucking mine is taking my friends."