Bingwen pulled. Grandfather howled at the pain. Hopper was a statue.
Then the sound of it reached them. A sound like nothing Bingwen had ever heard. Like the roar of an engine and the scream of a monkey and the cry of a thousand different things at once, deep and resonating that shook the earth.
Five seconds to impact.
Bingwen screamed, pulled at Grandfather, finding a strength he didn’t have before, sliding him, yanking him back. Then they were both rolling down the embankment, tumbling, limbs flailing. They hit water, Bingwen went under, the deafening sound was muffled. Then Bingwen got his feet under him, pushed up, breaking through the water again. A hand grabbed him, slammed him against the embankment. Grandfather.
Bingwen looked above him. Hopper and Meilin hadn’t moved. They were stones. Frozen with fear.
“Hopper! Meilin!”
But nothing could be heard over the sound.
And then the sound exploded into a noise a hundred times louder because the thing hit the earth somewhere close by, and the world shook so hard Bingwen thought it had split apart, and a wave of air and dirt and water exploded across the valley, and Hopper was gone, and Meilin was gone, and mud and blackness and debris rained down and buried Bingwen and Grandfather alive.
*
Pain.
It swam at the edges of Bingwen’s awareness. Distant at first, blurred, unfocused. Then slowly the murkiness rippled away, clarified, and the pain became acute. Then suddenly it was piercing, searing.
Bingwen’s eyes snapped open and he cried out, awake, aware. His arm. Something was crushing his arm. He couldn’t see. There was darkness all around him. He was in a cave. No, not a cave, a pocket of air buried in the dirt and mud. Branches and trees were above him, blocking out much of the sun and shielding him from more dirt and debris. How was that possible? How was he under a tree? There were no trees in the fields.
Where was Grandfather? He turned his head. A tree branch was crushing his arm. He tried to pull the arm free, but pain stabbed through him like a bolt of electricity, taking his breath away. He took in air and cried out again. His left arm was broken. He had never broken a bone before, but he knew at once that’s what it was. He twisted his upper body, trying to reach his right arm across his chest to dig the dirt away from under his penned arm and free it, but the movement caused another punch of pain that made him howl yet again.
He lay there on his back, breathing hard. “Grandfather?” His voice was only a whisper. Then louder, “Grandfather!”
“Here.”
The voice was weak but nearby. Bingwen lifted his head and looked around. All around him were shadows and dirt and tree limbs.
A branch to his left moved. “Bingwen?” The voice was raspy and pained.
“Here,” said Bingwen. “I’m here.”
The branch moved again and this time a hand emerged, old and muddy, reaching out, searching. Bingwen extended his good arm and seized Grandfather’s hand. Grandfather’s grip tightened around his.
“I’m here, boy. I’m here.”
Bingwen couldn’t help it. Tears came then, busting out from deep inside him. He tried to push them back, biting his lower lip to suppress them, but they fought their way out, and in seconds he was sobbing and shaking and only making the pain in his arm worse.
“Are you hurt?” said Grandfather.
“Yes,” Bingwen managed to say. “My arm. It’s broken, I think.”
“I’m going to get you out.”
“How? You could barely move before.”
“Your grandfather isn’t as weak as he looks.”
It was a lie, and Bingwen knew it.
“I’m going to get help,” said Grandfather.
Grandfather’s hand released his, pulled back.
Bingwen scrabbled for it with his good hand. “No! Don’t leave me.”
Grandfather’s hand returned and grabbed Bingwen’s again. “I’ll be right back, Bingwen. On my father’s name I swear it.”
The hand tried to pull back again, but Bingwen clutched it tightly this time, not letting go. “Wait. Please. Don’t go. I’m … afraid.” He hated himself for saying it, felt the shame of it like a slap. But it was true. He could feel the darkness now, not just see it, like a stranger was just behind him, standing over, ready to strike. He was going to die here, he knew. If he released Grandfather’s hand they were both going to die. He would be crushed by the tree and the mud and the darkness.
Grandfather gave Bingwen’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “I can make it to the village, Bingwen. I’ll come back with your father.”
“No.” Bingwen’s voice was a panic. “You can’t. You couldn’t walk.”
“Then I’ll crawl. I won’t leave you under this—”
But the rest was cut off because then the deafening roar of a machine tore through the world like a grinding thunderclap and the earth shook like a hundred earthquakes, and Bingwen clutched Grandfather’s hand and screamed.
CHAPTER 13
Survivors