Through the reverberating echoes of shattering of glass the flash was over before it had a chance to begin. A rumbling bass shook the ground, dust rose from the ground as if reanimated from a past life, sand coloured pillars restricting any clarity of vision. The smell of burning struck my senses last, unable to distinguish why it was familiar, but that was what sent my senses out of sync.

The sensation of feeling returned with a delay I wasn’t prepared for, no one is prepared for the off-set a sudden explosion leaves you in. Pain on left side of my head, elbows, lower back and ankles all as if they had been jolted, I could only image myself being rag-dolled from the entrance to the end of the short corridor.

Picking myself up, steadying my legs with my right hand grasping the railings of the steps beside me, immediate panic and fear scrambled my thoughts of what had just happened to what had it done to everyone else.

Leaping unsteadily up the stairs, holding my breath, feeling the blood flush from my face, as I fell on my knees as I reached the landing. I was worse for wear that I thought, but there was no time to consider the damage, I had to be sure, I had to know.

Yelling her name out, my voice croaky and broken, clearing it as I repeated it over and over as I slammed my right shoulder into the door. Imagining a shell of a room on the other side of this barrier that was keeping me from the truth, I could feel each bead of sweat form and roll down my forehead.

A blind slam against the lower half the door broke the inner beam, and before me was exactly what I had feared, the nightmare scenario reserved only for dystopian television.

The entire front wall imploding inwards or having disintegrated and dropped out the wall sized hole in the building, under the settled grey ash and concrete powder her form was visible covered in debris.

Lifting the bricks and timber that weighed heavy on her small frame, I said her name as if pleading to be heard. Brushing away the rest of whatever part of the room had covered her, indistinguishable materials, cloth, and the grey powder, forming a grave around her.

An exhale sent a shooting plume of the deathly dust in my face as she cried out, and wrestled the ground to lift herself up - knowing she was unbroken, I held her hand tight, and I wasn’t ever letting go.