As I lie here with dust clouding my vision, and a sea of smoke enveloping me into this world diminished to rubble, listening to the desperate screams that reverberate through my very soul, my thoughts turn to him. Taking each stolen breath, with its bitter edge of death I know that my last breath, I'd give to him. If I could give my life for his, I'd do it, accepting the fate in the knowledge that as I crossed the ether into oblivion he would live on and see another day.

Pressed against the carpet, I curl into myself, hands clasped in prayer. Praying for my death, praying for the last vision to be his perfect image imprinted across my memory, knowing that the last words to echo into this mangled tomb I would want to be his name, carried into eternity to keep him safe on this day. With each passing moment, memories become clearer, pulling me from this creaking, groaning morgue into summer fields and the now so very distant past.

And with each bloodied tear that snakes its way through the dust I sink deeper into death's awaiting embrace, and all around silence resounds. The world standing still while this monstrosity begins its descent. With the roar of metal, and concrete scraping down, hell bound, I close my eyes. I can feel the slice as I'm carried with the collapse, and the pain seems meaningless as the world fades to him. And as death rushes to accept my soul, I bind with the thousands of others and pray that he is not among us.

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