—Myriad Life is all about the numbers. Today those numbers are the seconds we have to reach safety. The tons about to crash down upon us. The feet/yards/miles we’re about to fall, unable to stop ourselves. “Come on.” I grab the end of Sloan’s rope and run as fast as I can. She isn’t prepared, and I have to drag her behind me. When I reach Clay, I grab his rope and drag him, too. We aren’t yet connected, but I try to remedy that as I run; I’m shaking too badly. “Archer! Killian! Come on!” Numbers never lie, and the center of a mass like this is always heaviest, so that’s where the avalanche will move the fastest and hit the hardest. If we can get far enough to the side, we can maybe, hopefully, avoid being buried. I glance up. Zero! We’re not going to get far enough to the side. There are no trees nearby to act as an anchor for our ropes. Not that we’d have time to tie ourselves to the trunks.
