The concussive force of the explosion had thrown him against the wall of the bunker. That much he remembered. The painful dizziness and the trickle of warmth he felt rolling down his face told him that his head had taken the brunt of the impact – and that the stone had proven harder than his skull. The dull pain in his side let him know he had bruised at least a couple of ribs in the fall. His head throbbed and his breathing was labored. But he was still alive. ‘Josh,’ he called out, ‘are you okay?’ If there was a reply, Cobb couldn’t hear it. The buzzing in his ears blocked out nearly all the ambient noise. The only things he could detect were the crackles and pops from his earpiece. They might have been voices. They might have been static. They might have been a figment of his imagination. In his current state, he couldn’t tell the difference. Cobb groped for his flashlight in the darkness. It had been knocked from his hand in the blast, and he was blind without it. He would worry about escaping later.
