I’m alone. Deeply, completely alone.

I shout for help a few times, but the shouting hurts my raw throat and it’s just too hard to do. I’m having trouble getting enough air, even through the sleeve I’m using as a mask.

There are puddles here in my small patch of hallway. I know it’s gross, because they’re filthy and filled with all kinds of terrible chemicals, but I sip some of the dirty water from the floor. I try to use the sleeve as a filter for it, but it’s still chunky and disgusting. It does help my throat though. Makes me feel a tiny bit better. Right now, “a tiny bit better” is a huge victory.

I’ll probably throw up later, but that’s a worry for later … if I survive.

I shine the beam of my flashlight around. Behind me, the collapsed part of the ceiling is impenetrable and blazing hot. Most of the smoke and flame are venting upward through the hole the collapse created, which must be how I’m alive.

On the other side of me, on the way back toward Corridor Five, I realize that what at first looked like a solid wall of twisted metal is actually a mix of broken concrete, drywall, metal, and plywood. It’s the construction scaffolding from the work they were doing to renovate this section.

Despair turns to hope as I crawl over to it. The plywood is probably pretty weak from all the water and fire. If I can kick through a piece, I might be able to crawl through the rubble. I might make it out of here and back to Chad! I might still save him and myself too!

I’ve never been good at wallowing. I like action. Maybe it’s what gets me into trouble, but I just can’t sit still. Doing something makes me feel like myself again.

I find a spot that looks especially flimsy and work my way to it feetfirst on my back, so I have leverage for kicking. I can’t stand up, but I’ll need to stay low anyway—out of the smoke. Better to crawl than to climb.

In order to reach the section of plywood, I have to really shimmy into the heap, wedged in right below some jagged pieces of aluminum tubing and a chunk of cinderblock that’s pinned the whole thing in place. Hopefully, kicking myself free won’t topple the whole tower. It’s right above my head, just a few inches away. If the barricade does come down, it’ll decapitate me instantly.

At least it won’t hurt for long, I tell myself as I pull back my leg and prepare the first kick.

I wonder if I should pray. I’ve never been religious, but I figure it couldn’t hurt. Right now, I need all the help I can get.

“Dear God,” I say, like I’m writing Him a letter. But talking makes me cough and it’s just too hard. I’m sure He’ll understand if I just think my prayer. Also, I don’t even know if He is a He or, like, something else. She or They or some other word humans don’t even have. I mean, if there is a God, isn’t it a God of all living things, like ducks, bacteria, and dogs? Not just creatures who look and think like people do?

Dear God, I start again in my head. It’s Mikey Cutler, in case You don’t know. I … um … I could use Your help, I think. I’m sorry I don’t pray more. Or, like, ever. I hope that doesn’t upset You too much. I’ve had a lot going on with my mom and stuff and I guess …

I swallow hard, staring at the circle of light my flashlight is making in the bent wreck of metal above me, the strange shadows it casts that look a lot like prison bars.

I guess I was angry about my mom. I guess I still am. It’s not fair. None of this is fair. And I can’t believe You’d let any of this happen.

I think about all the people I saw on A-E Drive, people with burns and broken bones and worse. I think about the people who didn’t make it, the bodies right now all over this building who just came to work today and will never get to go home again. The people in the Twin Towers in New York too. And the people all over the world who die every day, and wonder how any sort of God could let all this bad stuff happen. If there really is a God, then none of it should.

My fists are clenched, my body shaking with anger.

You know what? I think at God. Never mind. I’ll do this myself.

And then I kick the wood, hard. It makes a loud cracking sound but holds.

I don’t need You, You hear me! I shout in my mind, my rage boiling even hotter than the flames. I kick again.

CRACK!

It bends. I hear metal shift, but nothing falls. I kick again.

CRACK!

There’s an opening! I feel my anger leaving me as I wiggle forward to push the plank with both legs, bending it away, making a hole. I might be able to crawl through!

I have to scooch back out of my little nook to turn my face forward with my flashlight and crawl again. I can see through the hole I’ve kicked open and, sure enough, there’s a path out of the debris, almost like a tunnel. It’s not straight and there’s jagged metal going this way and that, but I can make it.

I’m not sure I would’ve found the strength to kick through that plank if I hadn’t been so angry. If praying hadn’t made me so angry.

I wonder if that’s the answer right there. The anger is what I needed. Maybe God’s not like a video game, where you punch in the right keys in the right order and you get a cheat code for life. Prayer isn’t cheat code.

Maybe God is more of a question. Can you do more than you ever thought possible? Can you find what you need where you are and share it, even when it might not be enough? Can you endure the terrible things of the world and not lose yourself?

There’s no bearded guy in the sky who made my mom a drug addict, or crashed planes into buildings, or made me go back inside to find my dad. Those were human choices. We keep doing our best and doing our worst—and getting it all mixed up. Maybe God is the best way we can describe finding the strength to keep crawling through it, even when we’re hurt.

I laugh at myself in the dark, because I’m thinking all these super-deep thoughts, but I’m up to my elbows in sludge.

It looks like there were cans of paint or primer or something that burst open and splattered everywhere, mixed with the water from the fire hoses. Together, they created a seriously slick mess. I can’t help slipping, moving slower than I’d like. The space is getting tighter and it’s hard not to think about the tons of wreckage above me that could come crashing down any second. I have to speed up.

When I try to use my knee to shove forward, it slips on a broken tile. I feel the jagged edge of something slice my shin.

“AHH!” I yell. I try to curl up to grab it, to see if it’s bleeding, but there’s not enough room.

I drop the flashlight, which tumbles between broken pieces of a pipe. I try to reach down to pick it up, but I can’t quite get to it. It casts strange shadows all around me, like I’m in a metal thornbush in some kind of demented sci-fi fairy tale.

I stretch toward the light, straining, and hear fabric tear. Part of my shirt is caught. I can’t free my arm. I try to yank my hand back, but I’m stuck. I’m lying on my belly on an uneven mess of wood and metal, and I can’t even turn my head fully to see where I’m stuck. I shake and pull to try to rip the shirt free, my shin stinging terribly the whole time. I kick a little too, hoping that will help.

The kick is a mistake.

I hear a rattling and a scraping of metal against metal. A creak.

I freeze, but the pile doesn’t.

The scaffolding above me shifts with a roar like an eighteen-wheeler’s brakes. The plywood I’d kicked open to crawl through suddenly folds as a giant piece of the structure smashes down onto it, closing off the route back. The jaws of metal in front of me—my way out—snap shut too.

I squeeze my eyes closed as well, expecting all the broken, sizzling, jagged shrapnel above to crush me into hot pudding. It doesn’t. Instead, it settles. I’m in the belly of a wrecked metal beast, but I’m still alive.

For now.

Except I’m deep under this rubble, lying on my stomach with sharp things digging into me all over. I’m bleeding from my shin, struggling to breathe through a suit sleeve, and I’m well and truly unable to move.

And that’s when the flashlight conks out, plunging me into a darkness more total than anything I’ve ever known.

Dear God, I’m in trouble now, I pray again, not because I think I’ll get a different answer than before, or even because I’ve suddenly become a believer in my literal darkest moment. I pray because there’s nothing else to do. I’m alone, and a prayer going up and out—or even just through my head—makes me feel a little less alone.

And there’s a tiny part of me that hopes—defying all logic, even though I’m only thinking it—that somebody, somewhere, might hear me.