15 for 15 Contest --- Closed

Slabs of concrete lay like toppled headstones on top of the bomb blast's makeshift graveyard. Sam wished he were deaf. The cries of those still waiting to be dug out burrowed into his head, clashing with the noise of crowbars and shovels belonging to the rescue team. He was one of those buried, but he couldn't cry out. No sound came from him, just a weak rasp as his lungs fought their own battle for breath. It was dark where the rubble lay thickest, and for that Sam was thankful. He didn't want to see; the listening was bad enough. He kept his eyes open anyway, blinking away the course sand that scratched his dry eyeballs like sandpaper. How long had it been? He couldn't tell, but the cries were all getting weaker now, even though the sound of industrious shoveling continued. He couldn't feel his legs. Maybe that's a blessing, he mused. A trickle of fine debris coursed down his ear hole, disturbed, no doubt, by the shifting tide of the building. Then there was light. Not the sun, which he had half expected, but the gray fog of concrete dust blocking out sky and casting an eerie shroud on the faces of his saviors.

One of the men grunted against a makeshift lever and rose the block off Sam's back. He paused in his labor when he noted Sam's insignia beneath the grime. "Looks like I found one of the terrorists," he shouted to a group of rescuers. A man walked over, confirmed his friend's suspicions, and without further word, kicked the leaver away from the concrete, reburying Sam.

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