Ten Forward Social Lounge

 Somehow, they've been separated.

No. He knows how. She'd been speaking with a number of the new arrivals he hasn't yet met in the main room, and he'd wandered companionably with one of the tour groups, and one room feel away to another until he was down here and she was not, and then the world cracked open under his feet and above his head in a cataclysm of dust and falling rock, a sudden sick lurch of the ground that was meant to be solid, stable, unbroken.

It lasts for an instant and an eternity: the people he's with shout and duck, and he shouts and ducks, instinct leaping to the forefront of conscious thought and wiping it clean, as if an arm thrown over his face could save him from being crushed by a boulder or the weight of the earth above him, as if some frail human reaction could stave off razor-sharp rock edges, spurs of stone, the drowning dust and collapsing ceiling. He's vaguely aware of the child in his group, of throwing himself towards her, in the wild hope that his body might somehow protect hers from the wreckage tumbling around them, but he's too far and the ground bucks and tosses him off his feet, throws him into a wall that hadn't been there before, knocking the air from his lungs and filling his vision with dancing spots.

He rolls. Finds his feet. Thinks: out. Thinks: escape. Knows, with a sick drop of his stomach that's more complete than words: the world is ending, here in this new universe, and they've been separated. 

He can't hear his own voice when he shouts Marian! and couldn't say why he tries, or why he makes a last frantic push for the way he came, one arm shielding his head, and the other reaching like he might find a hand --

And then --

And then there's nothing but settling dust and a low ringing buzz in his ears, and a leaden weight on his chest that only lets him cough out, feeling something shift and twinge unhappily in his back. It's a moment before he can push to his feet, blinking through wide, watering eyes, and then he sees it. 

The way he came. The way they walked only moments before. 

It's a riot of jumbled rock, sharp edges and implacable stone, and impossible weight, and he coughs as he sizes it up with a glance, before turning what's left of the cave they'd been viewing, waving his hand before his face like it might clear some of the moody, persistent dust, taking in the moving figures, the motionless ones. The ground is littered with loose rocks and debris, and he picks his way carefully in the direction of the little girl he'd seen before, trying to peer through the wall of dust, and his heart is hammering in his ears, narrowing his vision, but his voice, though dry and scratched, is the cutting ring of a ship's captain calling for his crew, an army's commander wresting the attention of a field of soldiers.

"Is anyone hurt? Sing out if you can, do it quick!"