For a while neither of us spoke.

I could hear Bryce crying to himself quietly.

A moment later, I felt him slip a hand around my arm. He drew a deep, shaky breath in the darkness. He wrapped both of his arms around my much smaller arm, hugging it. He was kind of like a little boy hugging a teddy bear in the middle of a dark night.

It's hard to explain what I felt then. Mostly I didn't want to think about the reality of what was happening. So maybe I was in denial. I don't know. But there's just something about the presence of the last human being you'll ever be with in the world. You share something with that person that no one else could ever understand.

I put my hand on Bryce's shoulder, then I hugged my arms around one of his arms too.

For a moment claustrophobia seized me intensely. But I closed my eyes so the darkness wouldn't be as consuming, and I forced myself to pretend that I was just lying in bed beneath thick sheets.

What I'm going to say next will sound absolutely crazy, and probably perverse. But when you're desperate to escape a horrific experience in any way possible, you find a way.

I pulled my arms from his and found his face in the darkness. Trying not to think about anything but the person beside me, who I knew was as terrified as I was, I traced the contours of his face with my fingertip, then, very gently, his lips.

He froze. His entire body went rigid.

I'm small, and the coffin was made for a large person, so I was able to bend my knees a little and maneuver myself around in the narrow space.

I wrapped my legs and my arms around him and held on tight. I could feel his heart beating.

His breathing deepened. Now he drew his arms around me, and he held me as tightly as I was holding on to him.

I was terrified of dying. . .

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