Although Vanessa maintained her interest in the freeform skydive, we all ended up taking the stairs down to the ground floor. There was a tense moment in the stairwell where the building shuddered under a violent impact. The sound was deafening. Everyone scrambled to grab on to the hand rail as the whole building rocked back and forth. I was absolutely sure that right then we were collectively united in the thought that taking the stairs had been a terrible mistake.

“Hurry, we got to get to the ground floor before we get buried alive in here.” Blaine said.

We flew down the stairs as fast as our legs would take us, reaching the ground floor breathless. My legs and chest burned with the exertion but I didn’t want to stop to rest. Javier had one blinking hand on the emergency exit.

“What’s wrong? Open it!” Blaine commanded.

“I’m trying, man- it’s stuck!”

It took the combined efforts of all of us to dislodge whatever had been pressed up against the door. When we finally got it open, we were greeted by chaos.