A young man dared to open his eyes. Immediately dust fell in them. He went to lift his arm to wipe it away, but he could not. His hand was crushed beneath what looked like the font. There was a crack through the stone that he struggled to open with his other hand. Red stained the stone and ran down the broken tiles which he lay on. His legs were numb and his hand was unrecognisable. He heard a groan. He cried out to it, but was not answered. All he saw was darkness. He was trapped, hopelessly. The smell of ash poisoned the air.

  A woman had been groaning, in some attempt to be heard. Now she was silenced. Her lungs were filled with smoke. She felt heat playing at her feet; she heard roaring, burning. A large stone pillar lay across her chest. She sank further into the floor. She had tried to lift the pillar but she was simply too frail. She did not know how this had happened. She remembered opening a fridge to find a chilled bottle of champagne for a wedding reception. Then she awoke on the floor, in agony, in blackness.

  They were alone; the smoke had left them unconscious.

  The church was left in ruins. The wreckage was cleared but what had remained standing was left standing. Days passed before the people trapped inside could be rescued. The survivors were the only people not reduced to ash by the fire or crushed instantaneously. They were pulled out from under the stone and laid out on stretchers. They were wrapped in white sheets like corpses and bandaged. Water was poured down their throats. The burned bodies left in the building were reported missing and the ashes were washed away by the rain that followed.