The heat on the lower platform was climbing with every breath, rising past forty degrees as the boiling floodwater in the cut lapped within two inches of the concrete platform edge. The sulfur vapor was so thick that the lanterns were reduced to blurred orange smudges. It cast long, monstrous shadows through the swirling white mist.
At the foot of the stairs, the panic threatened to break the lines.
Two young kitchen tenders, boys no older than fourteen who had worked under Doma since the fourth winter, were desperately trying to haul a hundred-pound sack of emergency salt-flour up the wooden steps. The rough pine treads were coated in a slimy film of condensed grease and coal soot. The boy on the upper end lost his footing. His clog slipped on the slick nosing, his shins slamming against the edge of the riser with a sickening crack. He shrieked, letting go of the burlap ears. The heavy sack tumbled backward, knocking the second boy down the flight and plunging directly into the boiling foam of the rail cut.
The burlap burst upon impact. A cloud of white flour erupted into the air, instantly turning into a thick, grey paste as it hit the scalding water, coating the intake screens of the lower drainage pump in a sticky, iron-hard slime.
