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“Can you move?”
He tried and then said, "I can’t.  I think I'm trapped.”  
His fingertips brushed cool, jagged edges.  Dust and cold concrete filled the space that his legs should have.  A hole had been punched through his stomach.          
“Me too.  Where are you?”
The rubble choked sound of her voice limped into his ears.  Her question was pointless; earth quaking bombs had brought the basement's ceiling down between them, trapping each in a separate plot.  
"I'm... somewhere," he said hesitantly, "I don't know." Darkness surrounded him, so impossibly dense it seemed that lens caps covered his eyes.  He knew no pain, but uncomfortable tightness strangled his chest and a beaten will told him that he wouldn't be dancing any time soon.  
He fished a box of matches from his shirt pocket and lit one, sending a tiny bead of white flame soaring down the wooden stick.  At war with the darkness, the light illuminated tortured concrete, bent rebar and her hand, pinched beneath a heavy slab.  He reached out and squeezed that hand, hearing her suck in a gravelly breath as they touched.
“It's just me,” he said quickly. "Not the rats.  Are you hurt?"
“A bit,” she admitted hoarsely.  
Her answer worried him.  She never admitted to pain, not even when it was obvious.  She did it out of pride.  Hiding it didn’t seem to matter anymore though.  Not at the world's end.    
“I'm sure it's nothing," he said, "We're going to get out of here.  I'll dig you out.”
“You won't get me out," she said, "My legs are broken."
“I can splint them.  I'll make you a stretcher and drag you away from here.”
She didn’t respond.  Probably figured it wasn't worth wasting the breath.  He didn’t like her silence.  It grated on him like annoying laughter or screaming children.  He tried to move the concrete but it didn’t budge.  This prison had no escape.  
“Tell me a story,” she said, just as she always did when nothing else would pass the time.  
Without hesitation he began “There was once a woman who walked across a parking lot and then she fell down.”
Silence again. The skin of her hand had a corpselike coolness to it, a clamminess he could not dispel no matter how long he held it for.
“Please say something,” he begged, "I'll think you're dead if you don't say anything."
“That story was shit.  Tell me another one.  Tell me a better one.”
A long, relieved breath left his mouth. “I’m sorry.  I don’t know any better stories.”
“Just try.  Please.”  
“Okay.” He listened to the dust flowing through the rubble, feeling the gentle trickle of pulverised concrete on the skin of his face.  It floated like soft snow and then caked to the blood of his wounds.
“There was…” He stopped, trying to think of something clever to say, something to make her laugh. “There was once a kid.  He was stupid and his parents hated him and he didn’t have any friends.  One day a murder of crows came and pecked his eyes out.  He couldn’t see so he walked out onto the road and a car hit him.”
She laughed.  A pained laugh, forced and phlegmatic.  But at least she laughed.
Then the laugh stopped and she asked, “Are we going to die here?”
“No,” he immediately lied, "We're going to get out and get away from all of this.”
He ripped at the concrete, trying to chunk some of it away.  An impossible task.  He couldn't dig himself out; like any good final stand he did it out of futility, needing to fight the odds no matter how lopsided.  
“I don’t want to die here,” she said. "In the dark."
“Don’t worry, you won't die.  I love you too much to let you die in a basement.”
“You’re not a good liar.”
“I’m a great liar but that wasn’t a lie," he said without conviction, "Just give me a few minutes and I’ll be right there.” He felt in his breast pocket.  A cigarette lighter without fluid, condoms, a ring, a drawing, candy wrappers and shell casings.
“Do you remember that drawing you gave me?”
The paper felt slick with blood.  Whatever the drawing had been, it was ruined now.  
“No.  Maybe.  Which drawing?”
He tried to remember what it was, wishing he'd thought about it before he asked.  Too little time remained to squander what he had.  
“It was a long time ago.  You gave it to me late at night, after we went home from a movie.  Do you remember now?”
“No.  I don’t.”
“You drew it with a pen and you laughed when you gave it to me, like when I tell you a joke and you show your teeth.  Do you remember?” He peeled his fingers away from paper.  He hadn’t looked at it for a long time.
“I don't remember.  Tell me another story.”
“My stories are terrible.”
“I like them,” she said. "They're funny, and clever."
“They're stupid.  I think of them on the spot and they make no sense, but since you asked, here's another one.  Three boys went into a forest and one of them was mistaken as a deer and got shot by a hunter.  The other two got scared and ran away and they got eaten by a bear.  Was that okay?”
That story was far from okay, and he knew it.  
She knew it too, but didn't say so.
“I liked that one, but tell me a happy story next time.”
He frowned, but was the only one to know.  His gaze lingered on the spot her hand rested and he softly told her, “You never used to like happy stories.  You like sad endings, like me.”  When she didn’t respond he asked, “When you look down the scope of your rifle, do you give them stories?”
The response came after seconds of pregnant silence. “I do.  I give them names and I give them families and friends and lives and then I pull the trigger.  I see the flash of red and I know that everything they were is gone.”
“You’re like a god,” he said.
“There are no gods,” she whispered. "Any god who let a war like this happen doesn't deserve the title.  Now tell me a happy story.”
His hands rested on the rent edges that pinned his legs and another long breath escaped into the dark void. “A man loved a woman once, but before he could tell her, he died.” A quickly numbing tongue licked across bloody lips. “Sorry, that’s not happy.  I can't think of a happy story, I'm sorry I just don't have one.  Not now."
"You have to try anyways; I'll stop talking to you if you don't."
She wouldn't follow through with that childish threat, but he caved anyways. "There was once a ballerina, the best in the whole world.  A very lonely prince fell in love with her.  The prince was from Holland.  He used to watch her every performance.  Then the theatre burned down and they all died.”
She didn’t speak; she didn't laugh.  No noise left her lips except for ragged, dying breaths.  
“I’m sorry," he said, "I thought that would be funny.  This is what really happened.  Every time the prince tried to talk to the ballerina she disappeared.  That is, until-”
“What was her name?”
“Umm... Katyusha.”      
“What a pretty name.”
“It is.”
“What colour were her eyes?”
“Blue, but the insides were green.  Very pretty eyes, like yours.  When it‘s very bright outside, your pupils get small, and when you look at me you're all irises and no pupil, and I just feel like watching you forever.”
“Are we going to die?” she asked again.
The truth had no use in a situation like this. “No," he told her, "We haven't survived for so long just to go like this.  We're going to make it out, okay?”
“Okay.”
He swallowed. “You know that I love you, right?”
“I know.”
"More than anything in the entire world."
"I know."
“Okay.  Good.  It’s good that you know."
"Tell me what happened to the prince."
He cleared his throat before continuing. "The prince tried to reach the ballerina for a long time, but he could never find her, and then one day he got a note that said that he had to give up all his money in exchange for the opportunity to talk to her.”
“I took ballet class once.  I wasn’t very good...”
“I’m sure you were perfect.”
“Don’t lie, you're not good at it.”
“I never lie...  I was always afraid you wouldn’t love me, you know that?  More afraid of that than being burned alive.”
“Tell me what the prince did.”
He licked his upper lip, tasting the bitter blood that ran from his scalp. “Oh, he sat around and pondered for a few days and then decided to take the chance and give up his fortune.  The next day on the street he met the most beautiful girl ever.  It was Katyusha, the ballerina.  But when she looked at him, all she could see was a poor man with no money.  A waste of her time.”
The stale air left him tired, each frigid breath laden with ever less oxygen.  He spoke anyways, giving those final breaths to her.          
“Her rejection depressed the prince, so he decided to kill himself.”
“You told me this would be a happy story.”
He swallowed again but couldn't clear the grit. “I'm not finished yet.  Just... give me a minute.”
“Okay.”
The darkness shook again, loosening more dust and rock.  The bombs fell like rain now.  London weather, he thought.  Something struck the top of his head, jarring a grunt from his clenched teeth.  Terrifying pain left stars flickering across his vision.  
He shut his eyes tight, willing his dazed mind to form words.  He asked, “Are you all right?”  
“No,” she replied, “Are you?”
This time he spoke the truth. “No." He hadn't breath for any more.  
With trembling fingers, he struck another match, needing to look at her hand, bleeding and dirty beside him.  He squeezed it again and she squeezed back, a hissing breath betraying her pain at the movement.        
“Finish the story.”
"I can't.  I don't know how it ends."
"Then I'll finish it.  The ballerina stops the prince from killing himself then they get married and live happily ever after."      
He tried to answer, but couldn't force the words through his mind.  Even his eyes started to shut of their own accord, betraying him to concussion's sleep.  
Like some goliath god of the dead hammering the final nail in their coffin, another shockwave rippled through their crumbling tomb.  After endless minutes it passed, then the only noise was of whispering shifts in settling rock.  She called his name, begging the darkness for a response.  
None came.  No tattered voice spoke comforting lies.  No fingers rubbed the pain from her hand.  
“Are you okay?” she croaked, already knowing the answer.
She drew a long breath into lungs that wouldn’t fill and said, “I’m going to tell you a story now.” Drip of blood or tears faintly splashed againstthe rock.  
“There was once a man who fell in love with a woman.  For some reason he was always afraid that she didn’t love him.  All their time together he just wanted her to tell him, but she never did.  She always wanted to… She just wouldn't say the words.”
"The man died before she told him, but do you know what the last thing she said to him was; the last thing she wanted him to know?" She waited for an answer that would never come, then spoke again. "I always loved you."