The sand slips and skids beneath her feet, but she manages to find her footing - to find, at least, as much as she's liable to get. "All right," she says, and if the tension in her voice has ratcheted up another notch, well. Perhaps it can be laid at the feet of precarious balance.

"On three. One...two...three."

She pushes off hard against the side of the sinkhole, and there's a moment where she feels it begin to fall away, when the movement sends another river of sand sliding down her neck, that her heart drops into the pit of her stomach.