My mouth was full of the smell of dust and gunpowder, and my heart was pounding. I opened my eyes to see the ground was full of blown-out rubble and indistinguishable blackened objects. It took a while for the man who was protecting me to roll over.

He coughed softly, and I turned to see that the silver mask on his face was stained with gray dust. If he hadn't pulled me away in time, I think I would have been blown to pieces by now.

"Are you all right, Daley?" I looked around and slowly got up to make sure there were no more explosions around. At first, my...