The dust took three hours to settle.
Holden stood on the hilltop and watched it fall. Layer by layer, the grey cloud that had risen from the collapsed skyscraper sank back to earth, covering the ruins of Oakhaven like a funeral shroud. The rain helped, catching the dust particles and pulling them down, slowly washing the air clean.
When the air finally cleared, the city was unrecognizable.
The northern quarter, where the skyscraper had once stood, was gone. In its place was a massive crater, two hundred feet wide and fifty feet deep, filled with rubble. Huge concrete slabs lay among twisted steel beams, shattered glass, dust, and ash. The remains of the hundred-story building had been compressed into a pile that rose sixty feet above the surrounding ruins.
