It simply became irrelevant.

Something older and fiercer than fear took the controls.

I want to be honest about what that calm was, because people have called it courage since, and it was not courage, or not the kind they mean.

I was not brave in that box.

I was more frightened than I have ever been or ever will be again — frightened at a depth I did not know a body could hold.

The calm in my voice was not the absence of that terror.