I kept my eyes shut.

I told myself, very clearly, in words: no.

That is not your life anymore.

You do not have to stand up.

You do not have to be the one.

But I had heard that voice before — not the man’s, the tone. I’d lived inside that tone in a single-seat cockpit with the ground coming up, the particular music of systems failing and a pilot deciding not to let his voice show it.

My body recognized it before my conscience could vote.