Exam White chalk screeching against a blackboard at the front of a dead-quiet classroom. A beam of brilliant sunlight bursting through dark, heavy clouds outside. That's what lake Evans would remember about the moments leading up to the chaos that brought about the first stage of his downfall. It was the calm before the storm, even though the thunder and rain had only just stopped. Jake could smell the chalk from where he sat. As it squeaked against the board, it trickled flecks as dry and powdery as fine ash; it made his nose tickle. His usual teachers used the whiteboard. He was sitting in an aisle desk near the front of the classroom at his school in Chilliwack, British Columbia.

The aisle position gave him a slight advantage for what was about to unfold. He'd only glanced out the window at the cloud break for a second. He was concentrating very hard on Nancy Sheppard's chalk. It was forming the words "final exam," and he was feeling pumped. He knew he was going to ace the test; all the students knew he was going to. He wasn't cocky about being this class's top dog, or about being the teacher's pet. That wasn't part of his personality. It's not as if he was a brain in any other classes.

It's just that at that particular moment-sitting there watching the word "final exam" take form-he was calm, primed, and wrapped in confidence. The pride before the fall, his mother would say. Then the chalk fell from Nancy's hand, her mouth opened wide, and out came that word, the one that rattled Jake's confidence. "Explosion!" For a split-second everyone just sat dumbly at their desks, staring at their teacher as she waved her arms wildly at the door. "Get out!" Nancy shouted louder, eyes wide. "File out to the parking lot, now!" Jake felt a bolt of adrenalin lift him out of his desk and hurl him down the aisle toward the door at the back of the room. Soon a dozen other students were stampeding behind him in the same direction, screaming, pushing, jostling, crushing one another in their race to be first out of the building. Jake's fast reaction time put him at the head of the pack.

Years of doing extreme sports gave him that advantage. He looked left, right. Nothing but the empty, potholed gravel schoolyard, still damp from the rain shower. Then he looked twenty-five yards ahead at the parking lot and drew in his breath. He counted six bodies sprawled in unnatural poses on the dark, steamy tarmac. Only one was moving: a skinny, red-soaked figure dragging its lower body with the help of ragged jerks from its twisted upper body. Jake powered his long legs into an all-out sprint. Just as he reached the disaster scene, the crawling student -- a boy he knew -- collapsed into a stunned heap.

"Stay calm," Jake told himself as he drew near. "Just figure out who needs help first" He stopped and squatted beside the closest student, a girl lying on her back, as the crowd behind him caught up and ran to other victims. Her eyes were closed and her face was as white as Nancy's chalk. He could see no wounds or obvious injuries, yet when he bent his ear over her mouth, he could feel no breath. Quickly, his fingers reached for the place on her neck where he'd feel her pulse. "Nothing," he muttered soberly to a boy kneeled nearby who was going through the same motions on another still body. "Same," the boy said solemnly, eyes large. "Leave them," Jake ruled, springing up and glancing about, trying to take in the whole scene at once.

"You sure?" his classmate asked, looking hesitantly from the body he'd just declared dead, to the girl's body, to Jake. ".