The first thing I feel when I wake up is the shaking of the earth. In my half-asleep state, I don't realise that that would be impossible. We have no earthquakes in Atera.
A large boom makes me sit straight up in bed, definitely awake now. Another blast goes of so close to our house that I can feel it hit the house, making it shake even more. Frozen in shock and fear, my heart beating so fast and my breathing quickening, I can feel a dread filling my stomach.
Then suddenly, I hear my mom scream. A scream so filled of terror it makes my skin crawl. my mother never screams. She is one of the most softest people I have ever known.
Everything she does is like water. A soft stream making its way quietly down from the mountain. She is pure like the water and her heart is as clear as it can be.
So whatever is going on, it is very, very bad.
I throw the covers off my body and run through the house, something that I would normally get a warning look for, while trying to keep from falling over because the ground was shaking so bad, I feared the roof would fall in.
When I saw her standing in the small living room looking out the window, with my dad frantically running around throwing things in bags, I knew my life was never going to be the same. The peace we had found here on Atera, we would never get back.
"Mom?!" I yelled at her, "what is going on?!". "Mother!" she didn't turn around. She just stood there in front of the window, frozen in time.
My father finally noticed me standing in the doorway. He bowed down to my height, put his big hands on my small shoulders and looked me straight in the eye. My father was never this serious. He was always laughing, making jokes, I loved his jokes.
"Aayala", his grey eyes held sadness and panic in them, but his voice was strong and sure, "Go get some clothes and put them in the purple bag in your room. Be quick, be quiet."
"What is going on dad? Why is mother just standing there?" I tried to look brave and show my dad that I could be his strong little girl, but I had trouble keeping the tears out of my eyes and stop my hands from shaking.
"You're mother is just a little afraid Yala. We need to help her. Can you do that?" I wasn't sure what I could do and couldn't do at that moment, but I nodded my head.
"Good. Go. Put some shoes on, don't worry about the pajamas."
I rushed off to my room, grabbed the backpack from my closet and stuffed some clothes in it. I didn't even look at what I had in my hands, I just stuffed it until it was full. Tears were running over my cheeks now and I had a hard time seeing through the water in my eyes.
A big rumble of the earth made me lose my balance and fall on my butt on the floor of my small room. I don't know what happened but in that moment I just lost it. It was all too much.
Not knowing what was going on, the shock of seeing my mother so distressed and the pain in my farthers eyes made me cry my eyes out. I could hear myself over the sound of war outside and I just wished I could go back to yesterday, when my mother made my favourite food and we played games together until it was far past my bedtime.
I was shocked out of my thoughts when my father came running into my room and saw me sitting on the floor, rocking myself back and forth with my head on my knees.
He didn't say anything, just put my backpack on my back and picked me up.
While he ran away from my bedroom, I looked back over his shoulder I had been in, sleeping in for 16 years. it still had the glow in the dark stars I made him glue on my ceiling when I was 10. It still had the same rug with the purple lines I got when I was 8. The stack of books I had collected over the years seemed to scream at me to take them with me.
