The Crater Out Back

Chapter 2 - "Morning"

  "Rhett!" The voice screamed from afar. I looked around to find where it was coming from. It had sounded similar to my mom's voice. Beads of sweat rolled down my face and neck.
"Mom?!" I yelled for her. "Mom!"
  I sprinted down the hall in my slippers. I was knocked over with a sudden BANG!
  The house shook.
  I heard my mom's voice scream. The walls and floors and everything were shaking and parts of the roof crumbled. The lights that were left on, started flickering. I heard more things crash and it started to stop.
  "Rhe—"
I sat up in a cold, hard sweat. The first thing that I noticed when I woke up was the rubble and glass that covered my bedroom floor.
My nightmare was real.
At least, it seemed like it.
  I rushed into the living where my mom was sitting on the couch. She wasn't hurt like in my nightmare, but she was just staring at the wall. I walked closer and I saw what had happened last night.
She was staring at a green, glowing marking on the wall: 木. I had seen it before, and so had she. It looked so familiar, I just couldn't recall what.
Suddenly, she sat up as if no longer under a spell. She shook her head.
"Shawn, it's 7:15, shouldn't you be getting ready," she said.
"Yeeeeah," I said slowly.
I turned on the news when my mom left to go to her room.
  "—sort of earthquake went through Tennessee, today. Scientists believe it's origin comes from somewhere in Hadwick County."
  "No wonder," I said. I had lived in Ferrisville in Hadwick County for a while. There had never been an earth quake. This must have been the storm! But, I thought, earthquake's aren't exactly storms...
  I got changed and went to the kitchen to find my mom again.
  "That earthquake last night was pretty scary," she said chuckling.
  "Yeah. It did a toll on my room."
  "Okay, get your backpack and kiss me goodbye." My mom told me, smiling.
  "Bye," I said after retrieving my backpack, "love you."

Kavs7240