Alone

Get the Hell out

The bed shook making the headboard batter the wall rhythmically as I heard a creaking.

My eyes flashed open and I sat straight up in the bed. My mind couldn't process what was happening.

"What the fuck?" Dan asked groggily as I sat there frozen in fear and shock. The whole building felt like it was trembling.

"We have to get out." I told him quickly.

"What the hell is happening?" He asked.

"Earthquake." Was all that was able to leave my mouth as I shot up from the bed.

I heard a loud booming and almost a roar before the shaking stopped.

"What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck?!" Dan's mouth spouted. "What was that noise?!"

"I don't know but we have to leave." I told him "Get your things." I told him and with that I went off to the bathroom, got dressed and began to shove things into my suitcase before riddling off to his room to see him with his things.

We quickly made our way down the hall and then all the flights of stairs to the lobby.

"What the bloody hell?" Dan asked as I saw him freeze and look out the huge glass double doors leading outside.

You couldn't see anything at all outside, absolutely nothing.

I went over to the door and opened it for my lungs to be met with a cloud of dust making me choke.

"Are you alright?" He asked.

"Dust. I think something might of collapsed, a building nearby maybe."

"Holy shit. Seriously?! This one could collapse as well." He said in panic.

"I don't think so." I cleared my throat of the dust finally. "Did you hear the creaking sound during the earthquake?" I asked. "Newer buildings like these are meant to take earthquakes and the beams bend with it so the whole building wobbles. I mean it still could, but it'll take more than that. We can't leave though until the dust settles."

"What if it happens again?! I told you I felt something earlier!"

"Stop." I told him looking him in the eyes. "Don't. Panic. Okay? Everything's fine right now." I said and watched him settle down.

"Right. Okay. Where are we going to go?" He asked.

"We need to get the hell out of California." I told him. "I don't know what's happening or if this is just one isolated incident, but I don't trust being here anymore."

"Wait. Let's just look at this reasonably. It's not like this happens here constantly, right?"

"Not ones that huge. Surely you're not saying you want to stay here though, right?" I asked him.

"Our food is all stored away here and you want to leave the West Coast where probably nothing has been stored in a refrigerated this whole time? At least we know we have food and supplies here." He pointed out.

"No, I don't want to, but literally anything could happen Dan. It's dangerous here, California is on a bunch of big crazy fault lines. I'm sure we can find food and storage somewhere else." I told him.

"You said yourself that this building is made to survive earthquakes, we should be fine."

"Dan, do you know what a tsunami is?" I asked him.

"Another dangerous natural disaster we should look out for? Tsunamis don't happen in California do they?"

"It could. It's a huge wave, a very, very very big wave that will destroy anything in its path. It can be caused by basically underwater earthquake. If that happens it doesn't matter how well this building was built to withstand earthquakes." I said. "We need to go." 

"You're right, okay." He said less confidently than he looked. "Are you scared?" He asked me looking absolutely terrified. "Because I am." He added.

I threw my arms around him and hugged his tall body on my tiptoes.

"I'm not scared, you shouldn't be either, it's going to be alright." I told him. He gripped onto me for a while longer and when he pulled away I could just tell he felt better.

The ground began to violently shake underneath us once again and I heard the entire building creak above us.

I felt Dan grip my hand and saw he was looking at me with scared, wild brown eyes.

"Put your shirt over your mouth we have to leave." I said and gripped his hand and started to run for the doors.

Adrenaline coursed through me and I felt fucked no matter what. If we went out there a building  around us could fall and kill us with dust and debris or we could stay in here and risk this building collapsing on us.

"Give me the keys! Give me your keys!" I yelled at him and I hadn't even noticed they were in his other hand and he had quickly handed them to me. "Cover your nose and mouth." I said as I pulled the collar of my shirt up and he did the same.

I opened the door to see the dust still hadn't cleared and it was thick with very little to no visibility.
I had to blindly guess and try to remember where the black SUV was.

I finally found it covered in dust.
The ground still violently shook around us as we both got in the car.

I turned on the windshield wipers to clear the dust off the front window but it didn't help when the dust outside was so thick you couldn't see anyway.

"How are you going to drive in this?! You can't see a bloody thing!" Dan yelled panicking once again.

"I've got this." I said as I started the car, "we just have to get far enough away." I assured him as well as myself.

I began to drive and the shaking ground began to taper off to a stop.

It was hard to tell where the road was but I tried not to panic even when we hit massive bumps.

"It's okay." I told as again as he went into some kind of quiet shock in the passenger's seat.

The cloud of dust became thinner and thinner as I drove from memory of the streets.
I now figured out that those huge bumps I was hitting were where the street had come completely up into the air.

"Holy shit." Dan said upon seeing the first one, but I tried to keep calm and just drive.

"How are you not scared?" He asked once we were on the highway and able to see again.

"I am, I was terrified." I told him "I'm not afraid to admit I was. I just couldn't run and hide, I had to get us away from there, I still have to."

"Where are you thinking?"

"I don't know just probably Nevada." I told him. "There's tons of hotels with solar powered generators and things, I've already had a look."

"Is that what you were also doing when you went out looking for others?" He asked.

"I figured it wouldn't hurt to look while I was there." I shrugged.

"You couldn't of seen this whole earthquake thing happening though. Were you trying to find places to go in case you left me for some reason?"