The Earth Underneath Us

Ch 1: The walls cracked

"Morning Mr. Jeff."

"Good Morning Lia, how do you do?"

"I'm alright, just tired."

"Yeah, I can say the same." I had my little morning conversation with my bus driver, Mr. Jeff, as I walked into the bus ile to find my seat. It was one of those days. Cloudy and yucky. It had rained all last night like crazy, and the weather has been cooler than ever. It's surprising because we live in Los Angeles.

I take my seat in the very back where no one was sitting. I usually like the be alone in the mornings, so I can train my thoughts before I have to go through the school day. School has not been my favorite. I don't mind the learning part, but the kids are just not my type. There is always drama and fights. I mean what can you expect, its 10th grade. My mom always told me to just keep my head down and don't let anyone bother you, but it's kind of hard when they're everywhere.

While I was on my phone scrolling through Instagram, I hear a loud boom outside. Everyone's voices start to rise. I look outside, and all I see is a big ray of smoke rising from an office building downtown. My stomach does a backflip. And then, another booming sound hits with more smoke on another building right next to it. Were we under attack? What was going on? From out of nowhere, our bus starts to shake. I try to look behind us but instead I go flying forward. My head hits one of the corners of the seats. My vision kind of goes blurry but that didn't bother me at the time, I was more worried about what the heck was happening.

"Everybody hang on!" Yells Mr. Jeff while he's trying to take control of the bus. I try to get up and make my way to the front to see what was going on. Kids were all crying for help. I think of calling my mom, so I grab a seat behind Mr. Jeff and I grab my phone and try to dial her number. Though, my phone wouldn't turn on. It was completely black.

"Does anybody have a working phone?" Everyone shakes there head or says no. Well, that's just great.

I look through the window to see what was happening that made the bus shake so much. And oh my god, the street was breaking apart. It started falling inside itself and creating big holes. This can't be happening I thought. This cannot be happening. I am not going to die like this, no, not today.

"Watch out!" Yells Mr. Jeff as he tries to turn the wheel. I look up at the sky and see one of the buildings coming crashing down straight at us.