Earth Underwater

It's not a nightmare

The piercing screams of my younger brother Mason wake me up, I roll out of bed half asleep, already preparing my ''it's only a nightmare" speech which I tend to do every other night. I walk up to his bed, but he's not there. Yet I still hear his screams.

"Mason? Where are you?" I shout into the rest of my house, my annoyance rising- its only 3 am.

"Zoe! Zoe! Help, t-the floor!"

I begin to follow the sound of his voice, it's coming from the kitchen. When i reach halfway down the stairs, I see water, lots of it, and its rising fast. "Mason, I'm coming!" I shout to him when I see him standing on the kitchen table which is quickly being swallowed up by the salty liquid. I trudge through the water, but the force of the water is too strong. Taking a deep breath, i dive under water and swim to the table and pull myself back up, holding onto the edge of it. "Get on my back" I command, to which he quickly obliges.

I tread through the water until i reach the stairs again, and we run to the top. i head to my parents' room and bang on their door- confused as to why they've not been woken by all this commotion. then I remember that they're on a cruise in the Caribbean, they said they needed a week's holiday and so I agreed to babysit my 8-year-old brother. Now i really wish he was having a nightmare now.

I run back to my room and practically rip my phone off the charger, I go onto the sky news and click on the first article, I quietly say aloud "Breaking news: water levels rising drastically across the globe, the number of casualties increasing, current death toll unknown but expected to be in the high hundred-thousands. As to when the 'death-wave' as it has been named, will stop or descend is questionable. Emergency rescue serves are being sent to as many homes and buildings as possible: please try to get to the roof as rescue helicopters and planes will only be able to reach there. I run to open the window, "Ok, listen to me very carefully, the pipe that's next to my window, you need to climb up it and onto the roof. As quickly and as carefully as you can".

"Ok" Mason replies. he's done rock climbing ever since he was four years old, and he also has no concept of fear which I wish I had right now. He grabs onto the pipe and pulls himself out of the window and climbs up.

"I'll be right behind you, let me just grab some stuff"

knowing he'll be able to climb it easily I grab my rucksack that's next to my bed and empty all of my school books and pens over the floor. I run to my wardrobe and grab leggings, trousers, and tops for me and then repeat it for Mason, throwing it all into the bag as I go. I grab my mum's emergency credit card which she gave to me, I've never taken it out of my safe before, I think as I stare at it. I break out of my haze and drop the bag. I run back to the stairs, by which time the water has reached the top, I dive in and swim back to the kitchen. I take 4 bottles of water and some canned pasta hoops and a box of biscuits.

Swimming back to the second floor is not easy when holding things in both hands. eventually, I reach the top and take a deep breath of air, filling my lungs completely and then breath out. I stuff the food into the bag and climb up the pipe, meeting my brother on the roof. I scan the sky for any lights from helicopters or planes, but all I see is an infinite sea of darkness. I hear the blades of a helicopter spinning and I can feel my heart banging against my rib cage, the spotlight from the helicopter finally lands on our house and we wave us out arms frantically. "Over here! Help!" we both scream to our only chance of survival.

They see us and shout through a megaphone, "we're going to throw down a ladder, you need to climb up and do it quickly, we can't stay this low for long. The waters getting too high".

"Quick Mason, go" I lift him up and urge him to go quicker, follow him and when we reach the helicopter, we climb in, sit down, put our seat-belts on. I watch as our house drowns, along with normality and sanity. I notice that there are three other people in here, I put the headphones on soi can block out the deafening sound from the helicopter blades and speak to the other people. I recognize the man opposite Mason, Mr. Finnigan, he lives opposite us...well he used to. He's an Irishman who I've never seen a smile or spoken to in my life but he nods his head and gives me a small smile: wordlessly saying he's happy that we're alive.

I start a conversation with the other two. "Hi, I'm Zoe"

"I'm Alexandra, this is Mason my brother are you from this street as well?"

"Yeh, house number 5, what about you?"

"I live at 11" she replies with a sadness in her eyes, "where are y-". The boy next to her interrupts. "I'm Nicholas, Lexie's my twin sister" I immediately notice the similarities between them, they both have wavy caramel-brown hair, Nicholas' cut short to an inch and swept towards his left whereas, Lexie's is half way down her back. They're eyes, however, are different: Lexie has emerald coloured eyes and Nicholas has Sapphire blue. "Your name means life" Lexie states. I laugh hollowly, it scares me, "That's ironic, I'm pretty sure we're all going to die, we need a miracle".

"Hmm, you're not very optimistic..." Nicholas observes. Lexie shushes him "Nick!"

"I'm not a pessimist, I just state the reality. Don't get me wrong, I really hope we survive but right now it doesn't look so good for us..." I end quietly in a whisper "looks like the end of the world has come".

As we fly through the air Mason grabs my hand, and I hold on tight- he's all I have right now, and I silently vow to myself that I will protect not only his life but also his innocence. He doesn't need to know the horrors of the world and the life-threatening obstacles we're about to face. I'm 17 years old, the only things I'm supposed to be worried about are my exams and which university I'm going to go to. Not whether or not I'll be alive tomorrow. We drop a few feet and for a second my heart stops. "We'll be landing in a minute, when you get off the helicopter there will be someone there to assist you".

• Second chapter will be up tomorrow! •