Seal awoke during the night. An eerie feeling washed over her. She heard a loud bang. Then she felt it, like a giant hand had slammed the side of her house, shaking it. Her bed lurched once across the floor in one direction, then scraped against the floor in another. The metal legs dug into the splintered wood. The entire house trembled.
Small cracks spread across the ceiling like a spider web; their dark outlines appearing against the paint. Bits of plaster chipped off the wall and sprinkled to the floor. Seal stood in the doorway, hoping it would protect her. The hairs on her arm stood on end. It felt like being haunted. She remembered some earthquakes liquefied the ground and swallowed entire buildings. She hoped that would not happen.
Javin woke up an hour earlier and turned on the tv, adjusting the sound as low as possible. He watched an old 50s horror show before falling back to sleep. The same jolt that woke Seal caused him to spring off the couch. He watched as the couch slid across the floor. Plates and cups spilled out of the cabinet and he heard water spraying underneath the sink. A puddle formed across the kitchen floor. The TV glared brightly, then shrunk into a small circle at its center before going dark. He felt around and located his backpack and headed to check on Cora. The kitchen table slammed into Javin as he walked by, jolted by a sudden pull of the earth. His air pushed from his lungs, he struggled to catch a full breath. Then the shaking stopped.
Seal kneeled in her doorway when the earth stopped shifting. She called downstairs. No response. Motes of dust hung in the air. When the shaking started again, she took a half step towards the stairs. Pictures and trinkets on her chest spilled off, shelling the floor like mortars. A gigantic object crashed through her ceiling, spewing more dust into the air. She choked. Seal pulled attic insulation off her head and then she heard someone scream.
Javin nearly reached the door to the den to help Cora when the shaking resumed. Every remaining glass in the kitchen fell and crashed to the floor. The refrigerator made an awful racket like a 300 pound man pushed it against the wall in a tantrum. He heard a loud crack from upstairs and the ceiling caved in above the door to the den. A house support beam poked from above. He heard Cora scream. The thick dust made it too difficult to see through the darkness. Cora would have to climb out the window on her own. Seal might need help, too. Javin approached the stairs and took one at a time. He kept his belly on each tread while the house bounced underneath him.
Seal crawled to the stairs. She sat up and hugged the railing, sliding down each stair on her butt. She refused to stand; too afraid she would tumble. Part of the railing hung loosely from the wall and she had nothing she trusted to hold on to. She froze, feeling on the edge of blacking out. A hand wrapped tightly around her ankle pulling her down the stairs. It was Javin. She panicked and hugged him closely and they both tumbled together.
At the bottom of the stairs, they clung as they half stood, feeling battered from the spill. They squatted to maintain their balance and scooted to the front door. Javin pulled on it. It was stuck. Seal pulled too, but the door remained jammed. Javin kicked at it uselessly.
“Let’s go out the back door,” Seal yelled. As they turned, the frame cracked and the front door exploded open. Javin and Seal ran outside and fell. They watched the house tear itself apart. Their heads banged together involuntarily.
“Do you think we’re safe?” Javin yelled above the roar. In answer to his question, the propane tank breached, sending a spew of liquid into the air and across the field, and onto Seal’s house. The gods are against us, he thought.
The darkness turned white in a flash, then bright red as it caught aflame. A wave of heat washed over them. Seal knew the dried brown heads of the sunflowers would further fuel the fire.
“We have to get out of here,” she told Javin, and this time she pulled them to their feet.
“To the clearing!” he yelled.
“What?” she replied. She couldn’t hear him above the growing roar of fire and shaking ground.
“Follow me,” he yelled loudly and pulled her along.
“Wait, Paintchip. I forgot Paintchip.” She ran towards the house, now fully engulfed in flames. He tackled her and they fell again.
“It’s too late,” he helped her stand, then she finally followed, clearly in shock.
They ran towards the clearing. Flames cut across the field. The ground continued to shake. They lost their balance over and over. Each time, they helped one another to stand as they fled. Fire leaped over their head once, causing burning vegetable matter to rain on their bare arms. They continued, brushing the cinders away. As they neared the clearing, another explosion came from Seal’s house. Fire spread around them. Seal hoped the clearing would keep the fire at bay. It was their only hope not to die.
They spotted the clearing ahead. Above it, deep gray smoke hung in the air. The moonlight nearly cut through it, causing an eerie glow. They took their first step past the line of sunflowers in unison. Instead of landing on hard metal, their feet met empty space. Seal thought it looked like a gaping opened mouth swallowing them, but surely that was only a trick of the flames and smoke.
They tumbled into the black pit. It felt like several minutes as they plummeted. They drifted apart, separated by the overwhelming darkness. As they lost sight of one another and neither of them remembered their next moments. It felt like falling asleep.
When Seal awoke, she lay flat on her back. She looked, but Javin was nowhere near. She felt bruised and smelled like singed hair, but she thought she suffered no actual injuries from the fall. Seal sat up and rubbed her head. It ached. Her ears rang. Everything else remained silent. Something small approached her out of the grayness. She thought it might be a rabbit or squirrel except it walked on two legs, favoring one over the other with a limp. She recognized the figure. It was Paintchip, her sister’s doll.
“Hi Seal, it’s me and I missed you. Why did you leave me behind?”
Seal fainted in shock.