There was no warning. No newscast or siren. Only a sudden and uncontrollable shift of earth.

I was walking home from school, trekking the well worn dirt road on my own. With no siblings or neighbors close to my age, it was always a solitary journey, but never a lonesome one. The air was cool and salty, the seabirds sang out to one another, and the crashing waves telling me stories of voyages I had yet to embark upon. The beauty of the emerald hills were as fine as any gemstone, glimmering in the afternoon sun as the grasses ebbed and flowed in the gentle winds.

I had just reached the base of the steepest part of the path when it began.

It was heard before it was felt. A deep growl within the core, harkening the disturbed slumber of the beast. Then, a small shake, so miniscule it might have been written off as an overactive imagination--and it would have been, were it not for the rupture that followed.

The slight tremors crescendoed to a great rumble in the time that it took me to draw my next breath. The ground shook so violently that I was nearly taken from my feet. I was sure there must have been shouts from the lower town, though I heard nothing but the sharp cracking of soil as it ripped into pieces before me. My heart jumped into a panic, my brain echoing a single word: run.

I sprinted up the hill, jumping over fissures almost as quickly as they were created, commencing a game of hopscotch that my life depended on. With each footfall, I thought I would reach my doom, my legs threatening to collapse under me. The only thing saving me was limiting the contact my shoes had with the shuddering earth below.

When the quaking stopped, I couldn’t tell you for certain. My bones continued to rattle within me for several moments after. Miraculously, I had made it to the top of the road and rested myself on what remained of the stone wall surrounding my family’s land.

Looking down into the bay, I had to remind myself what I was looking at. Gone was the dark blue water that always crashed along the docks. A long crevice in the seabed had drained nearly every drop from the cove, exposing the bottom to the warm rays of the unbroken sky. As far as I could see, shipwrecks of battles long since past dotted the muddy sand, eerie ghosts of a history I had only just begun to study.

As quickly as they had been exposed, the vessels were lost once more, as a tidal wave began its ascent with a roar. The wave built far at sea, traveling with such great speed that, should I have blinked, I would have missed one final glimpse of the town below as it was swallowed by the waters.

There was no warning. No newscast or siren. Only death.