Chapter I:

The Beach

I woke up in the middle of the night. Or was it the middle of the day? It’s hard to tell now. I don’t really remember when was the last time I actually felt the passing of time. It’s like my body has remained stuck forever in what was used to be called a “sunny summer day” — yet my mind knows that things are not the way they were. Days are not days anymore. Because the truth is, you cannot have days without nights. And you cannot have nights without Hope. Instead we only have pitch darkness or blinding brightness. That’s life now. Better get used to it.

My eyes were wide open. Something had definitely waken me up. Or was it someone? Yeah, like that’s going to happen. While I rubbed my eyes I had the weird realization that I had never stopped and actually had a good look at my “ceiling”. The way in which the rocks blended with one another, like a huge igneous mantle, waiting for the next thousand of years to go by, for the next caveman to come in and take my place. I really hope he takes care of the crib though. I stretched both my arms in front of me, imagining that I could grow a few extra centimeters, and I swear I could hear the sound of my own jawn echoed across the hollow cavern. I guess that’s my mind playing tricks again.

I had a rush of blood gone straight to my head as I stood up. The pain started to grow right in the middle of my forehead and I could feel it intensifying even as I close my eyes wishing that this headache was just a result of the sheer amount of light that was entering through the side of the cave. Nope, not working. Now I felt that I was boiling at 100 degrees. My face, red as the sun outside. My heart, dark as the night that was about to come.

“Are you okay?”

Mom had her arm around my shoulder. Evidently, I didn’t hear her walking behind me.

“Yes, it’s just this headache I’ve been having lately. It’s really killing me.”

“Maybe it’s the light. Here.”

She handed me a pair of sunglasses which I think it’s fair to say should only be used as props for the Terminator franchise. I can pull them off.

“Thanks, ma. Sorry I wasn’t much helpful this afternoon. Let me be in charge of dinner this time. You go and have some rest.”

“That’s sweet of you, honey. But dinner’s already set. You hungry already?”

Her smile lighten up the place even brighter than the sun could ever do. She kept waiting for an answer while I just stared at her for what seemed like a lifetime. I wish I could just stay with her forever. I wish I could be the man she wants me to be. I wish I could make her feel proud.

But most of all, I wish I could just hear her voice for one last time.

By the time the night stroke, I decided I would go out for a walk under the starlights. It was as if something was calling me over outside. I’ll be careful, mom. Don’t worry, I’ve done it a million times. Yes, I’ll be back soon. She worries too much. I love her. I hope she knows that. If it was hard to demonstrate our feelings in the past, imagine how hard it must be now — sign language can only express so much.

I grabbed the furriest peel I could find and covered my bruised back. Temperature was dropping fast. Better hit the ground running if I want to make it to the beach. I kissed mom and, without giving her any chance of saying a proper goodbye, I was already climbing my way out of the cave.

Pitch black. I guess no stars tonight. Luckily for me, I knew the path almost entirely by heart. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve made hiking to the beach my favorite pastime. Doing it in the dark was a real challenge, though. With sight out of the question, you gotta rely on the rest of your senses. The ones that are still there at least.

A few minutes later, I could already feel the sand beneath my feet and straight ahead, the calmest of oceans. A pool of numbness. Steady. Yet uneasy. Quiet. Yet unhinged. There are no waves now. Not because I can’t hear them. But because they are extinct. They are now memories of a time long gone. A time when tides existed. When surfing was still a sport. When going to the beach could still be a family’s vacation. When you could look up into the night sky and see the glow of the pearlescent Moon.

Back when we still had a Moon.

The water was beyond freezing. I felt the cold beginning to spread right from the tip of my toes to the top of my head. Slowly, but firmly. Growing with each step forward I took into the ocean. The were no waves hitting me. No current pulling me. No splashing sound after each step. No one stopping me from drowning into the blue vastness. But then a glow of light, shining like a shooting star hitting the ground, illuminated the night sky. In my mind, I tried to remembered what a thunder sounded like. Then it hit me. I had forgotten.

A hint of a tear was starting to pour down my cheek when the second lightning stroke. Only meters away from where the last one had hit. Again, no thunder after the light. No sound after the fact. Nowadays, the calm and the storm come together hand in hand. I took a step backwards as I felt the ondulation on the water. It started really soft. Like a mother rocking it’s newly born. Only it didn’t remain calm. I almost lost my balance when the ground beneath me started shaking with one roaring bang. I used to think I missed the waves. Now I was getting a life’s worth of wishes come true. One after the other. Hitting me straight into my body. The salty water already filling my mouth as I struggled to stay on my feet. My knees bended as I succumbed to the intensity of the earthquake. Holding my breath. Closing my eyes. Trying to grab a hold of whatever I could find. When I finally got my head out of the water, I saw some palm trees already being dragged deep into the ocean. The earth hadn’t stopped shaking yet. Nor did my heart.

With my last bit of strength, I pushed myself upwards and got on both my feet. Everything around me was still moving. Both outside and inside my head, swirling out of control. I still managed somehow to make it ashore and just as I let the weight of my body get the best of me, the earth stopped moving. I hit the ground face-first into the sand. Arms wide stretched. All soaked up in the coldest water ever to grace the Atlantic Ocean. Around me, chaos. Inside me, only silence.

The mixture of sand and salt had cut my lips and I had definitely bitten my tongue. I could taste the blood with every swallow. I could feel it running through my knees and bare feet. I could smell it painting the coastal landscape I was lying on. I rolled over my back and scratched my eyes open only to find myself engulfed in cloak of darkness. Were they really open? I blinked again and again just to be sure. Nothing. No stars, no clouds. Just the black infinity that is space. For a moment I thought, maybe I am dead. Is this it? And just as I was about to surrender to the pain hovering over my body, it hit me a million times harder than any wave or earthquake could ever do.

I gotta find mom!

The way back home was not as I remembered. Trees lying on the ground as if someone had deliberately tried to create an obstacle course for my journey back. My bruised body could barely make their way around the brushwood, leaving a trail of blood caused by my already crippled toes. With every step I took, I could feel the rocks going even deeper into the soles of my feet. I didn’t care. I kept going. Making my way around the disarray and confusion that had overwhelmed this path.

But then I stopped. With a single, quick motion. As if I just hit an invisible wall of concrete. It did feel that way, at least. Like a blow directly into my heart and soul. Straight ahead, the place that I had called a home. Our home. Now, a rubble of rocks and boulders. A cloud of dust. A family forever shuttered.

The tears in my eyes fell like rain falling into my hands. I continued trying to remove as much rocks as I could. Hang in there, mom! I’m going to get you out of there! I wanted to shout it from the top of my lungs. But I couldn’t. There was no voice coming out of my mouth. As much as I tried, I couldn’t hear it. She couldn’t hear it either. Not because we have both been deaf for the past 8 years. But because she was now dead.

I lost my father and brothers during the Great Blast. Hell, all my uncles and cousins were gone as well. My grandparents. My nieces and nephews. My friends. My entire family — gone, in a blink of an eye. All of them but one. She was with me on that day. Staying over at my college dorm for the spring break. She always told me that I saved her life. But the truth is, she saved me. I will forever remember her eyes right after I found her in the middle of the mayhem that was going on. They were calm and peaceful. Holding me in a neverending embrace, she started saying something to me. I could tell by how her mouth was moving. I saw the blood dripping from both her ears. Her mouth was still moving.

I could not hear a thing.

My hands are nothing but scars and cuts now. Blood was now my skin color. Sadness my eternal mood. Hopelessness my only partner. Come back, mom. But she wouldn’t. Just as dad didn’t. No one’s coming back for me. The rubble I am now standing is all what’s left of the world I used to know. Nothing yet remains. Nothing will remain.

I took the Terminator glasses out of my pocket. They were all smashed from my previous encounter with mother nature. Or should I say more like Poseidon’s wrath. They are my last piece of home. The anger engulfed my body as I pressed with all the strength I had left, tearing up what remained of the black plastic frame. I could feel the little pieces breaking up inside my fist and hitting my feet as my wounds in my hand allowed them to slip away. Home’s where love is, there’s nothing more of that left.

For a moment, I thought about going back to the ocean and drowning myself to death. There’s no point in living now. Everything of what’s good in the world is forever gone. And just as the moonless firmament made the sky as dark as coal, Earth had also lost its last source of brightness. I had lost it. Yet I felt this strange feeling growing inside me. A realization that I was trying to block. A truth I didn’t want to accept. The beach had saved me. If I had stayed home, I would have suffered the same fate as mom. The beach. It called me. It saved me.

“It wasn’t the beach.”

My heart stopped. I was paralyzed by the reverberation and the oscillations in the air. 8 years had passed. The last sound I remember was the thunderous explosions in the sky on the morning of the Great Blast. The shuttering of my windows. The bursting of my eardrums. And then nothing but silence. For 8 years — until now.

I could feel my heartbeat trying to pound my chest open. Faster and faster with every passing second. I was too scared to turn back. Was I imagining things? Is this some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder?

“You are not imagining things.”

Boy am I screwed.