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The first loud, enormous rumble was startling, to say the least. I was sitting in my home and listening to my music when I felt the walls and floor shift and move with so much force that I thought that the ground itself was going to collapse on me.
When it did, I did not know what to think. There was no thinking at that time. Just fear. Fear and confusion. A flash, and it was over. I only saw debris and metal and several people collapse through the building with me. I did not talk to these people who lived with me; I probably have never seen them before. But at the time I knew what they were feeling. I knew how scared they were and how they didn't know if they were going to live through this. I knew it all, because I felt the exact same thing.
I was scared. Everyone was. Everywhere. Fear.
As I hit the ground and dust and debris hit the ground around me, I covered myself with my arms and tucked my legs in. I did not scream or shout or yell. There was no time. There was everything around me falling apart, and me falling with it. I curled up and could do nothing but hope that I would not be crushed or impaled. I hoped I would survive. I hoped the people around me were okay.
They were not.
As the dust settled around me, all I could see was the brownish-gray concrete of the floors and walls of the building piled around me. I slowly stood up and could see above the endless ocean of debris. As I looked into the horizon, I did not know what to think.
I couldn't. I could only see and hear. Touch and smell. I saw destruction and devastation. Horror and chaos. I saw fear. I heard cries. Shouts and yelling. People calling for others. People calling for God. I smelled death. Blood and concrete. I felt the air against my skin. It made my spine crawl and my hair stand up. I felt the wet tears roll down my eyes. I blinked them and tried to wipe them from my face. But I couldn't. I was frozen. Unable to think.
The noise of the unthinkable chaos around me came back into my ears. The crying and shouting got louder, the smell got stronger, and I saw more devastation. Not in the distance, or on the street. I looked down around me and saw limbs and people buried under debris around me. I listened closer and heard muffled or faint cries; struggling voices. I could hear people dying. I did two or three full circles to figure out where any of the sounds were coming from. I tried to trace a voice to a face, or an arm, or a leg. The tears still came out of my eyes. I was struggling to see through them and I constantly wiped my face with my dusty arm. My eyes began stinging but I still tried to see through them, and hear them, and reach for them.
I made my way across the jagged surface of the fallen building. My sandals could not get a good grip on the slabs of concrete that lie below me. But as I walked further across the fallen building, I stepped on something soft. I looked down, through my stinging eyes and saw a small hand. I bent down and tried to look closer at it and I saw it twitch. There was no voice coming from this body buried under the rubble. There were only small pieces of debris that covered this person.
I grabbed this person's hand as hard as I could. This person grabbed back. The grip was weak, and beginning to get weaker. I needed to save this person. I released this person's hand and went around the arm and tried to remove the first slab. I hoped I was not crushing this person as I moved around to get the debris off. My grip on the concrete was not as good as I wanted it to be. My eyes were still stinging and I could feel something drip down my nose. I was feeling light-headed. Still, I bent down and tried to create any leverage I could to lift the slab concrete off of this person.
It was at least eighty kilograms and I kept trying to bend my legs and twist my back to get it off. I repositioned myself and tried to push it. My feet would slip as I pushed it harder, but I could feel it begin to fall off onto another slab of concrete, and a large cloud of dust filled the air around me as I heard a loud deafening boom as the slab hit the ground. I turned around and the slab was off of this person's arm. But the arm was not moving.
The hole was big enough for me to see through, and for someone to get out of. I looked inside of it.
"Hello? Can you hear me?"
I grabbed this person's hand and shook it. It was small, and there was a tiny bracelet that I hadn't noticed before made out of string. Tiny beads on it read out the name 'Miyole'. I felt for a pulse. It was faint. But it was there. I kept my two fingers on it.
Her soft, gentle pulse matched my pulsing, bumping heart as I sweat and panted.
I reached my other hand into the hole and searched for another part of this girl's body. I touched hair. Searched further. Reached downwards more. A shoulder. More. Another arm. I took my other hand under her arm and lifted her out of the debris.
She was not older than seven. I stared into her face; her eyes were closed and her mouth half open. Her hair was tied in braids and she tilted her head as I made my way off of the broken concrete and onto the ground. I carried her onto the street, or what was left of it.
Buildings, if I could call them that, were collapsed and compressed. Cars were crushed under larger slabs of concrete, some bigger than the ones from my building. More bodies. Some of them were whole. Some were not. I was frozen again. But I was broken away from it, as I could feel the warmth of this girl's body against my fast, beating heart.
I wanted to bring her somewhere safe. I knew that this was impossible.
But across the battered street where people ran back and forth, trying to find someone or something, I saw an intact car. I ran over to it and her limp arms hit against my body. I didn't want to touch them because I feared that they would be cold. But her body was warm against mine. I hoped it would stay that way.
The door was locked when I tried to open it with one arm, so I protected her with my body and kicked the window out. As I lay her down in the backseat and shut the door, I could hear the building in front of me creak and moan. I saw it sway.
And a second later I saw it fall.
I ducked under the car I had put the girl in and covered my eyes. They didn't sting anymore. I took my hands off my face and noticed blood on them. I rubbed the bottom of my nose. More blood. My light-headedness got stronger. As the dust settled once again around me, I stood up but couldn't regain my balance.
I stumbled for a bit, and I got dizzy for a moment. My vision returned, and I stared at another collapsed building. I stared down the street. It was all collapsed buildings. People continued to run up and down; around me, past me, through me. Somebody was carrying a child as they ran past. The child had no left leg. I did not think. There was no place for thinking.
More groans came from the the fallen building. People came from behind and gathered around me, trying to remove people from the debris. I was frozen again, but I felt my heart beating and went to assist them. As I helped a man throw a hundred pound piece of concrete off, another shock hit us.
The ground swayed and the people trying to help get the debris off fell or tripped. People on the streets hit the ground, either because they were running or they were scared. I looked back and the car with the girl inside it, and the wheels of it shifted back and forth.
Then someone yelled beside me, and another building beside us began to tilt towards where we were standing. More people yelled. More people ran. I scrambled to get on my feet and run for the street. I could feel a rushing wind from the building beginning to topple over behind me. I sensed it would hit soon so I jumped for the car the girl was in. The force of the other building falling on top of the this building's remains sent me flying over the car. I rolled onto the other side of it and felt a sharp pain in both my head and my arm.
I looked at it but I didn't see anything wrong. I ignored the pain and got up again. More dust. Through it, I saw a pile of rubble at least seven feet tall. I could still see limbs. I jumped over the car and ran towards the pile of debris. I lifted off everything I could and tried to grab any hands I could see. Someone was trying to pull me from the people. I shook his hand off my arm and continued to dig through the slabs to get to them.
"Hey! They're dead! We need help over there! Hey! Hey!"
I didn't listen to him. I wanted to see the rest of the people buried under here. I didn't want to see arms. I didn't want to see legs. I wanted to see faces. People. I wanted to see life.
The man grabbed me by the waist and pulled me back. I tried to grab those arms again but we both hit the ground and I struggled with him. He got a hold of me and pushed me against the door of the car.
"Let me save one more! Please! He's still alive! I can save him!"
I tried to squirm out of the man's grip against my neck but he didn't budge. I stared him right in the eyes as I yelled at the top of my lungs. He looked at me with stern eyes. I saw the badge on his breast pocket.
"You can't do anything more here. Please, go and help those you can."
I panted as I stared back at him. I could see his eyes are wet; even wetter than mine. He let go of his hold on me and I relaxed. He got up and ran further down the street and disappeared amongst the frantic crowd of people running every which way.
I used the car handle to pull myself up and went back around to the unlocked door. The girl was there and awake, but she was on the car's floor and she had curled herself up. Her face was as wet as mine, too. Her arms were shivering. My throat welled up and I attempted to say something, but I couldn't. I just extended my hand towards hers. She slowly came forwards and took it. I pulled her out of the car and took her hand as we stood in the street. It was still chaotic; there were more people carrying children and adults, husbands carrying wives, children looking for their parents. I could see and hear and smell and feel everything now. I stared down at the girl holding my hand. She looked around too. She was feeling the same thing I was feeling. She wiped her wet face with her arm; the same one I had grabbed and held on to and hoped would still be warm by the time I had gotten her out.
I bent down to her eye level and she looked at me.
"Where's my mom?" She aksed with wide, brown eyes.
"I don't know, but we'll find her."
"I'm scared."
Her lower jaw began to quiver. I smiled lightly and hugged her has hard as I could.
"Don't be," I said. "Don't be scared."
"What do we do now?"
I looked at her face once more. It was so bright. So full of life. I put my palm on her cheek. It was warm.
I smiled again.
"We hope."
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