Please Review
Outside, the wind is blowing and the world is covered in sand and dirt. The buildings that had surrounded Hollywood Arts are now piles of rubble, and the ones still standing are leaning and in shambles.
Down the middle of what was once the road is a spilt – long, jagged, and deep. When the teens approach it cautiously, they notice it goes down for miles. Sewer pipes jut out of the torn earth.
"Did the world end?" Jade's serious question unnerves Robbie.
They are quite a while as they take in the ruined landscape they've found themselves in. Realization of their situation slowly dawning on them, the earthquake hadn't only affected Hollywood Arts. The air is hard to breathe, like on the inside, but it also burns – a lot.
A chemical smell is in the air, and it isn't very healthy smelling. They both cover their noses with a hand and coughs briefly. More of Robbie's T-shirt is ripped and made into homemade masks for both of them.
"I think I'm going to head home." Jade mumbles through the mask dully. She looks out of it to Robbie – she looks how he feels. She turns her back to him and begin heading in a direction, she avoids getting too close to the hole.
It takes a while for Robbie to come to his senses and limp after her, fortunately she was walking at a snail's pace. He was out of breath by the time he got to her. He looked towards the cloudy sky briefly before talking.
"Maybe… we… should go together?" He caught his breath and squinted at her – his lack of glasses and light underprivileged eyes weakened his seeing ability. "It could be really dangerous…"
Jade's eyes remained ahead of her, and she gently shrugged. They hadn't really seen anyone which worried them for many reasons.
It was impossible to tell if they were heading in the right way, well to Robbie anyway. Nothing was recognizable anymore. His chest felt tight with the feeling of dread as they made their way over the broken streets.
It's so quiet.
Finally the tare in the earth ends and they come to what maybe was once a neighborhood. Robbie isn't really sure when they get to what was once her, but they turn around half-way down the more residential road. The whole neighborhood is nothing but rubble.
He watches Jade; her face is unreadable as they get back on a main road. He wonders what they are going to do now.
"We can go to your house now." She tells him suddenly ten minutes down the road.
He nods, but realizes he has no idea which direction his house is in. They take a break while he thinks, and they both wish for water.
They find his house and it's still standing, but leaning and the windows are all broken out and his door wide open - looks broken open. No one is home, of course. It's getting dark so they take refuge in his desolate home and set up camp, Jade on the couch and Robbie on the recliner. First though, they go through his cabinets for food. They find a can of sardines and three big jars of apple banana sauce. Everything else had been cleared out which gave Robbie hope that his parents were alright and had left.
The tap water doesn't work much to their dismay. Robbie remembers he had a half drunken bottle of water on his nightstand in his room and attempts to get it but his bedroom door won't open. He retrieves his family photos from their fallen places all over the floor and removes them from their broken frames and carefully folds them and puts them into a backpack he's found. He can't locate his family photo album under the tipped over coffee table – another sign he takes as a good one.
They sleep for a very long time, even when the cloudy sky lightens and shines through the broken windows. Robbie wakes up first, he feels lighter and happier and he realizes it was his first good rest in days. Then reality smacks him in the face as he looks around his destroyed home.
He takes a walk outside, leaving Jade to sleep on the couch and mumble in her fitful sleep. He had contemplated waking her up because of how distressed she looked but finally decided any rest was better than no rest.
He guessed the neighborhood he lived in was better built then Hollywood Arts because mostly all the houses were up and standing, though they all looked abandoned.
"Mr. Ritters!" Robbie called out as he approached a duplex across the road. Mr. Ritters was an old man who Robbie had spent countless afternoons with. He had always felt bad for the old man, who relied on oxygen tanks and had a reputation of being lonely and mean.
His door was still closed and locked, so Robbie had to use an emergency key which was still inside the broken hole on the third step. He called out again before unlocking and entering the home. It was much like his, things toppled over and broken.
He froze in the foyer at hearing a voice. "Mr. Ritters…" He called again not wanting to be attacked again for entering the man's home without any sort of permission.
The voice was coming from far end of the two room duplex. The voice continued talking without hesitation, and Robbie realized it was maybe a radio. Stepping over the fallen things he makes his way to the back room and pushes the room's door open.
He instantly haunches over and empties the contents of his stomach, which isn't much. Through his mask the odor of a decaying Mr. Ritters burns his nostrils and he heaves dryly. He leans on the room's doorframe for support and tries to take his eyes off the first being he had seen in days besides Jade.
The body of Mr. Ritters is covered in flies and his skin dark and swollen. It's so disturbing – but he can't look away. The old man's oxygen tank is a few feet from his tipped over wheelchair. He looks like he was reaching for it.
"I repeat… any residents still inside California… evacuate immediately."
Robbie heavily swallowed as his eyes moved from the man to the bulky radio, lying on the carpeted floor. It took his mind a while to catch up with was being said.
"The last earthquake experienced has been estimated as a 4.0 on the Richter Scale, a baby compared to the 9.7 experienced last week. I repeat any survivors in any part of Southern and Northern California evacuate. It is estimated and earthquake ranging from a 10.0 will hit and decimate what is left of the entire region. This is my last broadcast. Also, if you make it out avoid all middle United States, which is being ravaged my over two-hundred tornados… That is all." The voice cut out. Robbie hadn't realized but he had crawled over to the radio and was holding it in his lap. After the broadcast he likely stared at the radio for an hour before getting up, avoiding Mr. Ritter's body he unstably left.
He was almost out of the house when it began shaking. The force threw him off his feet and making his fall to the floor. He covered his head and curled into a ball in the middle of the hallway.
Please Review