Note: I'm an autistic California native who has experienced a few significant earthquakes. My body does weird stuff before one hits and my equilibrium gets messed up during and after, so I figured I should give it to Shaun too. (Missing scene from "Hurt".)
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Shaken
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Shaun's stomach churned when he stood up to throw away his cafeteria trash. It wasn't the delicious spaghetti he just wolfed down. Everything he ate that day sent his digestive organs into spasms.
Something in the air instilled tension in his bones. He turned to check behind him.
Late dinner rush had begun. Foods with smells that didn't belong together swirled into his nose. His suddenly dry tongue stuck unpleasantly to the roof of his mouth. Many moving people created a sea of chaos, and his eyes kept zeroing in on small details like jewelry and clothing patterns. Cool air from a vent wafted unpleasantly over his arm hairs. The din of voices and cutlery cut into his eardrums like jackhammers.
It's getting loud in here, he thought, it's getting too loud.
Maybe that was the problem.
Shaun abandoned his table without cleaning up his trash and exited the cafeteria. People sidestepped out of his way. His own footsteps thundered so loud he wondered if everybody heard them. He squeezed his hands against each other. Stimming offered no relief; the tightness gathered in the back of his head. It reminded him of the coiling inward pull preceding a meltdown, except it came from somewhere external. He took a deep breath and tousled his hair with his fingers.
The elevator next to him dinged. He jumped when the doors hissed aside. Nobody was inside.
Everything in Shaun's mind screamed at him to not enter the elevator. He clasped his hands together and backed away. Maybe taking the stairs was better, so he headed for the stairwell.
A faint vibration shot up his legs as he shoved the heavy, creaky door open. The upset stomach and bone tension released like a knuckle cracking. In their place, the heightened motion awareness he experienced in elevators. He stumbled into the stairwell and caught himself against the opposite cement wall. The door boomed shut, fraying his nerves further.
Something deep in the building frame shifted. Metal creaked. His skull buzzed. He grasped at his scalp in a vain attempt to stop the sensation.
High pitched creaking echoed through the stairwell. Low rumbling came from somewhere underground. All the rectangular light fixtures on the walls clanked in a slow, but steady rhythm.
"Earthquake!" Claire called as she passed the door.
Several booms slammed the walls. Time stretched ahead and whipped back at Shaun like a rubber band. The ground dropped and lurched sideways. Metal squeaked louder and louder. Light fixtures clattered like church bells. Doors vibrated in their frames. Walls heaved. Down became a moving point without meaning.
Shaun's legs sank and he crashed onto his knees on the bucking floor. He swore he was on the swinging pirate ship at the carnival, but now the whole world swung around him.
Footsteps thudded outside the door. Voices hollered. Toddlers shrieked. A baby wailed. Somebody's coffee mug shattered.
Reality undulated in all directions. Shaun couldn't find anything stable to hold onto, so he planted his hands flat on the floor. He gasped, but there wasn't enough air. Blood roared through his ears in time with his pounding heartbeat. Pain squeezed his chest. Every jolt beneath his knees closed the walls tighter around him. He curled up, pressed his palms to his ears and waited for it to end.
The swaying gradually slowed. Banging light fixtures quieted to tapping. Footsteps pounded by the door again.
"Where's Murphy?"
Shaun recognized Alex Park's tenor voice, but couldn't respond because his head still swam.
"Cafeteria!" Shouted a nurse whose name Shaun forgot.
"Nope, I already checked there! I'll try upstairs!"
The door slammed open, spilling chaotic hospital din into the muffled stairwell.
"Never mind, I found him!" Alex hollered over his shoulder. He shut the door and knelt, his tan hands flattening against the cement floor. "Hey, Murphy. You okay?"
"I...I..." Shaun closed his eyes and panted. "Scared."
"First earthquake, eh?"
"Mmhmm." Shaun hunched lower. Sweat turned his upper lip salty. His mouth was dry. He gulped anyway.
The pain gave him something to focus on, so he visualized the mechanics of earthquakes.
Tectonic plates moved. Sometimes they got locked together and built up tremendous amounts of energy from trying to get past each other. Earthquakes happened because the two locked-together plates overcame the strain and slipped. All the energy they built up released at once like a rubber band whipping after being snapped.
Faults came in a few varieties- strike-slip, dip-slip and oblique-slip, but seismic waves always happened in the same order.
Primary waves traveled at the speed of sound through the earth, so they appeared first and felt like a nudge. Secondary waves were slower. They also traveled through the earth, and they caused the nauseating sideways sway. Surface waves appeared last because they journeyed over the surface of the earth instead of bouncing through it. They caused the scariest shaking and did all the damage. Rayleigh waves created intense side to side jolts, and Love waves added a dizzying undulation.
Like all waves, seismic waves spread out and weakened with distance. People far away from the epicenter didn't get jolted as hard as those closer to it. Unfortunately, Shaun had no frame of reference for shaking at different distances, so his visualization ended there.
"Do earthquakes scare you?" He asked.
Alex chuckled. "Yeah, when they're big. This one was big."
Shaun wiped his hair sideways off his damp forehead. "It felt big. It's still shaking."
"Nah, it's over." Alex patted the ground. "Hey, I get it. The shaking is disorienting as hell. Those couple seconds feel like a year. Then you don't know if the shaking stopped or if it's you that's shaking. Trust me, it's you now. You're fine. Sit up and take some deep breaths. Breathe with me, okay?"
Alex breathed in loudly through his nose and exhaled from his mouth. Shaun tried to mirror him as he rearranged himself into a seated position on the hard floor. Deep breathing helped slow his pulse. The walls retreated to their correct distances.
"You okay now?" Alex raised his eyebrows.
"Yes, I'm okay." Shaun said. He turned his head to test his equilibrium. Nothing moved more than it should, but his skull still buzzed like a plucked guitar string. A final deep breath steadied his thoughts. "I'm okay."
"Right. That's great. C'mon," Alex offered his hand.
Shaun dismissed the offered hand by standing up on his own. He straightened his scrubs and clasped his hands together in front of his stomach.
"I don't like earthquakes. They make me dizzy."
Alex shoved the door open. He smiled over his shoulder. "Well, get used to it. This is California. It shakes. Now let's go, Lim needs us."
Shaun nodded. He squared his shoulders, composed his face and followed Alex into the fray.