Final Ails In Life part 1

I woke up this morning like I would any other Saturday. It was 7 a.m. I got fresh and went downstairs. Screw Friday and having a bowl and having cereal; it was donut day.

The moment my foot touched the last step, the whole house shook. I froze. I knew my mom wanted me to eat healthier, but I didn't know I was that overweight. But after a few more minutes, the ground rumbled again, this time without me moving a single inch. So it wasn't my fault after all!

Then a horrible realization struck me: We live in Georgia. We don't have earthquakes in Georgia.

I took my donut and ran. For what or whom, I'm not sure even now, after the fact. I just ran. I ran upstairs to the attic. I ran downstairs to the basement. I ran outside to the front yard. I ran to Iran, but then Mom yelled at me to come home.

Back at my house, I continued running and started screaming. Up the stairs I flew, up to my room where I gathered armfuls of blankets and pillows. Down the stairs I zipped, still screaming, past my sister Sammi (who stared at me as though I was a lunatic), down to the basement.

Our survival supplies were already down there, stacked neatly against one gray cement wall. I built myself a sturdy pillow fort and fashioned a tight blanket cocoon for myself. At some point, my donut was smashed into a sticky, crumby mess in my hand, but that didn't matter to me anymore. There was a small TV down there, and I contemplated freeing a hand to fetch the remote, but I didn't want to turn on the TV once I thought about it. I was afraid of what the news would reveal.

Today, the world was ending.

I was curious about the rest of the world. Always have been. But I was too scared to face the horrors going on in the places the apocalypse reached first, even just visually.

It was already vivid in my mind's eye: fire and brimstone, zombies demanding brains, water drowning our house, cats and dogs living together. It was all too much! I curled into the fetal position and pulled the blanket over my head, fully encasing myself.

I'm not entirely sure how long I was down there. At some point, I must've fallen asleep because after what only seemed like minutes, my mom shook me awake. I was dazed and confused. My mom spoke in what I perceived as gibberish. Eventually I woke up enough to know she was saying, "Hey, sweetie, are you alright?"

"No!" I cried. "The world is ending, mom! I felt an earthquake!"

"Is that what this is about?" Mom sighed. "Hannah, there was no earthquake. There's some construction being done just up the road."

A blush flared up on my cheeks. "Oh." I felt so silly.

Mom turned to leave. "Sammi and I are going to run some errands," she said as she headed upstairs. "Take care until we get back."

I kicked down the pillowed walls of my impromptu fortress with my blanket-bound feet. Then, I unwrapped myself. The donut was smooshed on my hand, my clothes, and the blanket I was using. I shrugged and went up to my room to change.

Once I was in a clean outfit, I went down to the living room. Deciding that, even if the world wasn't ending, I didn't want to watch TV, I headed for the front door. It was a good morning for a walk, I thought.

That was, until I saw the water in the driveway.