"Get to the shore!" The boys shouted. We all leapt from the teetering boat and with a thud, and a splash, recovered and raced with all our life ahead of us, hearing the ocean roar as it multiplied into a waiting wave.

The adrenaline turned me into Wonder Woman and the other sped like cheetahs, and as the crowds screamed ahead, and the rocks kicked and stabbed at our feet, I stumbled on shifting pad of pebbles and my knee slid and scraped onto jabbing rocks. Brett, the strongest of us because of his role as football quarterback in our school, pulled me up and we dashed precariously over the rocks—until finally reaching the sand, and we darted across it.

The cliffs at the end of the sand rose to the first fleet of houses, and Travis led us through the side gates to the side yards, then to the back yards then to the next house, further.

I shouted to Travis about the taller homes on block three, but Travis didn't need my help. That's where he was leading us already.

The Earth quaked and there was a roar of screams, and at that moment I knew the ocean's tongue had finally lapped down in the form of a racing tsunami. We darted across another backyard then through a street. And when a mother and her two children popped out of their house to get to their car, Travis raced us around them and we trespassed through their front door.

This was the middle house of the three four story houses I had seen from the boat. "Up! Up! Up!" We all shouted. And we ascended the stairs three steps at a time. Circling, circling to the second floor--

The crashing of houses collapsing on themselves and cars pelting in a metallic frenzy shook the walls of the house as we ascended to the the third floor--

a giant shadow embarked a ghostly leap over the walls of the stairs while the shadows blocked out the sun and a vague darkness began to swallow the house as we ascended to the fourth floor before--

The giant wave roared up through the windows as the fleet of stairs ended and we dashed for safety toward the opposite wall of the tsunami before a terrible darkness and crash occurred that sent me off my feet behind the boys—and the last thing I felt was a giant father clock crashing into me from the side—and it through me through a pair of glass doors opening up to the balcony—

. . . and I hit the cement wall.