12 SINS

Chapter 4

one hour later the smoke started to clear their ears were ringing it made their heads hurt, Aeron and Gabriel stood up their hands still on their ears shaking their heads trying to clear the loud ringing, after few minutes the ringing stopped and the smoke mostly cleared and settled down , they started to look around to try to figure out the situation , their eyes widened from shock from what they saw , almost half of the buildings around them were destroyed some was completely leveled to the ground some partially crumbled with small fires all around them coming from the buildings or destroyed cars, the streets were cracked and cars flipped the peaceful street they used to know didn't exist anymore, Aeron swallowed his saliva and said.

Aeron: do you think this was an earthquake?

Gabriel: possible, but the shaking lasted for more than 20 min the books say earthquake shakes usually end in few minutes this was way too long for one.

Aeron: if it's an earthquake it's way above 10 Richter, Liza quick we need to go home.

They started to look around searching for Liza but couldn't find her until they looked on the ground, they saw Liza on the ground in a fetal position her hands on her ears when they got closer, they could hear quiet sobbing coming from her, they got closer and reached out to her hands to remove them away from her ears.

Aeron: get up Liza it's over now, we need to go back home quick and call our families from there, actually can you let us use your phone to call them please.

When Liza heard the word family, she stood up quickly like she remembered something important, Aeron and Gabriel could immediately notice her stained wet pants, she clearly wet herself from fear, she took out the phone trying to call out her mom, she lived in the same building as Aeron and Gabriel with her mom since her dad passed away, her mom didn't have big income to support them both so she used to babysit the neighbor kids in a way to help her mom solve her financial situation, she started to dial the numbers in a panicked manner.

Lisa: s**t s**t s**t s**t, the line won't connect!

She tried panicky multiple times but the connections where down, she started looking around to determine her direction then she locked her gaze on the direction of her home and started running, Aeron and Gabriel looked at each other in wonder she Cleary forgot about them, they nodded to each other and started running after her.

They had to navigate around the cracked streets and flipped cars and building debris, with each step forward they took their hearts grow heavier, the normal 15 min walk from home took them 40 min from the destruction that occurred, when they finally reached home Liza was ahead of them they found her on her knees sopping loudly, their eyes widened in shock for a few seconds then quickly turned into tears, their home was in debris crumbled beyond recognition, they stood their crying frozen on that spot for few minutes.

Liza then stood up still crying and started screaming in a loud teary voice,

Liza: mom …. Mom …. Moooom, where are you….Please answer me moom…..please I need you….. moooom..where are you .

Liza kept screaming calling her mother in a teary voice for a few minutes then moved closer to the building trying to look for her left and right , she started to remove some of the smaller debris franticly tossing them to the side in an effort to find her mom , and few minutes later she moved a big one and found a bloody hand sticking out of the debris, she looked at it and fell to her knees crying franticly her cries and screams reverberated into the air , it was her mother ring on her hand without a doubt , she grabbed her mother hand for the last time and moved it to her face in a last attempt to feel her mothers warmth for the last time.

Aeron and Gabriel only stood there frozen scared and crying from the scene, emotions swirled and filled them in a way they couldn't understand it was the first time they felt this way, was it fear sadness or empathy for Liza or all combined, they read about these emotions in books but now they get to experience them for the first time.