What Remained

The Begining of the End

Some people say they have some sort of premonition or gut feeling when something bad is about to happen. I didn't have that. The day my life changed, I was in the grocery store holding a tub of Ben & Jerry's in my right hand. I distinctly remember because my sister and I were fighting over which dessert to get, when the ground beneath us started to tremble.

The last thing I remember was the tub of Ben & Jerry's landing lid first on the floor between my feet and then darkness consumed us...

Present day...

I watched beads of sweat roll down Artie's back, from the refuge of what was once a patio umbrella but now I called it my cabana. Artie continued to dig, pausing every few minutes to wipe his forehead with his forearm.

"You're nearly there," I yelled in a semi encouraging, joking manner.

Artie didn't look at me, he continued digging. His golden hair looked slightly red in the heat of the summer, the way it curled up around his temples reminded a golden retriever we had before everything.

"Gia!" My father's gruff voice jolted me back to reality.

I stood and grabbed my shovel out of reflex before I looked toward him.

"Gia!" He yelled again.

He wasn't coming towards me he was frantically waving at me to come toward him.

Simultaneously, Artie and I understood and dropped our shovels before sprinting toward my father. My heart was pounding against my chest as if desperately attempting to escape. I lost my balance as we turned the corner and Artie grabbed my arm just in time.

My father was now only a few paces ahead beckoning us to enter the dark cave before him. Artie entered first and I followed a few seconds behind, scraping my ankle against the stone that partially blocked the entrance as I slid past.

The three of us now sat silently in the cave trying to catch our breaths willing ourselves to breaths quietly. We sat like that for two hours, listening for sounds from outside the cave but were greeted by more silence.

That was the way of it though, most times it was a false alarm and nothing ever happened but sometimes, on some rare occasion something did happen and that was enough to keep us vigilant.