{Not so} Daily whines

71. my earthquake experience. - 14/11

The light from my phone was dimmed as much as possible, trying to hide the fact that I was on it from my parents only a few metres away in their room, heavily asleep.

Or so I'd hoped.

I lazily scrolled down, continuing to read yet another chapter of Obscure from my Wattpad library, as my mum had turned the internet off hours before when she went to bed.

Lying on my chest I laid my chin upon one hand, the other holding the phone with enough distance to reach the charger it was being kept alive with.

Just as I my eyes were about to skip to a new paragraph, it began. A low, built up rumble.

My eyes immediately halted, anticipating the familiar sound of some heavy vehicle driving away. But it never came. The sound continued to grow stronger as the house began to shake, rolling and tumbling like an amateur gymnast.

Earthquake.

My mind instantly registered it. All of my past memories and experiences flooding my mind, before being sucked away again like a millisecond long tsunami.

I didn't move, staying in place as I waited for it to calm down and stop, allowing me to continue reading at my leisure. Being well used to random earthquakes occurring I didn't think much of it, as long as it stopped. However it didn't stop, and soon my white wooden blinds were swinging back and forth against their windowsills, a rhythmic banging as the house swayed.

It went on for an age.

I heard my parents get up, whereas I lay completely still with my upper body raised, praying it wouldn't get worse.

My mum went down the stairs as the second storey continued to sway. It was as if the house was on top of a ginormous jenga tower, and the whole thing was just waiting for the swaying to eventually tip us over the edge.

My dad peeked into my room to check on me, before glancing at my blinds to observe them swaying before murmuring, "It's a big one."

He ducked out, going back to his room as the house still swayed back and forth and my stomach tightened as tears clustered in my eyes.

Why?, I thought, Oh my god.... Why does this have to happen, I can't deal with this.

I turned off my phone, hiding it under the pillow as my mum came back up. The hall light was killed, and I lay down, unblinking and staring at the blinds that gently moved.

The thing with this particular earthquake is that while it felt big, it didn't feel destructive enough to worry about. That's why no one got up to worry, and also the fact that we already knew how earthquakes felt, so it wasn't a shock to the system.

All of a sudden I heard my mum's phone go off, which broke into my thoughts. It also made me check my phone in search of the symbol that indicated I was reunited with the outside world.

I instantly clicked the familiar blue Facebook messenger app, clicking BP's chat and sending her half a dozen messages. She wasn't active so I clicked off, looking at the time to see it was 12:18am.

I messaged a friend called Jack, asking him if he felt it since he lives in a different area to me.
He replied one minute later and we held a long lasting conversation much to my surprise.

My mum was also awake, and just by listening to her talk back and forth with me about any news and updates I could tell she was standing up, probably looking at her iphone.

After a while she spoke up again, "Go to sleep L," she said before returning to her previous slumber, or at least trying to.

But I wasn't going to sleep, I continued talking to Jack when a strong aftershock hit at 12:33am, and I sent a few more hasty messages to BP hoping she would reply soon so I would know she was okay.