Centuries Apart

Two hundred years. That was how long I was painfully sleeping. Rock had formed a lid over my throat. I could not breath, and so my desperation for relief grew stronger. My home was volatile and ever changing. Laying in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra. The towns of Java and Ketimbang are in the greatest danger from me. in the Sunda Strait. Lush green forestry covered me entirely, I was valuable resource for those around me. A pressure was building beneath me, pushing me upwards. I was tossing and turning, causing the earth beneath me to move. People did not notice when I first started to toss and turn, they could not feel my movement. Not yet any way. Soon I was so uncomfortable that people noticed my movement, they were afraid. Over three months, from the month of March, I continued moving around, trying to release the pressure that built up within me. I felt the huge desire to stand up and stretch, attempt to remove the century old aches in my ancient body.

I was getting very restless around the time of the 20th of May, at 10:30am I was partially able to stretch my lower muscles. I had received some relief, but not enough for me to stop moving about. However, in being able to stretch some of my muscle, I destroyed the forestry around me. Large chunks of my body were strewn across the rest of me. Smoke, ash, fire and gas covered my legs; not one of the animals that took refuge on me was alive. The ash and gases rose high into the air, some eleven thousand metres. Westerly winds caught my chimney of destruction, and spread it towards the town of Ketimbang, covering the good people in ash.

For once, I received my first guests since my little stretch, it was two males in a small boat. They did not come to close, the terror evident in their faces. For once, they were clear of the smoke, they saw that my muscles were spewing orange liquid, that carved it's way down my side. They quickly had the boat turned around and left. I later learned that their names were Philam Bearing, Dutch Enforcer and Ajim, a local fisherman who fished near me; residents from Ketimbang. I learned that the gases coming out of me were toxic, acidic elements that destroyed in the most painful of ways.

After the pressure under me and the intensity of the plume of lethal gases and fumes lessened; I had a few more visitors arrive. These ones were far more adventurous and stood at the base of my legs. I learned a great deal from their visit. A group of four, two local men from Fourth Point Lighthouse and two from a city called Batavia. They were here to research me, study me and learn more about me. I was a volcano, the first one in history to be recorded in real-time. Something about a telegraph? Oh, they were more daring than I thought they would be; they took rocks, soil, mud, water and, if they could, scrapings of any fumes that took a solid form. One of the men was named Dr. Vander Stocks, and the other was his student; Jay Sherman. Mr Sherman was the most enthusiastic of the group. He climbed to the top of one of my funnels and looked into the hole, muttered something about 'Hell never having looked so beautiful'. He took photographs of what was happening.

Things calmed down a little, sometimes the pressure would get too much and I would need to move, this caused more explosions. August came around, it was the 11th, when I had all this ash escape and cover the surrounding towns and villages in mass amounts. It was the 26th , when the pressure was unbearable and I felt all three funnels blow, one after the other. I cast the world into darkness, my peaks being an ominous spout of fire. The pressure released itself, until something changed. Suddenly there was another, deeper and more powerful force. This force was going to obliterate me. I erupted again for the seventh or eighth time, I'd lost track. The sound of this explosion was the loudest.

A surge of ash, heat and gas trailed down my sides and travelled over the water towards Ketimbang. The cloud of death heated the water and caused a tsunami to quickly loom over the town. It picked up large pieces of coral reef and threw them towards land, the first landmark hit was the Fourth Point Lighthouse. Another three large explosions came from me as I watched the tidal wave crash, killing thousands.