Nathan
Iris runs into the room, panting. Everyone looks up from where they're at.
"We need to go. Now!" she panics. Jesse wasn't with her.
Everyone wakes up at her urgency, "What's going on?" I ask. "Where's Jesse?"
She looks at me, "He heard someone trapped on the first floor, he went to help."
"Trapped? What do you mean, what's going on?"
That's when I feel the water at my feet. I look down at our feet, water was streaming into the room.
"What the hell?" Seth says.
"There's a flood. We gotta go now!" Iris explains.
Everyone jumps into action. Owen picks Avery up from the cot, carefully watching her injured leg.
Violet grabs the bandages and other supplies and stuffs them in the First Aid Kit. I grab her other hand that's not occupied and pull her to the door.
When we're out in the hall, I see the windows cracking, the water rising, covering the windows. We run.
We make it to the stairwell, and that's when I hear the windows break in. The water floods through the halls and up the stairs fast.
We reach the next floor, the water leveling with the last step, but it doesn't stop.
"You guys gotta make it to the roof." I say, pushing Violet up the stairs. "I'll be there soon."
"What?" Violet yells. "You're coming with us."
"No, I can't." I shake my head and back up towards the stairwell below, already submerged in water. "I gotta get Jesse."
Owen gives Avery over to Seth and says something to him, then he steps up to me. "No I'm getting Jesse. You make it to the roof."
I shake my head. "Owen, I-"
"Nathan." Owen says. "I can swim fast, I got it."
I keep shaking my head. I know Owen's the captain of the swim team and won like what, 10 championships, but Jesse's my brother.
"You know Jesse would want you up there before anyone else. He'd never forgive me if I let you go."
That's true.
Owen leans down into my ear, "Take care of them." And without another word, he takes a deep breath and dives into the dark stairwell of water.
YOU ARE READING
The Fall of Us
Non-Fiction18 year-old Jesse Cimorelli and his 15 year-old brother Nathan are regular teenage boys going on about their regular teenage lives, expecting it to be a regular day as they attend Roseville High school, when suddenly the world starts to fall apart. ...
