apocalypse

It was around midnight when the tremors started.
I remember waking up with a start next to the pretty young thing I’d fucked the night before. I gave her the briefest nods of recognition and then began pulling my pants on. She let out a slight moan of discontent. I ignored her. I turned the TV on.
“… catastrophic losses as untold seismic damage continues worldwide.” I shrugged off the teenager’s insistent advances for my return to bed, already dreadfully enthralled by the spectacle on the television. I sat, bare-chested, wide-eyed, mesmerized by the horrifying cavalcade I saw before me.
“New Orleans has been wiped off the map.” Holy shit.
Frantic, I threw on the rest of my clothes, already praying to god. The girl was fully awake now, sitting up in bed, tits exposed. “Baby, what’s going on?!” she pleaded.
I grabbed my wallet and keys off the nightstand, and threw myself out the door. I paused in the hotel hallway, went back in, and tossed a hundred dollar bill in the room. “Get home.”
She said something, I don’t know what, I didn’t bother to stick around to listen. Massive leaps later, I was down in the hotel lobby when a huge shockwave rocked the building. Screams were all around me as I flung myself out into the street.
It was a nightmare.
People were running, surging, screaming, being hurled this way and that as the earth interrupted their path. As I ran without direction, my heart beating out my chest, sheer terror engulfing me, I saw people die all around me. Massive spikes of earth erupted all around me, impaling the people around me, sending them flying hundreds of feet through the air. The buildings swayed dangerously.
I looked back, and the Bellagio hotel I was staying in was twisting and turning, the noise a sickening and deafening crunch. Finally the supports gave out and the entire structure toppled to the ground. It crashed to the earth in an earth-shattering calamity.
My heart quailed as I wondered whether my young lover had escaped the building or not.
Other buildings followed. One by one, sometimes together they crashed to the ground around us, as everyone panicked, myself included.
One building, a Bank of America, began to list and sway and ultimately topple toward me. I was out of its path, unfortunately, a young woman and her infant weren’t.
“Look out!!!!” I screamed. But it was too late. With a sickening crunch, the building collapsed on both of them, killing them instantaneously. I would’ve been sick, were it not for my own survival instinct taking over.
Get out of the city, the voice screamed at me. Primal instinct took over and I rushed without regard or fanfare down a city street heading to the harbor.
I thought of the poor woman and her infant being crushed alive, and I thought of my wife and son.

“Happy birthday, booger!”
David’s face lit up instantly as he lay in his bed. He was five, with the face of a cherub, blonde locks, rosy cheeks, and deep blue eyes. He leapt out of bed and practically tackled his father in excitement.
“Ooooofff!” I grunted, then lifted his tiny form up and spun him about, as he giggled all the while. His mother entered the room.
Laura was beautiful as ever, golden blonde hair tumbling down her shoulders, bright piercing green eyes watching David and I play, with a playful smile on her face.
“It’s time for breakfast, you two.”
“Just a bit, love, I’ve gotta shave his head first.”
David started giggling uncontrollably as I ran my hand over his head, making buzzing noises.
“A nice Mohawk would look good -” “Daddy, NO!” exclaimed David as he laughed hysterically -
“NO!”
I watched as at least a dozen people were crushed by another building falling. I stood for a moment, detached, thinking only of David and Laura, then I hurried down the steep hillside of San Francisco.