I remember it like it was yesterday, standing on the edge of the beach. Watching children splash and play in the water, and hearing parents yell at their children to remain close to the shore. Because of the warning of rising sea levels.

I stood there on the beach, watching the waves crash on the shore. Thunder sounded, lighting up the sky, making it look dark and dismal. The waves started to come in stronger, and the mothers rushed their children out of the water knowing none of them were strong enough to fight the raging current. 

I stood there, as the wind started to pick up, becoming stronger and waving my hair around my face. Making me look like I had been electrocuted. The sea levels started to rise even more, and the water reached my knees, the freezing cold water felt icy on my legs. 

I turned around, and started to helplessly splash towards shore looking for any signs of help, but I found the beach abandoned. All of the mothers and their children had evacuated and everyone else had left a long time ago. I remember trying to rush towards the shore, knowing that if I didn't move quickly I would be swallowed by the rising current.

The water started surrounding me, trapping me in its path. It rose t0 the height of my neck, threatening to swallow me whole. I started to kick with my arms and feet, fighting to stay above water. 

But I was no match for the flooding and soon enough the water swallowed me up completely. Leaving no trace I was ever there. 

I drowned knowing nobody could hear my silent cries and pleas for help.  

I had fumbled with the zipper on my bag, adding other precious things to my pack; bottles of water, a few tins of food. I grabbed some band-aids from the bathroom cupboard too, an impulse grab, useless. They wouldn’t be able to fix anything that mattered, but they made me feel less helpless. 

Hands full, backpack slung over my shoulder, I hurried outside.

I could feel my world blowing into dust, swirled around and smashed into the ground. From inside the house, I could pretend it wasn’t happening, with the blinds drawn and the blood pounding in my ears disguising the sound of the wind. 

Outside, I could see and hear all; the pillar of wind in the distance, tearing through homes, schools, workplaces, throwing lives and hopes and dreams into the air and ripping them apart. The city was being devoured. The monster howled,  a shrieking sound, echoes that reminded me of screams and sobs and occasionally a deranged kind of laughter. The air was a reddish brown; the sky was dark with dust flung into the clouds. I tossed my bag in the back  and climbed into the car as quickly as I could, slamming my door with a barely audible thunk. My mother and brother were already buckled in; my father wrestled his door closed, fighting with the wind. 

Then we were leaving, swerving around tight suburban corners as we wove our way through once-neat streets littered with anything light enough to be snatched by the wind. At first, it had just been leaves and pieces of litter. Now frisbees and lawn chairs sailed through the air, some slamming into the car with a muted bang. The air inside the car felt oddly stagnant, calm against the raging depravity of the storm. 

We drove fast - the roads were empty of cars. We were one of the last to leave, desperate to cling onto our homes. We had watched the storm appear, slowly beginning to devour the city, until we had no choice but to flee. There wouldn’t be a home to come back to; it would be torn apart, shaken and smashed and left to lie in limp piles of rubble, jumbled together with hundreds of other dead houses. We left the city in dead silence, almost reverent silence - if you can call it silence when a demon is outside, twirling and stomping and ripping a city apart. We left the city, speeding down the highway. I couldn’t bring myself to look back.

We were at the mercy of beasts - monsters of wind and fire and water smashed at us, seeking revenge for the way we abused them. We were driving into the desert, highway in front, chaos behind, and nothing to do but run.