Aberrant: 2011 - Exodus (TBO)

[Divine]

What happened?! Did we just have an eathquake?! Why can't I see anything?! Am I still in my house?! Divine's mind screamed. She didn't know how long she had been out, but she woke when the shaking started. What she pemembers is waking to the sound of her window blinds banging against the windows. As she sat up, everything rocked sideways to the left, and then to the right, as if she was in the ocean. Everything in her bedroom hit the floor, including her, as she was violently tossed onto the floor. Before blacking out, she remembered looking at the doorway to her room, and watching it warp before snapping.

Her left arm hurt, and it was stuck to her side by a thick syrupy substance. As she rolled over, she found her movement limited by the bed on one side, an overturned dresser on the other, and the roof propped up by the two. Her whole house must have collapsed on top of her. Splinters of wood and shards of glass covered everything.

She reached over to her hurt arm. "Awww, Shit!" she grumbled, feelng a large piece of wood sticking out of it. Obviously the doorframe had shattered and the windows imploded, and she was in the path of the blast. For that to have happened, she thought, there had to be a major earthquake.

It was dark, dusty and smelled of smoke. Smoke!, her mind screamed out as her heart began to race. If she could smell smoke, there was a fire nearby. Fire killed people trapped in their homes and apartments. Katelee needed to know if she was in danger. She needed to know if she could wait for rescuers, or if she had to try escaping on her own. Being a Nova provided her with a means to do that.

The quantum rushed across her mind, allowing her to detect any threats to her. A burning sensation crept across her flesh and her mind translated it as an affirmative. There was a fire nearby, and it would incinerate her if she didn't escape.

[Divine]

'Hello, anyone! Helllp Me!" Divine screamed from underneath the rubble. She had moved several meters from where her house fell on her, but was not sure if she headed towards or away from the oncoming fire. She wished at that point when she erupted that she had been given superstrength like the ones she saw who lifted cars and busses. Freeing herself would be easy then. For now, she would have to ether claw her way out, or hope some rescuers heard her screams and dug her out.

She winced in pain, as the index fingernail, on her right hand, bent backwards and snapped off in a spurt of blood. She had been pulling away 2X4's, and dragging then behind her. She tossed the pieces into the small open space she had created behind her. This time, her long nails had jabbed a piece of wood hidden behind the wood she was grabbing for. After sticking her bleeding finger into her mouth and sucking the sweet metallic blood from it, she reached out and continued digging.

The minutes went by, and she could smell the smoke. It was much stronger, and it irritated her nose. She began digging more frantically, ignoring the nails that raked her arm, and the settling beams that periodically smashed her fingers. Several more times, she snapped off fingernails at the quick. With each new injury, she paused, only to be spurned on by the thickening smoke.

"Oh God!..Please, someone help me!"

From outside, muffled cried could be heard from a mountain of wood, furniture, wiring and sheetrock. A small fire, from a neighboring house, had begun to burn at the outer edges of the destroyed house.

[Divine]

As the smell of smoke strengthened, Katelee began to dig more frantically. She no longer cared about the pain in her fingers, hands and arms, and was driven onward by fear and adrenaline. Soon her hands were bloody and shredded. Enen then, she kept ripping at the nail filled pile of lumber that had collapsed on her.

"AhhhhhH!" she screamed, as she began to push at the wood-pile with her shoulders. WHen that didn't work, she spun and shoved with her legs. Still nothing. "Ahhhhh..ahhh..ahh..Uhn.." Her screams of anger and determination were replaced with pitiful sobbing, as Katelee stopped her struggling. She had resigned herself to her fate. She hoped the smoke would take her before the fire got there.

If not...there would be a few minutes of horrifying pain, as the fire spread up her body. Once it was to her face, she could breath in the flames. With luck, unconsciousness would follow immediately. If not...she would writhe in agaony as her seared lungs fought for air. For those several minutes, garbled screams would be her last sounds, as she slowly asphyxiated. At least by then her nerve endings would have been burned away, leaving only her mind to envision her body cooking. The end would come...eventually.

[Divine]

The air was thick with smoke, and the fires consumed most of the hills and homes of West Hollywood. Everything, from the hills to the beach was black and grey; the homes looked like grey square-pit ashtrays. I didn't take long for the earthquake- spawned fires to rage across the landscape. Some of the residents were lucky enough to escape their homes, others perished in their homes withing their own funeral pyers.

A line of wounded stretched along Pacific Coast Highway, their hobbling forms obscured by smoke from the fires. Every once in a while, an ambulance or firetruck would sit idling by the side of the road, unable to move past the rockslides and portions that had collapsed into the sea. The vehicles themselves had been ransacked and looted of any medical supplies. Even the EMT's and Firemen had abandoned their vehicles and become part of the slow procession north.

Every so often, small groups would head into the rubble of homes and businesses to look for survivors, food and blankets. Sometimes they would emerge with a bloodstained figure, and others a charred body. In each case, they reverently placed the bodies in front of the resident to make identifying them easier. Survivors were placed onto human powered carts and drawn north. In all the destruction, humanity was showing that it could still help its fellow human being. Above, a lone news helecoptor droned, as it broadcast the scenes to a horrified world.

Among the wounded were a number of 'miracle' survivors. Some had been pulled from underneath tons of debree. Others had clawed themselves free with horrible wounds. In a few cases, a survivor had been removed from the ashes of a burned home. All of them were burned. One body in particular was so badly burned that it was unrecognizeable. Those who discovered the body, thought that it was dead; it was blackened and swollen like an overcooked sausage. All agreed that it had to have been a Nova, as no normal human would have been able to survive such burns.

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