Snippet #2377827

As the first tremor shook the Earth, Jason's heart sunk. This was it. This was the end of his, of everyone's, current way of life and the start of something unknown. He found himself frozen. His fear didn't come from the fear of death, but the fear of starting over. Having to build up from nothing, but not just nothing; destroyed nothing. He knew very well that if he ever got the chance to see the world again, it would transcend the definition of a 'wasteland'.

Jason hadn't registered the silence or the debris falling despite being coated in dust. He had kept a stone face during the time, and was violently shaken out of his thoughts and forced to focus on keeping his balance. It took merely a second for Jason to swallow down his fear. He couldn't allow himself to give in to panic; it would put others at risk. He scanned the tunnel quickly, the guards were closing the entry gates. They were pushing people back, men, women, children all trying to squeeze in through the closing gate. Some were falling over themselves and others as the quakes shocked them. The guards managed to close and lock the gates, but the people outside continued to screamed and cried out. Jason’s heart ached. There was nothing he could do for those people and it made him physically sick.

A relatively strong tremor that caused pieces of concrete ceiling to fall thrashed through the tunnel and was followed by a silence. It took him a moment to realize why there was a pause, but once he did, he reached out and pushed the two people in front of him down before screaming,

‘DUCK AND COVER!’ His voice boomed through the silenced tunnel and just as he spoke a piercing blast of sound effectively cut him off. The heat was terrible, and the surge left no one standing. The sound from the blast lowered in volume and was overpowered by screaming, but the heat and rocking remained. The heat felt like it was getting hotter and the radiation from the fallout was seeping into the metro. Jason began to force people past the ticket gates while yelling instructions as loud as he could. His voice was suppressed by distressed screaming, but once he got those around him to move others followed.