A Sinking Feeling
She should’ve been dead like everyone else. Sharpton was an old Mining town that never really went out of business. Compared to others like Greenwood, Coalmont, and Kitsault (which had a population of one). It never really boomed either. A city caught in amber never changing. Preserved forever in history.
Yet Eden Jensen stood looking up through a hole. She could see the sky. The last thing she remembered was that she was sitting in class discussing the Gitxsan History, which Eden at the time didn’t care about. Instead, Liam Anderson’s back head had captivated her attention. This all felt like centuries ago to her.
Eden pushed a classmate off of her (pieces of her classmates). Somehow but by sheer luck, she had survived the collapse of the Sharpton Composite High school building. The building was wrapped in darkness except for the light that shone in from the hole in the ceiling.
Eden’s body was shaking, still numb from the fall. Her body was covered in scratches and blood. Her classmates didn’t get off so easily. Pieces of the roof and metal wiring had jammed their way into their fleshy bodies. Some were still alive, bleeding out, as their time slipped away from them.
Eden struggled to her feet and headed for the door. Unfortunately, it was sealed off with rock and drywall — no way in and no way out except for the hole. She would need to climb up from where she was to reach the top.
“Liam,” Eden said, remembering, and turned around to look among the dead for her potential lover. She didn’t have many friends, and most of them didn’t come to school anyway.
Her teacher, Mr. Tonon, was sprawled in two by his desk, and his fresh blood dripped to the floor. She threw up on sight of him. Eden didn’t hate Mr. Tonon, and he tried his best to include as many cultures into the class as possible. He wanted everyone to learn about each other.
Eden glanced around the room. It was a lot smaller than before and lucky for that, she was sitting in the second front row in the middle. Everyone behind and to the sides of her was crushed by cement. It was a straight miracle that she was alive. Liam was sitting before her, and now that she had a good look. He was nowhere to be found.
She looked back up through the hole in the ceiling. She decided to start climbing on top of some of the rubble. It wasn’t safe. The moment she climbed up on top of some desks and roofing. She felt it squish and shifted about an inch to her right. “Oh god, oh god, oh god,” Eden repeated to herself. There was a chance that she might have made things worst for anyone underneath.
She struggled onward. Her clothes got caught on steel bars that ripped at her hoodie and jeans. Eden wished she hadn’t skipped out on those P.E. classes. Most kids did skip out. Some didn’t even bother going to school. “What’s the point,” they would say. “I’m never leaving the town anyway. I am going to die here. The faster, the better.”
Eden agreed with them. She only showed up for Liam, and now he was missing. Home wasn’t any better as well. Her parents argued about politics, traditions, and anything else they disagreed on, like how Eden dressed herself like the other kids and didn’t participate in tribe activities. Her parents never really agreed on things, and each argument always ended in tears.
Eden didn’t want to stay in Sharpton. She agreed with her classmates, but she didn’t want that to stop her. Vancouver, BC. That was her goal, she didn’t know where she would live, but that was where she wanted to go. Be a movie star and make money. Maybe bring Liam along.
Liam was the son of the chief of Sharpton. He was a model student, and every parent wanted their child to be like him. Eden’s parents were no expectation. Eden didn’t know why she fell for Liam, maybe it was his looks, but somewhere deep down, she believed that he also wanted to leave.
At the top of the school, Eden crawled out. She was exhausted and bloody.
The building was only a pile of rubble.
She wasn’t in Sharpton per se.
She was below it.
Eden glanced around and was in awe by how large the hole was. It stretched deep into the ground. The hole she looked up through in the building had become a bigger hole when she got out.
A sinkhole had appeared underneath the school. It was roughly around five hundred meters wide and maybe six hundred to seven hundred meters deep.
Eden thought she saw some people peering down from the hole, but she was too far to tell. She carefully made her way down the rubble. Other students and teachers weren’t as lucky as arms and legs stuck out between stone and brick. It smelled bad.
“Maybe Liam got out,” she thought. “Maybe he’s okay. I wonder why they haven’t come to save us yet. I hope my mom isn’t too worried. I really want to go home. It hurts.”
Eden plopped herself against a rock. She glanced down to her side and noticed that there was blood seeping through her clothes. She gently lifted her shirt and saw a large gash that cut her right side open. “Might have gotten that from climbing,” she thought.
Then she saw him, Liam. He was sitting right next to her.
“Liam, this is where you were,” she said. “I was looking all over for you.” She tapped him, and he fell into her lap. He was stiff. “You smell terrible. Don’t worry, after this; we’ll get you a bath. A warm bath.”
