Michael looked out the window, wondering how long their advantage could actually last.
The disaster was even more terrifying than he imagined.
This villa area was built on a mountain, so their vista was wider. They could see a lot of the events happening outside, and Michael even watched it happen in real time.
It was very much like how a nuclear bomb was dropped in an area just beyond the horizon. Luckily, the ejecta wasn’t too big, so all the villa area suffered was a bursting cloud of soil and ash.
The damage in the Capital district varied from one side to another. For the most part, it was fire as well as burning rocks on communities. There were also a few buildings that gave way because of this.
The damage here was not caused by ground shaking. The building ordinances in the capital were naturally more stringent and executed more thoroughly.
They didn’t even have a fault line nearby, and the magnitude of the earthquake they suffered was just 7—which was a major pre-apocalypse event, but only average after it.
However, what they truly suffered from was the ejecta coming from the direction of the sea.
The displaced rocks and soil were tiny compared to the meteorite that fell hundreds of kilometres away, but this ’tiny’ piece of sea soil obliterated a third of the city.
One could even see a few corals crushing cars.
Michael sighed. "That area held one of the warehouses of the government. It could’ve fed thousands of people for a year."
Although he wasn’t a government employee, he had many friends in the government and the military. When soldiers were making rounds earlier after the Fall, he encountered an acquaintance who mentioned it, eyes full of regret. Who wouldn’t feel physically in pain at the loss?
The contrast between different parts of the city was stark. One side was destroyed by the ejecta, completely obliterated. The opposing side was fairly unaffected except for the earthquake, while the areas in between them suffered varying degrees depending on their luck.
Speaking of luck, had that ejecta landed at a slightly different angle, their place could’ve been the ones taken down.
This goes to show that no matter how informed or prepared you were, if it was your time, it really was. At least in this type of disaster, it was impossible to be completely prepared.
...
One hour after the impact, people were still extremely shocked by the chaos that erupted around them.
For some blissfully ignorant ones, the ground shaking only roused a vague sense of unease. For those informed, it would be shock and fear.
And for the most unfortunate ones, their entire lives had been changed forever. Even if they survived, their worlds had literally been flipped by the disasters.
The main meteorites targeted specific places to trigger massive movements of the tectonic plates and the volcanoes. This meant that, all over the world, there was formerly stable ground that was abruptly moved and destabilized.
It was like a tensioned string suddenly released, except the scale was on the scale of continents.
...
Under a fallen building
"Help..." Darwin tried to yell out as he felt a crushing weight over him, and then cried when he saw that a rebar went through his legs. He could see his own muscle fibers—
His breathing was frantic, and it wouldn’t calm no matter how he tried.
Was this going to be his time? Why did he feel a bit unreconciled?
How odd. Just an hour ago, he was considering ending his life, but now that he was getting there, he realized that it wasn’t what he wanted at all.
As they say: be careful what you ask for.
If he had the energy, he’d have slapped himself a hundred times to atone for his bad mouth.
Gritting his teeth, all he felt was pain. Darwin felt the crushing ache all over his body, and the sharp pain in his leg made him gasp for air.
Next to him was his officemate who was just staring at the ceiling, mouth slightly parted, blankly blinking his eyes as if not feeling anything.
However, if you looked closer at him, you could see half of his body was already completely crushed under the floor slab.
Was he not feeling any pain? Possibly. Darwin didn’t really have the energy to care. He was gritting his teeth as he tried to keep himself awake, knowing that if he fell asleep now, he might not wake up.
While trying to find a way to get out of this situation, he observed the building above him.
His office was a midrise building on the edge of the city’s downtown area. It was once the Capital’s most prosperous sector, but the rise of modern skyscrapers and central business districts rendered it somewhat obsolete in the current urban fabric.
Ironically, the nearest commercial center with buildings averaging 30 stories had been part of the obliterated areas, while this neighborhood was mostly intact except for the older buildings that simply couldn’t be designed for such strong ground shaking.
It was a relatively old building, and the ground shaking caused by the giant debris was not weak. The foundation gave way first, and then the rest of the building pretty much imploded onto itself.
Darwin’s office was on the upper third of the building, but he could guess that he was now lying somewhere between what had been the third and the second floor. The sway was largest on the top floor, but he was lucky he didn’t turn into a pancake in the end—at least not yet.
All around him were... were corpses of his coworkers and the company’s guests. Right below him, there was the dude who had asked him to buy coffee. His eyes were open, and he was still breathing lightly, but he was making no further movement.
Darwin looked at the man and thought that even if he survived this ordeal, he might never drink coffee again.
Right now, the man was still hanging on the second floor; his lower body was on the upper floor, but his upper body was tilting down. What kept him from falling down even further was the suspenders he was wearing.
Darwin looked at his blinking neighbor. "Hey! Hey!" he called, though his voice had become raspy.
"L-Let’s call others t-together," he gasped out, feeling more pain every time he said anything. He wanted them to yell together, and their voices could enhance each other and be heard farther away.
"Hey!" he called again when the man did not answer. "I know you’re in pain, and you’re feeling weak, but we need to do this! Cough!"
However, the other did not respond, staring up as if he had never heard Darwin. Darwin did not even know he stopped blinking. By this time, Darwin’s vision alone had started to blacken as well, so he was taking a while to truly absorb his surroundings.
It was then that he saw a fly land on the other’s eyeballs, and Darwin’s mouth closed, his hopeful eyes dimming immediately. With his jaw clenched, he turned his attention elsewhere.
"H-Help!" he yelled, though in reality it sounded more like a squeezed-out wheeze. The more he yelled, the lower the volume, and the more painful it was to utter anything.
"...I...don’t...think...they...come..." another voice, this time from above him, said. He recognized this as Jana, the janitress.
In the end, he believed he was being too hopeful.
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