5 years ago
It was the middle of the night and Jose Rafael was trying to get a decent night's sleep; he had school in morning and ever since he had received a state sponsored meaning he could attend a school it had been best part of every day. He loved the school room; it was small and stuffy and crowded but still there was no other way that he could learn all these things that there were to learn.
And thus he was rightly very annoyed when his cousin Maria woke him up with a rough shake. “Jose, wake up!” Jose Rafael grumbled and tuned over. “Wake up cousin!” She repeated.
“What is it Maria... I have school in the morning.” He mumbled tiredly.
“It’s the sky! They sky is falling to earth!”
Jose Rarael knew fine well that the sky doesn’t just fall to the earth. He also knew fine well that his cousin knew fine well. Whatever it was that was happening it wasn’t ordinary. “All right cousin, I’ll take a look...”
“Quick Jose!”
She exited in a hurried bustle leaving Jose to slowly get out of bed and pull on some warm overshirts. Even here in equatorial regions it still could get cold at night. He soon got up and walked out to join his cousin on the small area of packed earth outside the small house the two of them shared. He hadn’t expected much but was completely taken aback by what he saw; he had thought that Maria had meant a shooting star or some such thing but what he saw was something unfathomably different.
Out across the sea which was just visible to the north vast pillars of light descended from the sky. What looked like huge chunks of fire hurtled from the black abyss of the sky down into the black abyss of the horizon. The ground shook slightly as if to foreshadow the destruction that was soon to follow. Although neither of them knew it at the time; this was only the beginning, the beginning of the greatest calamity ever known to Earth.
No one had known what was going on. No one had expected the repercussions of that night.
A week later
Fires raged throughout the city. It was Ironic considering that within a few hours it would be sunk beneath the giant waves that could be seen on the horizon slowly making their way inland. Jose Rafael and his cousin watched from the safely of their little house in the hills. They didn’t talk; they knew that anyone that they had known in that city was now probably dead or dying. But the two of them could just stand there looking out across the valley at the once sleepy city, looking on as it burned under the fiery sky that had brought this awful world about.
The two of them had done what they could to stay out of danger that week. Ever since the fires had fallen from the sky they hadn’t left their little shack on the hillside. It was out of the way, perched on a little embankment from which the quaint fishing township was easily viewable. There was a track that led up from the town in its little valley, up the steep hillsides and past their house before trailing on to the main road that lead to the cities such as Cascaras. Not many people used the road normally as most travel was done by boat. However ever since the fires had come they had seen no one what so ever come along the track.
Thus you can imagine their surprise when a young couple, about the same age as the two cousins, came at a quick pace up the path both carrying bags over their backs and various pans and other such equipment from straps across their shoulders. It looked as if they were carrying all their belongings along with them.
Jose Rafael and Maria had seen the pair and went to greet them, they looked tired so Maria offered them to sit down and stop for a drink. They looked rushed and flustered but duly accepted anyway happy for a short reprieve from their journey.
Once they were inside the four began to talk. “Would you like to stay the night?” Maria asked.
“It’s awfully kind of you to offer,” Said the woman, “But haven’t you heard?”
“Heard what?” Maria asked.
“The waves, surely you’ve seen them, they’re coming closer and they say that the seas are rising. You have to get out of here; they say by next week that all this land will be underwater.” The woman sounded nervous and probably rightly so if the whole area was to be flooded.
“Where’s everyone else?” Asked Jose Rafael. Surely if the whole town had known then they would have already begun to make the same journey this pair was doing.
“Everyone else escaped by boat.” The man spoke in dark bitter tones, “We weren’t allowed to get on because my fiancé here comes from one of the lower castes, I got her pregnant and thus there isn’t a place for us in society.” There was a moment of silence; all four of them knew how brutal the caste system of Venezuela could be. Jose Rafael and Maria had also been victims of its unfairness and the discrimination that it put against them.
“We were reputable Criollos once...” Maria said. “
Then we took an arrows to the knee. That was a long time ago.”
The expressions on the couple’s faces told them that they had once been proud people as well, ripped apart by the system. Jose Rafael quickly tried to change the topic. “Maybe we should go with you... It doesn’t sound safe here anymore.”
“Yes, you probably should.” Said the man in a matter of fact manner.
“Where shall we go?” Asked Maria.
“Colombia.” The man replied.
There was a moment of silence while the other three began to take in what this meant, leaving their homes, their livelihoods likely forever. Maria broke the silence “My name’s Maria by the way; Maria Gracia Puan. And this is my cousin Jose Rafael Puan.”
“Pleased to meet you,” The man replied, “Fredric Rodríguez myself, and this beautiful lady is Maria Martinez.”
“We better be fast, I don’t know how long it will take for this area to be covered.”