Chapter 9: The End Arrives

When I woke, the heat was already rising. My phone said 9 a.m. Sunlight baked the tower walls, sweat dripping down my back. The disaster was nearly here.

A heavy silence pressed in—the calm before the world shattered. I listened to the wind rattle the metal roof, heart pounding.

First would come the heat, then hurricane winds, then the ground would fall away.

I remembered the order—the world going quiet, then burning, then dropping out from under us.

If the tower collapsed, we couldn’t stay inside. We needed options.

A dozen yards behind the tower was a bamboo grove, thick as baseball bats. I tied the chickens in two strings to the bamboo, then tore a sheet into three ropes for my parents and me.

The shade was cool, the ground soft with old leaves. I checked every knot, hands trembling. The chickens clucked, unbothered.

We sat in the bamboo, finished a simple breakfast, and tied one end of the rope to the bamboo and the other to our waists. That way, if the ground—

We tied ourselves to the bamboo and waited. In the distance, the wind changed—carrying the scent of salt, and something else: the end of everything.