It was just a regular day for Maria Emerson. She was on her way home from school when it happened. It started out with a slight shake in the ground at first, that of a small earthquake. Maria only noticed the ground shaking after she could barely walk without falling over. The trees shook violently and mailboxes and tree branches were falling all around her. There were houses with new holes in the roof because of the many boughs toppling on them with a thud. She fell to the ground and scraped her hands and knees. It was astonishingly terrifying to be on the ground while her world was crumbling around her. She crawled away from any trees, buildings or telephone poles. The shaking subsided and she ran as fast as she could the rest of the way home. She rushed into her house, all out of breath. When she got inside she saw that some of the pictures on the wall fell on the floor. Her mother was cleaning it up when the next one started. Her mother immediately fell over and dropped all the pictures in her hand. Maria immediately ran over to catch them but some of them still fell to the floor and shattered. The second wave ends a few minutes later. Her mother’s small stature didn’t help her stand up after the violent shaking of the ground. Maria tried her best to help clean up. Her father came home a few minutes later. He asked if me and my mother were okay in a panicked voice.

“Yeah, just a little shaken,” Maria replies.

Her mother is still in shock because of the earthquakes. Her father is astonished as the tv still works when he turns on the news. Maria guides her mother to the couch and sets her down. Her mother sat down slowly and stared at the television with her father. She noticed her mother was more staring at the television, rather than paying attention to the news. Maria went into the kitchen to get a drink of water for her mom. While the water was pouring she couldn’t help but think about the earthquakes. They felt different from the regular earthquakes that happened in Sacramento. They were 1,000 times worse than they felt like normally. It almost felt as if the earth was lurching to a stop rather than shaking like a regular earthquake. Her hand shot back when the burning water started overflowing from the cup. She turned off the hot water quickly and filled the cup up with cold water. She left the kitchen and gave the water to her mother. Maria could hear the news anchor say,

“We have been informed by specialists that the earth is stopping its rotation. Everyone should head to their nearest bombing shelter and stay there until we have further information.”

Her father immediately stood up and went to his room. He yelled to Maria to pack a bag with as much stuff as possible. Her mother was still sitting on the couch with her class of water, unfazed by the news. Maria ran to her room and started packing clothes. She decided to grab the photos on her wall so she still had some memory of her house. She ran to get some snacks from their cabinets for some extra food. Her bag was stuffed like a squirrel’s cheeks. While she was walking back to her room she noticed her mother was still on the couch.

“Come on mom,” Maria tells her mom as she grabs her arm and pulls the mother towards the bedroom.

Her mom goes into her bedroom with her father and starts packing a bag for herself. Everyone gets in the car as soon as every bag in the house is packed full of clothes and food. They went to the nearest bomb shelter and ran inside. The giant door slammed shut with a bang that sounded like a gunshot through the small space. The shelter was actually quite nice. Maria and her family picked a room and settled in. her father tuned the news on the tv again. All the news had was a warning for people to get to the nearest shelter as fast as possible. It had been a couple of days since the last time anything new came on the television other than the warning. There were many more earthquakes, each one worse than the last. Finally they stopped, but something felt wrong to Maria. It was a sickening feeling that have her goosebumps. It covered her skin in small lumps. The next time her father turned on the news, everything changed…

Her father tuned on the television at 9:00 like they had every night for the past 2 months. But this time, the anchor was in a shelter himself just the same as the past month or so. But this time, he had a grim look on his face. He announced in a low voice,

“We have evidence confirming that the earth has stopped rotating on its axis. For years scientists have theorized what would happen and most theories end with the termination of all life on earth as we know it. However, this is not the case for us on this day. There have been theories of what would happen if the earth did come to a complete stop slowly, and all we can do to fro now is stay underground until we have further instructions”

Maria and her family froze in disbelief. This was going to be their life now, staying underground until scientists came up with a solution. Her mind immediately went into a panic of different thoughts. What if they ran out of food? Will they live here for the rest of their life? What will happen to all the other animals on earth? She started frantically thinking about everything that would or eventually will happen. Her life will never be the same. Now all she could think about was her friends, where they were or how she could contact them. 

“What are we going to do?” Maria asked her parents. But she knew the answer to that question already... Nothing. After all, what could they do?