Stopping wasn’t an option even when Jacob’s heart felt like it was going to leap out of his chest as it expanded against his ribcage.

In the commotion, he collided with another man fleeing along the sidewalk, sent Jacob stumbling to the pavement only for his father to pick him back up. The other man sprang up to his feet, a dazed look of fear in his eyes, hollowed and wide.

The man bolted across the street, screaming, when a long rebar-like pole fell from the sky like a spear, and skewered the stranger right through his skull, exiting to the tail of his spine. The man swayed for a second; hands slowly rose to touch the metal rod, surprised and shocked to find it sticking out of his head. The stranger, eyes rolling white and knees buckling, blood dripping out of his nose and eyes, dropped to the middle of the street, twitching.

Then a speeding van ran over his body.

Jacob quickly looked away as bile threatened to flood his mouth.

The driver of the van, with the body dragging beneath the wheels, lost control when the rod got jammed in a crack on the pavement, violently lurching it onto an upturned SUV, tilted to its side, and crashed through a deli shop.

“Keep moving! I’m right behind you.” His father roared, pulling him away from the crash as a loose wire ignited the leaking fuel from the van’s tank.

Jacob whirled around to look at his father once again, and it was the first he saw blood coating his father’s left arm.

“You’re hurt!” Jacob squeaked.

“Don’t mind that now. Keep your eyes forward!”

Jacob ran again, screamed at the occasional explosions nearby, the gunshots at a distance, not caring how loud he was, and tried not to look back. His vision blurring, blood slowly dripping at the side of his face, and adrenaline pumped into his veins as he ran to nowhere. He fought off the cramp seizing his legs one step at a time, trying to wake them up.

Suddenly slowed his sprint, leading Jacob into the entrance of a typical breakfast diner. Most of the sign remained intact, but the entire front windows were shattered in pieces, scattered around the sidewalk. Tables and chairs flipped upside down, plates and utensils all over the floor, and the dust settled on every surface.

Jacob saw Uncle Easton behind a booth sitting next to Eli.

“Eli! Uncle!” Jacob shrieked, and he yanked his arm out of his father’s grip and ran toward them.

Uncle Easton whirled around, eyes softening as they met his, and Jacob drew both him and Eli into a tight hug, practically hopping onto the booth to get to them. Tears welled, and he let them flow. He didn’t care that boys his age shouldn’t cry, but he let them out anyway. He was so scared, trembling within their embrace. Something wet landed against his cheek, and Jacob realized Uncle Easton and Eli cried too.

Standing a couple of feet away, Connor and Grandpa Andy sat in the adjacent booth. Jacob pried his arms away from Uncle Easton, and ran toward the other two, pulling them into another hug.

Jacob looked around the room, his smile dropping when he realized they were the only ones in the room.

“Wait, where is mom?” He asked.

“We’re still looking for them,” Connor said.

“Looking for them? Where did they go? Are they hurt?”

Grandpa Andy hesitated to answer. He let go of his hold on Jacob, walked toward his father, and placed a hand on his shoulder, asking, “Well? Have you found them? Have you found my Gloria? Claire? The girls?”

His father lowered his eyes defeatedly. Uncle Easton sighed deeply, disappointment crossing his face, and Eli burst once again into tears. His father shook his head. “Only Jacob. I found him close by the Ford Explorer.”

His grandfather’s face suddenly dropped. “That can’t be! We looked over there earlier!”

“Look, it doesn’t matter now,” his father was saying. “What’s important is that we found him, and he’s safe.”

“Yeah, you’re right. But the girls, Marcus…”

“I’m sorry, Andrew. They’re not there. I’ve gone back and forth ten times down that street. I even dug out rubble. Nothing.”

“Maybe you were mistaken. Are you sure you know where Claire was before…before it?”

His father nodded glumly. “I know. She was right there beside me, and then she wasn’t.”

His grandfather let out a deep sigh, falling back against the booth, and slid down onto the seat. “No. No, no, no, no…” Grandpa Andy repeated. “I held her, Marcus. I was holding Gloria’s hand before the car flipped over.”

His father placed a consoling hand on his grandfather’s shoulder. He turned to Connor suddenly, said, “Connor, why don’t you take Jacob and get him some food to eat, okay?”

“Um—alright, sir.” Connor took Jacob’s wrist and pulled him toward the front counter of the diner. “You want some Sprite? Lemonade?”

“Uh, any will do. What’s wrong with mom? Tell me, Connor.”

“Let me get you some food first.”

“But I’m not hungry,” said Jacob, but his brother already walked ahead of him toward the diner’s counter.

Something was off. It was pecking at the nape of his neck, flooding goosebumps all over his body.

Connor went over to the soda machine and grabbed the largest cup on the shelf and pour some lemonade on it. He gave the cup to Jacob once it was filled. He filled up a bowl of oatmeal from the pot, placed some bananas and blueberries on it, and served it to Jacob as well.

Jacob hesitated at first, but he realized how parched his throat was, sliding the glass toward him and took a big gulp. It was tasty and refreshing. Then, he devoured the oatmeal. He didn’t know why he was so hungry all of a sudden and didn’t mind that the oatmeal was a little bit cold.

“Slow down there,” Connor said, “Don’t drink and eat it all in one go or you’ll have a stomach ache.”

Jacob placed the glass and the bowl on the counter reluctantly, struggling to gulp down as much as he could so that he could breathe again.

“What’s going on?” Jacob whispered to Connor.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we thought we lost you, too. You’ve been gone for a while.”

“A while?”

Connor nodded. “Yes, for more than an hour. We looked for you and mom, Amelia, Lucy, and Nana many times. We thought of waiting for the authorities to arrive and do it for us, but dad insists on trying again, afraid that it's going to be too late, so he did. And I’m glad he did. The authorities would’ve taken hours to sort through all the rubble.”

Had it been that long? Jacob wondered. It felt like only minutes passed when everything happened. The darkness…The green light…

Jacob shook the images out of his head. He couldn’t start to think about them again.

He took another drink of the lemonade and suddenly felt a gentle pat on his arm. Connor smiled, said, “But I’m glad you’re here little bro.”

“They couldn’t have gone that far,” said Jacob. “We should go back out there and look again.”

“We did. We can’t find them.”

“Yet you found me.”

“Yeah. But it’s getting too dangerous outside. There are too many people looting now. We might have to start moving soon.”

“Move to where?”

“A police car passed by not too long ago, telling people to head out to a safer part of the city. Dad is thinking about going to Marina Green since its wide open. He believes we’ll be safe there, away from the debris and the buildings.”

Jacob glanced behind Connor, and saw his father talking to Grandpa in a hushed tone with Grandpa was nodding to every word. He was too far to make out what they were discussing.

Uncle Easton and Eli sidled next to him. “Let me take a look on that,” said Uncle Easton, pointing at the cut on Jacob’s forehead. Jacob almost forgot that he had it there, but once he realized it again, suddenly, it was like hundreds of ants started biting around the wound.

“Ouch,” Jacob hissed.

“Yikes, bud. Luckily, it’s not too deep, so you don’t need stitches,” Uncle Easton said.

“Where’d you get the box?” Jacob asked.

“From the kitchen.”

Uncle Easton pulled out the first-aid kit and opened the box, proceeded to lay out the tools and bandages on the counter. He started wiping the cut with an alcohol wipe and iodine. Uncle Easton, like Jacob's mother, was studying to become a doctor. Jacob tried to remember what year he was now, though it slipped on him. He did remember that he was supposed to graduate soon, and his mother couldn't stop talking about it.

I guess that's what I'll become, too, Jacob thought, if only mom were here. Please, God, keep them safe. Littel Lucy is only five. Please. Please. Please. Let them be okay.

“Are we gonna get in trouble that we, um, took that? And the food? Isn’t this technically stealing?” Jacob asked.

“Not when no one’s looking, it’s not,” said Uncle Easton.

“Oh.”

Suddenly, Uncle Easton let out a low chuckle. “I’m just kidding, man. Kenny is a cool guy. He was the one who helped us out of the street, and he lets use whatever’s here.”

Jacob furrowed his brows, wondered, Who’s Kenny?

As if on cue, a man wearing an apron walked through the broken door, a pair of binoculars wrapped around his neck. He closed the gap between him and his father, tapping his shoulder to get his attention while his face crossed in deep worry. He looked like a man no older than forty, close to his father’s age, sporting a thick black goatee and a blue bandana wrapped over his head, pushing the long, thick, curly hair back into a tight bun. Jacob assumed the man to be Kenny. He and his father stepped off to the side, talking in hushed whispers, though they seemed agitated about something that Jacob couldn’t guess. Kenny kept pointing at the ceiling.

Jacob focused his attention on their lips, and he was sure he saw Kenny mouthed the word: the roof.

“That’s Kenny. He owns the place,” said Connor.

“What’s on the roof?”

“Oh. That. Dad told Kenny to go up the roof and see how far this went. He must’ve found something bad.”

The latter worried Jacob. Worse than down here?

His father turned to the rest of them and announced that he'd be right back. But before Jacob could ask and start after them, his father followed Kenny out to the door. They didn’t return until Jacob grumbly finished eating the bowl of oats Connor gave him and after Uncle Easton finished putting a bandage around his wound. However, his father returned, looking as white as snow. He looked sick.

And it wasn’t only Jacob who noticed.

“What’s wrong? Did you find anything up there?” Uncle Easton asked.

“We should get out of the streets,” said his father. “We should get to an open field before we find these buildings on top of us.”

“Crissy Beach and Marina Green aren’t far from here. Five blocks at most,” Kenny said, “And if it isn’t a bother, I’d like to walk with you. I don’t think its safe for me to sit up there in my apartment, let alone stay down here in the open. I don’t know if I should trust the stability of this building, but there’s already looting happening a few blocks down, and I can’t hold them off on my own with all the windows busted.”

“I wish I could help you with that, man,” said his father. “But you are welcome to join us.”

“I have insurance anyway,” Kenny chuckled.

“It’s that bad, huh?” Uncle Easton asked.

His father paused, as if unsure what to say next. “And then some. You have to see it before you believe it.”

“Believe what?”

“Wait, we can’t leave!” Eli argued, cutting into the conversation. “Mom and Nana are still out there trapped!”

“We’ll get back once we find a safer place than here,” said his father.

“I can help find them,” Jacob butted in. “I’m good at finding stuff.”

“No. It’s too dangerous to stay out here between these buildings. Kenny’s right. We have to get to a safe area, and then we can start finding the others, alright?”

His father flicked his eyes to Grandpa Andy, who lowered his head dejectedly. Jacob frantically tried to find an ally with either Uncle Easton or Grandpa Andy, but they avoided his gaze, sighing disappointedly as they helped Eli up to his feet. Though Kenny looked sympathetic, he ultimately agreed with his father’s decision.

After grabbing a few items and food from the pantry, they headed off, steering away from the sidewalk, watching out for fallen debris. Ashey moved further away from downtown, the neighborhoods and the streets grew quieter, and they soon joined a mass of bodies ambling quietly to the same direction—toward the Bay.

Jacob, and especially Connor, dragged their feet at the tail, both wanting to get back to the same street where they left their car, but Uncle Easton and Kenny kept a watchful eye on them from behind while their father and Grandpa Andy led the way.

Jacob tried to ignore the intermittent screams from within the buildings that had gaping holes and cracks, and the horrors that played beyond the periphery of his vision. Instead, he focused his attention on his father’s back. He could still hear Eli’s sniffs as he cried. He suddenly found himself occasionally looking up at the two moons again, floating peacefully in the night sky while it was hell on Earth.

Where did the other one come from? Jacob wondered. And what happened to the storm?

Jacob threw the thoughts to the back of his mind for now. He recognized the streets they were on. It had been a month or so since they visited Crissy Beach, but Jacob knew the way. The road widened as they drew near to an open field, catching sight of the trees dotted around the park. And beyond that, Crissy Beach sat with a full view of San Francisco Bay.

It seemed others had the same idea as they did. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, streamed out of the concrete valleys of the city, pooling into the large park. But what made Jacob’s stomach jumped up to his throat was the sight before him.

The Bay was gone entirely.

It was as if it vanished into thin air, and not a trace of it anywhere. Though barely intact, the marina remained, yet all the boats docked onto its harbor were gone, too.

What replaced it was a towering canopy of tall pines, massive and imposing against the skyscrapers, of woods that extended for miles, and beyond it loomed an enormous mountain range mottled in snow, reflecting off into the dark gloom of night.

Snow? In Summer?

The others stopped in their tracks, mouth gaping, and eyes wide in shock.

And the thought Jacob put at the back of his mind lunged to the forefront, and when curiosity once lingered before it, terror now seized it.

“I told you that you have to see it first,” His father said to Uncle Easton.

“What am I seeing?” Uncle Easton asked in disbelief. “This can’t be real.”

“Wrong question, Easton. What you should be asking is where the hell are we?”

Jacob didn’t know the answer. He didn’t know if he even wanted to find out.