Mudslide

I stood there alone with my back to a huge rocky inlet as Mr. Baker held on to Rick’s arm trying to pull him off the tree. Suddenly, the increasing echo of the deathly suction became a thunderous growl and they both turned and looked up at the ledge above me. The silence of death is deafening! I have never seen fear in anyone’s eyes like I saw in theirs this day. I didn’t even know that anyone could look that scared. Their eyes bugged out and Rick’s mouth covered his contorted face while their screams were like two-edged swords stabbing into my chest. It’s a vision I’ll probably never erase, and one I wish I had never seen. Mud burst through the ledge above us and gushed out like a giant dark milkshake, pushing the tree down towards the edge of the steep bank. Mr. Baker and Rick moved fervently to get off, but mud dumped on them too quickly. Without any further warning, the large blobs turned into a loud, crashing stream of thick, black mud. Everything around me became a dispersion of screams that were soon buried with the thunderous channel of the mudslide. The sudden rush of overpowering mud flushed them over the bank and down into the smashing waters below. The cries of Rick and Mr. Baker became nothing more than a tormenting memory in my mind. The air grew deathly cold and everything went completely dark. I was slammed backwards by a warm sensation and was pinned inside the small rocky inlet of the ledge behind me. I was held captive as the mud rushed down in front of me like explosions of thunder. The tremor became one with the pounding inside my ears and numbed me even more than the after affects of the raging band at the school dance. My heart fell to my feet as my eyes welled up in fear, tormented with the horror that they had just witnessed. I didn’t know where the rest of the team was and another icy chill shot across my neck. Were they swept away, too? I tried to open my eyes but it was darker than midnight and very cold. The loud rushing before me was deafening and made my chest ache with panic. I was panting hysterically although I wasn’t moving. I felt like a zombie, too scared to think or feel anything. I didn’t know what to expect or what to hope for. I remember closing my eyes and waiting. I’m not sure what I was waiting for, though. I’m not even sure what I was hoping for because I couldn’t get the horrifying images of Rick and Mr. Baker out of my mind. I couldn’t believe that they were dead, but I couldn’t imagine that they were still alive, either. I stood there cold and shaking, and I just wanted to wake up from this nightmare. Whenever I had bad dreams when I was a little girl, my dad always knew about them and he’d come and rescue me from them. I thought to myself that if this was a nightmare, my dad would already be in my room and waking me up, and it would be over. I held my breath and waited for a few seconds, but he didn’t come. My dad was not there to rescue me. My skin was freezing from the waves of cold that came at me from the pouring mud and I knew it wasn’t a dream. Oh, how I wished my dad was there. I opened my eyes again but I couldn’t see anything because there was only a cold, black void in front of me. My ears rang intensely from the deafening thunder of rushing mud that passed down over me. At first I felt the freezing cold water and mud splattering onto my face but then it stopped. A wall of mud built up in front of me and I was trapped inside a cold space of nothingness. I don’t know if words can accurately describe how scared I was or how bad my insides were shaking. My hands were numb and my whole body was freezing and yet, I couldn’t feel anything. The only thing that gave me any kind of hope were the hot tears that streamed down my face, reminding me that I was still alive. I stood there alone, scared and shaking, but I’m not sure for how long. It could have been minutes but it felt like an eternity. Then suddenly, everything went quiet. The mud stopped moving. I stopped moving, too, and I’m not sure if I was even breathing. I strained my ears trying to hear something – anything - but my heart was pounding so loudly that that’s all I could hear. I was gripped with the fear of the unknown. And that’s when the greatest fear ever struck me like an electrical charge shooting through my body. I heard myself cry out and my head was pulsating so fast that I thought it would pop off. I had all my thoughts backwards. I was worrying about everyone else and scared for the fates they might have endured but that wasn’t what happened. I was the only one who got the warning from the tree. Even Meagan didn’t believe me. No one else heard it. No one else felt that same eerie fear that haunted me from the start. I was the only one. I think my heart stopped beating altogether when the harsh reality hit me. Perhaps everyone else was alive and they were out looking for me. But they would never find me because they were all together when the slide hit and they’re probably still together. I was the only one warned, and the only one who was out on the limb alone. My insides shook intensely and I was panting as my face became soaked with tears. My thoughts pounded my brain and churned my heart into mush. I’d been buried alive and no one will ever find me.