But then it grew. A second rumble slammed into the city, shaking the ceiling tiles in a quiet library, sending patrons to their knees in panic. Books cascaded from shelves, shattered desks, and the collective gasp of hundreds rose into the carved archways. Librarians, once composed, clutched treasured volumes—some religious texts, others obscure treatises—only to watch them split beneath the tremor.
A young mother pushed her stroller outside the building, one trembling foot catching on buckled pavement. The stroller tipped, the child wailing behind her, the sound swallowed by the tremor's roar.
Within seconds, grief and terror blossomed.
In Tokyo, Friday rush hour turned into something surreal. Dozens of commuters careened into one another as the trains rocked violently inside their carriages. Reports flooded the network: "Train derailed." "Crowded platform collapsed." Screams. The city's neon glow fought the gathering darkness of dust and panic, and for a time, no one could see the ground they stood upon.
On the edges of San Francisco, tremors hit the Bay Area like the echo of a distant blow—first a warning, then an assault. Glass warehouses in Fremont shivered, one by one, and factory workers spilled onto the loading docks as massive crates lurched and toppled off forklifts. Cranes bent, the iconic skyline shuddered.
In Venice, gondolas listed precariously as the city's centuries-old canals rippled with waves—water trapped in stone responding to the earth's tremble and shaking centuries of built heritage like a loose jigsaw puzzle.
Farther inland, on the dusty plains of Uttarakhand, shepherds felt the ground beneath them slip. One moment, sheep grazed peacefully; the next, hooves slid on fractured earth. Chunks of hillside splintered under the quake as tremors turned narrow mule paths into crumbling ribbons of cliffside. A shepherd cried out, fists buried in soil stained by cattle hooves and dust.
At the Gulf of Mexico, where life moves slower, the quake was gentle at first—a soft humming that rocked oil rigs and tugboats. Then came a second wave, harder, and across floating platforms, men tossed their drinks, scrambled across decks groaning against the strain. The rig's tall lamp-posts wavered. Radios blared, warning signals echoed through cabins. The calm sea turned restless.
Back in New Orleans, emergency sirens began to wail as aftershocks rattled street signs. The caretaker of a historic church grabbed an ancient chalice before the marble altar cracked. He prayed with open eyes, not for salvation, but for protection—unassured and desperate.
The mother by the stroller found a plank of wood and used it to prop up the baby carriage. Once the quake subsided, she collected her child, soot-smudged but alive, and squeezed their hand until her knuckles turned white.
In Tokyo, the underground station was chaos. Commuters formed beds on corner tiles. Elderly pushed through crowds, guiding the wounded toward exit ramps. On the bridge above, onlookers counted the collapsed rails; train crews moved in silence, stunned.
Mr. Yamada, a salesman in his gray suit, held both hands around his wife's trembling shoulders. "It will be okay," he whispered into her blowing hair, whether to console her or himself he didn't know.
On the North European plain, low and steady quakes emanated from tectonic shift beneath farmlands—heavily saturated soil swallowed barns rooted in generations of family sweat. Livestock bleated, frantic in their fenced paddocks. Farmers abandoned harvest tables to chase their herds, eyes watering from grit and fear.
In the Alaskan tundra, remote research stations were cut off by the tempest. Scientists huddled outside their domed observatories as delicate sensors measured the quake's magnitude. The sky above filled with electric aurora ripples as the earth's heartbeat crashed into the magnetic fields.
And a lone Inuit elder, out on the ice to hunt, felt the vibrating ground beneath the frozen surface. His breath caught as old legends spoke of nature's anger—spirits angry, awakened.
Meanwhile, central London was relatively still, if eerily quiet. Shopfronts paused with doors slightly ajar, traffic lights swaying at intersections. No crack broke Westminster Bridge, but a tremor had traveled beneath—felt by tourists, hushed by palace watchers. For a while, even the pigeon flocks above Buckingham Palace stayed strangely still.
Back on Houston's battered edge, neighborhoods fractured by the ground suddenly shook off their fatigue. Suburban lawns dropped inches; wooden beams cracked. Residents fled their homes in shorts and slippers, purses dangling like flags of panic.
Firetrucks and ambulances roared in response. Husbands and wives, teenagers and toddlers—their pairs surged into gathered crowds of surprise. Aloft on a broken lamp post, one old woman clung to the pole, white-knuckled, chanting to someone down below.
"What is happening?"
"Are we… safe?"
Nearby, two teenage boys shared a look of wonder and terror.
In a rural village in Syria, survivors of past horror gathered in stunned silence. No bombs had fallen this time, but the quake felt like the land itself was trying to rise and hurt them again. They stood by olive trees crumbling, olive groves bending with tremor, the ground dust raising around their ankles as if the earth was remembering how to breathe.
Across South America, coffee plantations shuddered. Latin music blared as local dance halls were disrupted by chattering tile roofs. Peasants helped neighbors out of mud-brick hovels, checking water gourd breaks. Children fled schools in Chile, teachers grabbing chalkboards and ushering students into fields.
And in the shadow of the Andes, geologists scrambled to their tracking arrays. Seismographs flicked off the chart, then came back dead silent—before the instruments themselves shook again, the dissonance of readings telling a story of a world under strain.
---
Back in the Loid–Bencio estate, the tremors had hit again—as strong as any elsewhere.
Luis lost his balance. He grabbed the nearest table to brace himself. Plates clattered. A fine red mist fell from the ceiling.
He needed to say something but could only gasp.
Jex, positioned in the kitchen doorway, caught a falling can before it smashed open. "…This is more serious than we thought."
Daniel jabbed at the map on the wall, tracing the quake markers. His normally calm face was taut. "These aren't aftershocks. They're new hits. Every twenty minutes, two magnitude 6–7 quakes live and real."
He paced faster than Alvin over intricate war plans.
Alex, standing near the children, pulled Lily into his arms as "Daddy" and "Mommy" shouted at a crack in the floor. One of the chairs split in half beneath Yiso's weight, and Alex grabbed multiple arms to maintain stability. "Stay here," he ordered, voice calm but fierce with patriarchal power.
Sasha, beside him, tore open the drawer under the sideboard and retrieved small first-aid kits. She knelt to sprinkle bandages into everyone's hands. She looked like a nurse mid–surgery triage, hair bouncing around behind her as another tremor rattled the window panes.
No one spoke at first.
Then Alice's blind voice chipped through the silence. "Something broke outside. I can feel glass. Outside is wrong."
The children's eyes widened even before Sasha crouched to them, touching their shoulders. "It's okay, sweethearts. We're safe inside."
Luis, dusty from dust, looked toward the kitchen. "We should—"
A heavy second quake hit. Louder. Longer. The chandelier began to sway gently, a cradle on a giant's breath. Carved moldings groaned. Watson looked up at the ceiling with horror.
Time seemed to slow.
But seconds later, it passed.
The chandelier halted. Dust drifted down like tinged snow. The trembling ceased—only the settling. The baby stopped crying; windows no longer rattled.
Only breaths remained.
Alvin asked in his heart.
[Mr. World will, Dare I ask what the hell is wrong with your world?]
The World Will that was silent for a long time spoke like an old machine.
{Alvin Bencio, It was first only three countries who were targeted by virus, now it seems the whole earth is going to become zombie den.}
Alvin rolled his eyes and mocked it.
[Quite relaxed as your world is being destroyed aren't ya buddy?]
World Will wanted to talk back but it really was useless this time.