WHEN THE WORLD TRIED TO TEAR US APART

BY: RALPH LAWRENCE TOREJAS

I met Maria when we are 12 on a small little cottage in the middle of the mountain
just outside of the city. We both grow up together and even went to the same high
school. We graduated with our own different courses, mine with a journalism degree
and her with a secondary education degree. We both got our dream job; my current job
is a reporter in a local news channel and her with as a teacher. Only a year ago when I
confess my feeling for her which she gladly accepts.

One day, we decided to go on a date on a fancy restaurant near the beaches of

our city. I dress up early and decided to wear my fancy suit I have bought for $10 from a
clothing store near the TV channel station I’m currently working.

When she arrives on the bus station, my jaw dropped when I see her with that
beautiful red dress I feel like I’m dreaming at that moment. I take her hand and escorted
her into the restaurant.

We sit down the table and tell the waiter our orders. As we waiting for our order
we have chat a bit and talked about our jobs. She told me that teaching is hard and I
told her that being a reported is also hard. We both laugh

As we are laughing. I can chandelier swaying slightly and then immediately a

powerful shaking followed. A very strong earthquake hit our city. We hide ourselves
beneath the table we are sitting. I can see the fear in her eyes as glasses and other
utensils swept away from the tables and the chandelier falling from the ceiling and
windows breaking and the sound of people crying and screaming. We just hold our
hands the whole time and I keep telling her that everything we’ll be all right as long as
she held my hands.

When the shaking stop. We saw the chefs from the kitchen fleeing the kitchen
shouting “Run!” to us. Without any thought we run to the exit. There is a lot of people
rushing to the door that we see someone being runover but I just hold her hands and
run towards the exit. As we approaching the exit, a strong explosion came from the
kitchen knock us over. We later know that an LPG tank have a leak caused by the
strong earthquake that caused the explosion.

I still holding her hands when we are knocked out by the explosion and when I
look at her I see her in pain with her left foot bleeding. I immediately check her injured
foot and try to stop the bleeding and that’s when we hear the tsunami siren goes up. I
immediately lift her up and piggyback her and rushed to the road.

As we approach the road we see a very high tsunami heading towards the city. I
begun to run as fast I can even If I feel heavy piggyback carrying her I continue on
running. Many people from the beach rushed toward the downtown area of the city
causing yet another stampede. As I continue on running she keep on saying to me to
leave her alone but I persisted on keeping her because I really, really love her.

We see the buildings being swallowed by the water and people being the
drowned and dragged by the raging tsunami. We rushed towards a very tall building
about 500 meters away from the beach. Even if I feel extremely tired, we have reached
the top floor. We see the chaos, small building, cars and people being swallowed by the
tsunami.

We both crying and shocked for what we are seeing. The people from the
building see Maria’s foot and rushed to check the first aid kit of the building. They’ve
cleaned her wounds and put bandages into it. We just sat their reflecting what just
happen today.

A few hours have been passed and the night is up. We are eating the food that is
still in the fridge of the building. I’m just happy to see her alive. We sleep the night
hoping that the tsunami will be gone back into the ocean by tomorrow.

We woke up the around 7AM and the water is now gone. You can clearly see
from the window the aftermath of the tsunami. The debris scattered across the street
below us.

We tried to get out of the building to get my girlfriend rush into a hospital because
of her injuries. But we are shock to see a lot of debris are covering the stairs and by that
time we realize we are stuck in the building. We tried screaming for help but no luck. We
both cried and cried.

We are stuck the building for 2 days straight. Our food and water supply are
nearly depleted and now her foot begun showing sign of an infection. When we hear
hope. A helicopter is flying over our building. We immediately rushed to the rooftop and
scream until our breath runs out. The pilot sees us and approach us.

As the helicopter approach it releases a rope to attach lift my girlfriend out of the
building. As the helicopter is hovering over us, we clearly hear how that the helicopter is
calling for a backup.

My girlfriend is the first one to go. A few minutes later a helicopter approach us.
We wave and shouted like it no tomorrow. They pick us up and rush toward the nearest
hospital.

I got reach