Solo Rumble and Roll!

[Bennar Witt]

69th of Fall, 515 A.V.
Zintia Peak

The first inkling that something was wrong was a subtle shifting in the pit of his stomach. Benji stumbled and reached out a hand to anchor himself against the wall of a nearby home. At first he thought that something was wrong with him, a momentary bout of vertigo? But he saw that others on the street had stumbled as well. One elderly woman had fallen and her basket of cloth spools was laying on its side in the street, the brightly colored content rolling lazily across the grey stones.

As people righted themselves and called out to one another, Benji started to walk over to the elderly lady who was now struggling to her hands and knees. He bent to help pull her up. "Hey, are you hurt anywhere Ma'am." Now that he was closer he heard the steady and practiced stream of curses streaming smoothly from her wrinkled old lips. But at his assistance she turned a crooked smile to him.

"Oh only my pride and my ass, sonny." Her gravelly voice wavered with rueful mirth. "It was all part of my plan to attract a pretty young'un like yourself!" Now that she was on her feet once again, she sighed and brushed her knees off. "Must have been my old heart. I suppose I'd best go talk to my nephew. He's an herbalists apprentice you know. Not too much in the brains department, but I'm sure he's retained something in the past fifteen years." Her mutterings continued as Benji helped her gather her spools again. Her steady stream of reflection upon her nephew's merits gave Benji little chance to speak.

"Ah ma'am." He paused while she told him about how proud she had been when her nephew had attained his apprenticeship and how surprised the whole family had been. "Ma'am, I don't think it was your health. Perhaps some sort of tremble in the mountain." he could not keep the worry out of his voice. If there's trouble with the mountain it was bad for everyone, and there was not much they could do.

Just as they had gathered up all of her purchases there was another tremble. This time Bennar fell on top of the old woman and sent her basket tumbling down the street. A few bricks slid from their places and a crack or two appeared in various locations along the street. They were a few hundred yards from the edge of the city where the cliff-face dropped ambitiously to another level edge below and then again into the sea.

Two Shinya appeared almost at once. They seemed troubled to say the least. They were projecting limbs to help people up and checking for injuries. Benji once again helped the elderly woman up. Now she was muttering about a son who used to be friends with an architect, but they had a falling out. It was such a disappointment for her.

Just as Benji was about to politely suggest they get their rumps away from the edge of the mountain, it began to move again...

[Bennar Witt]

The ground trembled with what felt like the wrath of some god, breaking apart underneath people. The street cracked and the wall of a nearby house leant dangerously towards the road. It’s stones spreading out wildly and toppling onto the street and people below. The noise was almost unbearable as earth ground against earth. The ground below Ben’s feet shot up at him suddenly, knocking him and the old woman toppling over.

Ben could not seem to find his feet. Instead he settled for stumbling his way along while the ground jolted and shook beneath him. He was vaguely aware of others scrambling around. The old woman toppling down a vicious decline made by part of the street cracking open. He heard her screams as he fell past. He barely vaulted over another fissure that opened up. As he slammed into the edge on the other side of the thin crack, it began to slide down. Ben felt a horrifying moment of free-fall, made worse by the fact that he was already clutching onto the small section of cobbled street.

It crashed to a halt about ten feet below, the smooth face of the mountain now visible behind him. Ben rolled onto his back, crawling away from the wall of earth. Stones and bit of earth were falling everywhere and his head was spinning. On occasion an entire stone would smash down near him. He wasn’t even sure if he could still hear any screams. He stumbled to his feet and placed a shaking hand to his temple.

You have to do something! His mind kept ordering him. He couldn’t seem to think about anything besides how much danger he was in. The earth was still rumbling. It had only been a few seconds since the tremor started. Ben looked around him for inspiration as to what to do next. A dozen meters away a man was holding a child and clinging to a skewed piece of structure that seemed to be between staying atop a safe level and crumbling down to yet another chuck of earth like the one Ben was on. Ben began to stumble towards them. It was better than dying alone, after all. As he approached the ground beneath him gave out again and he was sent sprawling. He rolled towards the now downward slanting edge of the patch of street he was on. A vast chunk of Zintia, almost an entire neighborhood, seemed to be at least a few feet below where it had once been.

Ben slammed hard against something and heard a grunt. When he righted himself and looked, he saw the crouching form of one of the Shinya he had seen before. The woman was looking at him with a forced calm, though her eyes were wild. She winced as she stood, then helped him to his feet.

“Thank you.” Ben breathed at her. Though he was not out of danger, danger seemed to be settling down comfortably around them to smother the whole block, he felt almost safe with a Shinya present. They can protect from almost anything, even this.

“Don’t mention it. Try to be careful, its really unstable over here.”

“No shyke.” Ben said before he could stop himself.

The Shinya lead him along the jagged sections of land. Ben had no idea where the old woman was. He wiped the sheen of sweat from his face as he thought of the last time he had seen her, falling into that cracking earth. He was sure she was dead.

“Was that an earthquake?” Ben asked her. He stumbled along behind her, his legs weak from the fright of the moment. The man had managed to get the child onto his back and was now trying to climb down towards them. Ben could not see anyone else around them.

So many were standing in the street! Are they all gone?

Would he and the Shinya woman and the father and child join them? Were they merely the ones who had been chosen to live long enough to feel despair and then join the rest? Ben would take despair over death for now. His head had stopped spinning and he was walking more assuredly behind the woman.

“Yes, but the danger isn’t over. Don’t forget we’re atop a mountain.” The warning seemed to cling to the air, ominous and prophetic. It was made no less terrorizing by the fact that no one, not even a Shinya, could protect a city block from falling down a mountainside.