"To rise from the ashes, there must first be ash. To emerge the phoenix must first burn."

- Notes on the Shattering, Unknown

The earth shattered. I had never experienced an earthquake but if I had had the time to think about, this was not what I imagined.

"Get under the beanbags!" Ace yelled at us, flailing his arms.

The world screamed. Distant crashes were somehow the loudest thing we heard. I heard the earth itself crack. It sounded like a landslide. Like the earth had just decided to erect a mountain only to destroy it. I dived for the beanbag, noticing pieces of the ceiling cracking, shaking.

I held it over my head. "You guys okay?!" I called out over the crashing.

My feet wobbled but I held the beanbag firmly above me. I felt pieces of the ceiling fall upon me. Even with our gathered wits, we were still shaky on our feet. Even as we took stock, there was nothing to do but wait.

"It's fucking happening!" Zych yelled, his eyes bulged in real fear.

Ace was focused, grimacing as a chunk of ceiling fell on him. My expression was caught between the two of theirs. I screamed at them over the shattering. "Did you see it?! The screen!?"

They yelled something back right as something massive crashed nearby. Their voices were lost to me, but the nods gave away their answer. They had.

Ace was making his way to the window. His feet wobbled under him and he, like us, were thrown against the walls. His hands grabbed the frame and he looked out.

His eyes went wide and I saw him whisper something, my vision as shaky as our relative position to each other. I was never good at reading lips. But, somehow, I was fluent in that moment.

He had said this, "God help us."

Zych grabbed my shoulder, nearly yelling into my ear. "Cameras! Look at the fucking cameras!"

I whirled around, half the monitors were showing me static. Then my eyes locked onto the outer cameras. I whispered this time, my eyes stayed locked unbelieving, even while my body was thrown about. "What the fuck happened to my neighborhood?"

The was a fissure where once there was a street. Or maybe it was a cliff. I saw trees. That didn't make sense. I lived in a desert suburbia. I would've recognized those trees, they'd have been planted years prior. Half of my neighborhood had just disappeared.

"What do we do!?" Zych yelled at us. He was usually the most fearful, but if I knew Zych, he got things done despite his quirks. He looked at both of us, but only I appeared to hear him.

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A quake threw me hard against the wall. My head, being partially pressed into the beanbag, was protected against a particularly vicious impact. I clamored my way to my feet and found Zych's hazel eyes. Across the room Ace was staring at me, keeping his balance by holding onto the wall.

"I say we stay!" I yelled at them, pointing down, then pointing outside and slashing the air in an expression of disapproval.

"Better indoors you think!?" Zych was only a few feet away but I could barely hear him. He pointed to the screen.

I caught Ace staring outside, nodding to me. He apparently had figured out we weren't gonna be hearing each other anytime soon. Not at the expansive distance that was across the pool table.

I stared at the monitor of my backyard. I didn't remember my backyard being jungle. I didn't remember floating island in the background, exploding into multiple pieces as I watched. My eyes followed the image, perfect clarity, and switched to the fissure. The camera wasn't angled to view beyond the fissure, so I could only hope it wasn't so encompassing. The entire thing was filled with the dust of debris, I spotted rocks falling off of it, pieces of the street succumbing to the fall.

It had split open right at the other side of the street's sidewalk. My camera only pointed to my driveway.

Another quake and Zych fell forward. A piece of the ceiling fell breaking into two pieces against a pipe. The pipe burst and, luckily, clean water doused us. I helped Zych up. My frantic gesturing at least got the point across. Ace tossed us some duct tape from across the room, he was closest to the cabinets.

I managed to seal the pipe. The rest of the room it seemed, was solid rock. Cracks, sure, but fissures? No. The basement was one built in an area known for earthquakes, expecting a large one even. Any other earthquake would've not even made a dent. But this was different. The earth was shattering.

"We still have water." I pointed up, miming the motion.

Zych nodded. He pointed too and I got the message. The pool table was covered in small rubble now, but it was still more or less the center of the room. Seeing us crawl under it, Ace followed suit.

He ducked his head. "You don't have an alley anymore!" He yelled, still hard to hear. "You need to see!"

Another quake shook us but we were already prone. I noticed Zych tensing and realized he must be expecting something like the outside to happen to us. I shivered but filled in the possibility of such a thing happening in my mind.

I frowned at Ace's words and emerged from the pool table, checking outside the window. My hand found the window frame and I pulled one of the beanbags from under the table to cover my head.

My neighbor's house had just... disappeared. I saw no wreckage or hint to their whereabouts. What I did see was much more startling. A giant chunk of floating rock hovered in the air miles away. I saw smaller ones caught in its orbit. Pieces of it fell, becoming small meteors. Against all logic, they came in our direction as if gravity was horizontal. None were coming for the house directly, not yet, but suddenly I became more aware of Ace's focus on the window. Impact craters, all around us.

Focusing, I might've figured out where my neighbors went. I could see houses on that rock. Some that looked like they might fit right into my neighborhood.

I found Ace staring up at me. His face was a grimace. It was no wonder he wanted to stay inside. At least here we had cover.

We waited in nailbiting anxiousness. Zych blanched at the sight, becoming paler even as I caught him staring at our immediate surroundings, connecting the dots. Hours passed. The quakes became less frequent, but then other noises assaulted our ears. Other hints at cataclysmic change. Rumbling quakes were normal, but the roar of something inhuman and inanimal? Peals of thunder, flashes of lightning? In broad daylight? For a moment, it sounded like even a volcano had erupted, and then, we saw the smoke.

Hours and hours passed. The changes, the shattering, had become less and less. Less frequent, less noise. We waited the entire time, the basement was the most logical spot to hole up if there ever was one.

Then the noises stopped.