Her bed trembled, and she clenched her muscles to stop shaking.
A low roar filled her ears and then the frantic shouts in Indonesian pushed her up on her elbows.She wasn’t shaking, the ground was.
Earthquake.
Shit.
She leapt out of bed and threw on some shorts.What the hell was she supposed to do?Hide under the bed?Stand in the doorway?Run outside?
She stumbled to the window in time to see the long house next to her collapse.People screamed.
Fear gripped her heart.
The walls of her tiny room bowed, and she grabbed her bag, scooped up her sneakers and staggered out of the house as wood shattered behind her.
Bursting from the building, she sucked in a breath of the warm night air.Houses shook around her and the ground roared like a jet engine coming in to land.People stumbled into the streets looking as if they were drunk, and moved towards the clear market square.
Right.Get away from the buildings which could collapse.Mila threw her bag strap over her head and followed the others, struggling to stay upright.The ground felt like a carnival ride gone rogue, shifting and shaking, making it impossible to walk in a straight line.
When she reached the group, she slid her sneakers onto her feet and took a breath.
She had twenty children in her English classes, but she couldn’t make out faces in the darkness.
The streetlights went out as the shaking subsided, but the noises didn’t.Frantic shouts, screams for help, and the scratch and crash of items which hadn’t been able to withstand the force of the quake.Mila slowly turned, taking it all in.The front awning of her own building had collapsed, blocking the entrance and exit, and so many other structures were teetering or piles of rubble.
Where was Vance?She glanced up to the cliff which overlooked the village.From here it appeared as if the house still stood.He should be fine.
What did she do now?
“Miss, miss.”Someone tugged on her hand and she blinked away the shock to look down at one of her students, Dewi.
“Mynenekis trapped.She can’t get out.”
Mila squeezed the ten-year-old’s hand.“Show me where.”
The scope of the damage became clear as people found torches or lanterns and switched them on.Nearby, a power line was sparking, dangling across the road.Streets were buckled and so many buildings had simply collapsed.
She followed Dewi to a building on the opposite side of the square.Dewi was one of five children, but she lived with her extended family, which included aunts, uncles, cousins and her grandmother, who was trapped.
“This way.”Dewi went to climb through a gap in the wall and Mila stopped her.
“It might not be safe.”
Dewi frowned at her and shook off her hand.“She’s through here.”
Before Mila could say anything else, Dewi had slipped through the gap.Fear gripped Mila, but everyone was busy digging through the rubble or searching for family members.She had to be brave.Hopefully the rest of Dewi’s family was somewhere safe.
Taking a deep breath, she followed the child into the kitchen.Two outside walls had fallen inward to form a tee-pee space, but any further aftershocks might cause them to collapse.
Mila sniffed, screwing up her nose at the gas smell.Probably from a broken pipe, but she checked the little cooker to make sure everything was off.
Dewi waited impatiently in the doorway.“This way.”
“Where’s the rest of your family?”Mila asked as she followed the girl.
“They went to visit my uncle in the mountains.He is getting married, but Nenek was too frail, so I stayed with her.”
At least there were fewer people to worry about here, but the mountain village would have been hit by the earthquake too.She reached into her bag for her phone and remembered it had been stolen.No torch.
