BEGINNING ANEW

The first indication that there was a problem came with the deep moan from the earth. Many had given warnings of this coming to pass, but few had ever heeded such warnings. Now, these futuristic warnings had become realistic grunts and groans, as the earth began perhaps its most prodigious shifting since the beginning of time. From its first roar, nothing would ever be as it was again.

Skyscrapers tumbled like toys, causing exceptional fodder for any Hollywood disaster film. Glass shattered along with the nerves of the populace running for their last time. Highways rose and then fell back in heaps, all mangled and twisted, not resembling their previous form at all. Their gyrations looked like snakes in a hurry to find shelter. Cars, trucks and buses traveling these roads and highways flew like Tonka toys being manipulated by a child's imagination. Trains catapulted from their tracks like unguided missiles. Airplanes had no place to land. Runways were either torn apart or the countries they were headed for had all but disappeared before they got there. Many ran out of fuel in an attempt to find land and simply crashed.

Houses shook off of their foundations while the occupants ran for safety, only to find the earth giving way underneath their feet. Screams, cries and shouts became the painful energy of panic that filled the air around the world as monuments tumbled into the new canyons being created as the earth tried to right itself.

The waters of oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers churned, rising to enormous heights before assaulting the land. People, like millions of tiny ants were sucked into the surge, gone forever. Erased. Eradicated.

Power lines snapped, energy cracked, lines fell, disconnecting communication. One place didn't know what was happening to others in different locations around the world. Lifelines were severed only to leave pockets of people in unknown locations to fend for themselves with whatever ingenuity they had. Fires raged.