The Proposed Prophecies
Chapter 29: THE COLLABS

An hour later, she heard gun shots close by.

“Open the elevator, Joann,” she said and Joann laughed. Her laugh reminded Liv of all the reasons why she hated her so much. She remembered how she had killed Jake. She ran up to her and pushed her to the wall. “Open the door.” She raised her voice as the anger boiled in her blood. “Why don’t you make me?”

Joann laughed but a sudden shake of the building made them drop to the floor. There was something very wrong. The building felt like it was shaking, which could mean that the building was falling apart. “What the hell.” Even Joann’s voice sounded worried.

“Open the elevator door!” She raised her voice in frustration but Joann didn’t seem to respond.

Liv ran up to Joann and grabbed her arm, dragging her to the elevator. “You better open that door or I will take your eyeball out and do it myself.”

“Alright, alright,” Joann looked like she was about to open the door but she punched Liv in the nose the second the elevator gave them access. Liv’s nose had never felt such pain and she tasted the blood in her mouth. It must be bleeding a lot. But there was no time to spare as the building shook again. She grabbed Joann by her hair and got into the elevator with her, hitting her head against the metal wall of the elevator.

She pushed the button to go down to the sixth floor but the elevator got stuck on floor thirty five and the lights went off. There were screams and shooting sounds coming from behind the doors. Liv tried to open it but the elevator was stuck. The bullets suddenly dug into the metal door and another shake of the building followed. There were small bullet dents left on the door. “Do you still want to go out?” Joann said, as she held on to her forehead as it bled from the hit. The blood ran down to her mouth, just like Liv felt on her own face from her nose.

“We need to get out of here.” The building shook again but this time it sounded like it was as a result of an explosion. Liv started to panic as she thought she wouldn’t get down to the third and sixth floors on time. She worried that everyone she loved would be either shot or buried under the ground.

“Help me to open the door. Do you want to die here?” Liv yelled at Joann who was still slowly getting back up without the support of the walls.

“Of course not. Move,” she said and pulled out her gun, aiming at the door. She fired continual shots at the middle part where the door slowly separated. It opened only a little bit but it was enough for both of them to open it. Liv pulled the left side and Joann the right. Liv ran out and tried to pass the people and Alters fighting. The sound of the shootings lessened as another shake followed. She ran down the stairs, one floor after another until she reached floor fifteen. Suddenly someone grabbed her hand. The touch was so warm and soft. She looked back and her eyes widened and her breath shortened. Jake was holding her hand. “Get out now!” he ordered. The world suddenly stopped, gravity disappeared and her heart raced. She looked into his dark eyes as they at her. Suddenly the main exit opened and the floor was packed with people and Alters trying to run out. A sudden push made her drop onto the hard, concrete floor. She stood up and looked around. There were no signs of Jake. She must have imagined him. There were only the desperate faces she saw left and right.

The building shook again and she realized that she need to reach the stairs to travel down but people were running around in panic.

Liv tried to push herself through to go lower but everyone was trying to do the opposite and it made it impossible to pass even the second step down of the fifteenth floor. There must have been at least thousands people moving up, trying to escape.

Suddenly an arm pulled her out of the stairwell and she noticed it was Carmen. “Don’t go down there. The water is increasing.

“Where are the kids and my sister?”

“They are all out. Let’s go.”

“They are?” Liv couldn’t believe what she had heard but she trusted Carmen and ran after her towards the exit. She looked around for Joann but she had lost her. “Liv, hurry!” Carmen yelled.

She let Carmen pull her all the way into the fresh air which suddenly felt so hard to take in. People kept running and screaming and the Earth was shaking as if there was an earthquake. She ran after Carmen through the overgrown bushes which hit her face and body left and right. It was hard to run quickly and there was barely a path in front of her. The rain poured down and made her vision a lot worse. All she could focus on was Carmen’s voice. Carmen kept yelling that they needed to run faster and faster.

She ran until her sneakers were running on wet sand. She could see the angry ocean as it moved the waves towards the shore. She had to stop and breathe. Carmen was doing the same thing: Inhaling exhaling, inhaling, and exhaling.

More people reached the shore. Suddenly she felt Carmen’s warm hug and desperate cry. “I thought you were dead. I am so sorry for being mad at you that day.” She kept crying and Liv realized that the last time she had seen Carmen was the day before she was taken into prison, right before they shot Jake. It was the day that Joann had been taken from Carmen’s room. In hindsight, this was likely just another one of her games she thought. But this wasn’t the time to reveal the truth about Joann to Carmen.

She hugged Carmen for a while. “Let’s go replace the others,” Liv said and wanted to walk along the shore first to see if they were there but Carmen kept holding on to her hand. She was crying.

“I am sorry but I couldn’t let you go down there. You would die too.” Liv felt a stab to her chest.

“They are not out? You lied to me?” Liv’s head started to spin and her heart raced fast. “I am so sorry.” Carmen cried and tried to hug Liv again. “Leave me alone. Don’t touch me,” Liv yelled and ran back through the jungle. The rain was pelting down and fewer and fewer people were running through the forest. She smelled the fire coming out of the earth as if it was underneath her.

She stopped moving as the earth started to shake again. She realized that the tall mountain made out of the rocks that held the bunker underneath and inside it was starting to fall apart.

“Liv, please, come back.” She heard Carmen’s voice again and shortly afterwards saw her coming out from behind the trees. The earth shook again and this time harder, louder. Liv fell onto the ground. Big chunks of rocks rolled down the rocky mountain and one of the rocks hit her leg. The pain was tremendous, but luckily her leg wasn’t broken. She got up and looked around. Carmen was laying on the ground. Her body looked lifeless.

Liv was still angry but she couldn’t leave Carmen there. She was her best friend after all. The rocks were falling like dominoes, slowly sinking the bunker underneath. Her eyes flooded with tears as she continued to stare at it. Her sister Becky, Ashley and Tommy were somewhere in there, left behind. Carmen’s mumbling brought her back to reality. They had to get to the shore. She helped her up and Carmen was strong enough to walk as Liv put Carmen’s arm around her and helped her to run to the shore. People were still running, screaming. Carefully she dropped Carmen onto the white sand and laid next to her. She tried to take a breath but her chest felt like it was carrying all the weight. The rain was falling onto her face as she laid onto her back and stared at the cloudy sky.