My mom takes the car keys from off the counter and puts them in her pocket. I get my two bags and head out to the car. I yell, “Trunk, please!” The trunk pops open. I lift it up and put my luggage in. My mom waddles out, hands full, and puts her stuff in the car too. She goes back to lock the house as I wait patiently in the passenger seat. Before I know it, were already on the freeway. The green sign slips past reading, Seattle: Next Left. Mom veers on to the exit.  I look around at the City of Portland, wondering what it would look like after a major disaster, meaning an earthquake. Buildings toppled, streetcars on the road, bridges still swaying. Portland vanishes out of view as a new sight catches my eye; Mt. Hood. It’s a beautiful sight, especially on this clear day. From the Interstate Bridge you can see almost everything to the Cascade Range from the Airport, to the Columbia River, and Mt. Hood. The ride through Vancouver to Longview is a bore until I recognize a valuable sight. It’s Mt. St. Helens that exploded in 1980, a year after I was born. I keep my eyes on all of the volcanoes while we pass the boring stuff of the trip like the foresty areas, the plain areas, and the small towns. We come across a huge mountain to the right. I’ve been told it’s called Mt. Rainier. Not long after I admire its beauty, I see Boeing’s facility, where they manufacture the planes. I look ahead and I see the sight of Seattle and its Space Needle, an amazing creation… Once we park in front of our hotel I jump out and breathe in the fresh air. I am mesmerized by the sound of cars and large semi-trucks rolling over head on the freeway overpass. It’s like this in Portland, just not as amazing and loud. I’m so tired, that once we check-in I jump right into bed…

   I can feel that there’s something wrong this morning. The only sounds I hear are the cars honking and the sound of boats on the harbor. Of course those are normal sounds, but that’s it… It felt wrong to be sitting here for some reason. The sounds just then, they start to blend into a quiet roar. The ground shakes for a couple seconds, then silence. I shake my head and get dressed for the day ahead. As I sit and wait for my mom, I feel another tremor burst from the ground. This time, it’s more violent than the other one. I take a hold of my bed sheets while the building seems to sway. This tremor ends with a large explosion sound. I rush to the window and find a smoking ball of fire arising from a small rundown building. Gladly, it’s really nothing to worry about so I just wait, once again, for my mom’s barrage of questions. Well, maybe my barrage of questions. I hear sirens everywhere and think to myself. There are a lot of quakes happening right now… My nightmare is coming true. The earthquake disaster is here. I check outside and see peace and quiet. At least to the point where the city is back to the way it should be. My mom and I finally leave the hotel and find a restaurant called the Crab Pot on Pier 57 also known as the Miner’s Landing. We chow down and then leave to the aquarium. There are beautiful fish, but hidden behind their habitat. All you can see are the vivid colors. No faces or vibrant swimming shows today. All of a sudden, I hear dogs and seals outside start to bark. I take my mom by the hand and run outside. I keep my eye on the Olympic mountain range and the bay. Nothing comes for a minute. I start to leave, but hear a giant roar. Not an earthquake, but more impending and frightening. The extreme danger closes in. A coastal town’s worst nightmare is only seconds away…

   I think of Grover as my mom and I sprint faster than ever. I tell myself not to look back but I have to take a peek just for my sake. The disaster has reached shore with a horrific mix of screams and sounds of destruction. I climb up stairs with my mom and we dodge through crowds of fearful people. We reach our destination, high ground, and watch below as people get swept away by rushing water. It creeps up the hill for a while before it collapses back into the Puget Sound. It leaves behind trails of blood and drowned people with major injuries. I am left alarmed. The town’s water front has been demolished while Grover and my mom are safe. That’s all I could ever ask for. We walk around and try to find survivors. It’s so hard to look at all this blood and death in my favorite town. We find a toddler who looks about 5 or 6 and we talk to him. He’s lost and can’t find his parents. While he yells for his parents, we calm him down and ask for his name.
   “My name is Connor. Where are my mommy and daddy?”
“We don’t know, but we’ll help find them, okay?”
   All through the streets, we yell, “Mommy and Daddy” while other parents find their way to their children. After a while, we see Connor run up to a body. He begins to sob and yells for his dad. I look around and finally see a man run for Connor and hug him tight. Next to me, my mom cries. Connor points to us. He and his dad walk over to us.
   His dad says, “Thank you very much. I’m Dan and as you know, this is my son Connor. My wife, she’s not breathing. We need to get to a hospital.”

   We come across an obstacle on our way to safety. It’s a sky bridge that you could walk across, lying here in front of us, in the middle of the road. Dan puts his wife down calmly and starts to perform CPR. It’s a panicky moment right now. Connor is crying, my mom isn’t hiding her tears, and I feel kind of sorry for everyone here. I look around and see dead bodies, unconscious bodies, and emotional ones too. How did this happen I ask myself. After a minute of thinking, it hits me… The earthquakes! It’s the big one, being let out in a series of violent quakes. I see Dan’s wife come alive and say, “We need to get out of here, like now!” No one hesitates to listen and we get going. On the way to higher ground Dan talks to his wife, comforting her, calming her so she’s not scared anymore. I can feel my mom’s worry, she knows what’s coming like I do. I hear a chopping sound in the air and look up. A small military helicopter comes close above us. We yell and wave at it. At that moment, it sees us and tries to land. Successfully, it lands and the guards come out and escort us in. One of the men say, “Buckle up, were heading to our army base, it’s called Joint Base Lewis-McChord.” I go up to the pilot and tell him what I was thinking about earlier. I also add an idea that maybe the Cascades could explode. He nods his head and says, “Very good thinking. It’s a rarity that the mountains could explode though. Either way, it’s still possible.” That statement brings me to a philosophy. If there are active fault lines through Portland and Mt. Hood, could a major earthquake rupture a magma chamber which would blow up the mountains?

   As we reach the base, I see out in the distance, the 4 amazingly beautiful mountains. There’s Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood, Mt. Rainier and then there’s the recently exploded Mt. St. Helens. Thirteen years ago, that mountain blew up violently. It sent inches to feet of ash everywhere. Almost none of the mudflows though, affected any of the north side, but the south side of the mountain was blown off. Many people died that day. We reach the base and we’re ushered to their base tent. Once we are in the tent, Connor starts to cry while Dan’s wife takes him out. The soldier offers his hand to us and says, “I’m Second Lieutenant Steve Walker and this is my friend, First Lieutenant Nicholas Slater.”
   I shake both their hands and we get to talking. Lieutenant Walker speaks first. “I believe that the tsunami that just crept up on Seattle wasn’t the last of it. There have been other earthquakes here and down south you’ve been saying, right?”
   I nod my head in confirmation as he continues. “Well, I think that those weren’t the largest ones. They will gradually get bigger and stronger.”
   My mom joins in and says, “So what is going to happen now?”
“Well,” says Walker, “We haven’t contacted a true geologist, but there are a lot of concerns. Like your son said-even though it’s quite a rarity-the whole Cascade mountain range could potentially blow. Surprisingly even Mt. St. Helens.”
   We finish conversing while I clench the thought of catastrophe tight…

   The Lieutenants allow us to stay the next couple nights. Through then, nothing happens, yet that’s probably just a warning for the danger ahead. I wake up and check my phone. It’s been 2 nights since the tsunami… Two thoughts circulate through my head. One, what’s Seattle going through now, and two, what is going to happen next? My question is finally answered. I’m wide awake after the last four hours, but the tremor wakes me up even more… The ground bounces up and down, side to side as my mom grabs me from behind and pulls me into the tent. A monstrous cracking sound shrieks from outside as I pass out on my mom’s shoulder…
   Once I awake back in the tent, safe and sound, and hear yelling outside, I get up and rub my throbbing head. Then, I hear my mom yell for me. I dive forward out of the tent and save myself from falling into the abyss. A huge crack stretches out in front of me. It has to be at least 10 feet long and 3 feet wide. I inch my way down the side of the crack, trying to refrain from falling as my mom pulls me the next two feet. I peek over the edge and see the bottom finally. It isn’t enormously deep, but it has to be around 6 feet. Lieutenant Walker runs out and sees the crevasse. He asks us, “What happened?”
   We look at him with questioning eyes and say, “Another earthquake…”
   He shakes his head and walks away. I watch until he gets into his tent, but by the time he enters, he’s already back out staring at another horrific issue…

Lieutenant Walker yells at us hastily, “Everybody in a Hummer now!”
We all don’t hesitate, but we do look. The Mountain has just blown… As we jump into vehicles I remember reading on Mt. Rainier and what the effects of its eruption would be. I only remember it saying that it would destroy Tacoma, and parts of downtown Seattle. As we drive down the Interstate, a deafening thunderous boom surrounds us, followed by a rumble of the ground. I take a quick peek at the speedometer; 98. Behind us to the South-East, an enormous plume of volcanic debris billows from the mountain. Time passes and passes as we fly past Seattle and Everett to get away from the disaster. We get far enough away and stop on the side of the road. I take a look back, and all I see is smoke. Suddenly ash starts to fall, as a gray mass drifts over us. After two minutes there’s already inches of it. We hop back in the vehicles and ride down the Interstate to look for survivors. The ash is suffocating, drowning out the sounds of screaming people and the ground shakes once again below us. The ash falling piles on the road, slowing us down while we kick into four wheel drive. The Hummer shoots forward kicking up tons of ash. Ahead, I see the blue sky, our light at the end of the tunnel…  The ground continues to shake as the vehicle slams into the median, spinning out of control. Once the dizziness stops and my equilibrium gets back to normal, the ground stops moving and the air gets thicker, harder to breath. I see everyone coughing and inhaling smoke and awful gases. When I run over to my mom, I cover her mouth with her shirt to keep her from suffocating. I find myself dizzy again, and in no time I fall backwards into the deep pile of earth…

   I awake back at the base, my head hurting as I probe my surroundings. It’s cold. While I try to check my phone, I notice it’s not working. There’s no reception, no service. My mom wakes up also and looks at me. She asks, “What time is it?”
   I look back at her and nod my head. She knows what this means, so she gets up and removes the covers from her. Realizing its cold, she immediately replaces them. I laugh and walk outside with her. The ground is grey, but not piled with ash. The sky is no longer blue; it’s a purple-grey sky, raining slowly, specks of cinders from above. I try to find my correct position and presume that our tent faces north since the concentration of grayness is still to the South-East. Even though I can’t see anything but my immediate surroundings, I try to adventure and see what I can do for the time being. As I begin to kill time, Lt. Slater steps out of his tent and gives us a choice.
   “Would you like to go home, or stay here until everything calms down?”
I look at my mom and find my place. She feels the same way.
   “I think we need to get our dog and go home.”
“Alright, we’ll take you to your hotel you were staying at and then send you home.”
I think of Grover and if he is okay or not. We finally get to our hotel, ash piled on the streets, and get to our hotel room. While the Lieutenants wait outside, I see that Grover has pooped all over the floor. He is hunched in the corner whimpering. I call him and he runs to me…

   I feed Grover before our ride home and he downs two servings of his food. We head out and ride down the freeway. There are cars abandoned, and cars being driven. Our Hummer dodges them and flies down the road. I find myself to fall asleep safe and sound. I wake back up when the vehicle harshly breaks to a stop… My eyes shoot open to find mudflow remnants on the road. Rocks, dead trees and mud block the road in front of us. Lt. Walker turns the Hummer off and steps out of it. He goes to check how wide it is and turns back to us. Getting back in, he says, “It’s probably a quarter mile long.”
   Slater and Walker discuss the problem and agree. Slater looks at my mom and I and states,”We’re going to drive through it. So hold your dog tight.”
   We drive along the coarse terrain and find ourselves back on the road in no time. The sky has turned back to blue, but still has parts of haze. We pass Mt. St. Helens and I see that it hasn’t changed. But once I look farther, I see Mt. Adams smoking with a plume above it. I imagine once again of Portland, devastated by an eruption of Mt. Hood. Time slows before I notice Mt. Hood. Its fine, no plume of smoke and doesn’t even show the tiniest sign of anger. It sits there, beauty in all, untouched by nature. Over the Colombia, I see ash, but nothing devastating. I find my comfort and stick with it. In a happy way, my life flashes before my eyes and it allows me to realize, don’t take your life for granted. We get home and thank the Lieutenants with great pleasure. In the long run, Connor, Dan and his wife turned out fine. They moved to Portland and became our friends. The only thing is, don’t take your life for granted…