It was October 16, 2015, right around 10:00pm. All three of us sat in our living room in silence. There were a couple of times that I began to open my mouth, only to quickly snap it shut. At that moment, the silence in the room was the best sound to be heard. 10 o’clock became 11 o’clock and soon after that it was 6:00am on October 17, 2015.
Trying not to give into our emotions, we thought it would be best to go through our usual morning routines. Damian used his bathroom to get ready while Elizabeth and I prepared for the day in ours. I remember standing in front of the mirror brushing my teeth when Liz got out of the shower.
I walked over to her and placed my hand on her basketball-like belly. At that point in time, she was about 8 months pregnant. Without saying a word, I communicated everything I wanted to say to her in just one look. Tears welled-up in Liz’s eyes and we shared a 30-minute crying session.
We finished getting ready at about 8:00am. The three of us put on our shoes and exited our apartment. Stepping out into a hallway that faintly smelled of rose and lavender, the three of us joined the procession and herded our way toward the Dining Room.
Breakfast was disgusting. It wasn’t because the food tasted bad — actually, it was quite delicious. In fact, on any other day, this particular breakfast would have tasted phenomenal. Today though, the only taste we had in our mouths was a delicate array of intense sadness, bitterness, and grief.
Throughout the breakfast hour, the Dining Room was like a crypt. The only sounds that could be heard were the light ‘dinging’ of silverware against porcelain. Nobody was eating though. After about an hour of poking and prodding at our food, it was time to prepare ourselves for what would inevitably be the beginning, or the end.
All of us, including the entire facility staff, had piled into the enormous Main Room and waited. The last time we had heard any news in regards to how that day would unfold was early on the previous day. We had been told that it was expected to happen right around 10:00am Central Standard Time. The bright red numbers above the giant projection screen in the Main Room read 9:27am. After an hour or two passed in my head, I looked back at the clock and it read 9:28am.
Time seemed to stand still. All I can remember seeing as I looked around the gigantic room was fear — genuine and uncontrollable fear. The stench of it was intoxicating. Elizabeth and I sat on our favorite love seat among the other 4010 inhabitants and just waited. Your uncle sat across from us only rarely looking up. My eyes were fixated on the clock.
Soon it was 10:01am. There wasn’t a single soul in that shelter who wasn’t watching the clock in terrified anticipation. 10:30am came — still nothing. We all sat on the edge of our seats now shifting our gaze from one person to another. The overwhelming stench of fear and defeat started mixing with the faint smell of hope.
Seeing the clock change from 10:59am to 11:00am invigorated a group of people from the corner of the Main Room. I remember one of them standing up and exclaiming, “God has saved us!” This created quite a stir and other families began whispering amongst themselves. Among the whispering, I had heard some people ask, ‘Do you think they found a solution?’ ‘Do you think they have saved us?’
As time continued to progress, the overzealous resident had gained quite a following of individuals. By 11:05am a large group of people were listening to him read passages from the Bible as well as his proclamations that God was speaking to him. Other people joined the group in silent prayer. Maybe God was listening and maybe he wasn’t? Maybe there was a God and maybe there wasn’t. Regardless, on October 17, 2015, at 11:11am, as all 4,110 of us sat huddled together in the Main Room of the Austin, Texas shelter, the Earth shuddered.
Nobody had heard or felt anything like it before. The entire Earth shook so violently, we had thought it might shake us right out of our 45-foot-deep shelter and into space. The excruciating sound of grinding and crushing reverberated through the Earth’s crust to our shelter. People fell from their chairs; the group praying in the corner had been thrown to the floor and slid back and forth across the marble ground while the Earth played Ping-Pong with their bodies. People screamed and cried out from all around us and people who had not properly secured themselves bounced back and forth across the hard marble.
Risking every part of me that I could, I did my best to protect Elizabeth from falling. I used every ounce of strength in my body to keep her planted. Damian had also done his best to steady me and prevent me from falling. Despite our best efforts though, there had been several occasions that both of us had been hurled to the ground by one of the Earth’s many convulsions. Each time though, I bounced back up and re-assumed my protective role.
Thank goodness that the people who built the shelter had enough sense to bolt and restrain the seating to the marble floor. This helped keep people on the furniture from sliding like sleds across the marble’s smooth surface. Despite that, like any construction, there were bound to be some construction errors. This shelter was no different and some of the furniture did come unbolted from the floor. In some instances, it looked like some strange form of bumper cars — except with couches and recliners instead of vehicles.
The entire time this had been happening, it sounded as if the Earth was an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of paper that was slowly getting crinkled-up in the hands of Atlas himself. Lights flickered, the shelter creaked and swayed with each tremor, dishes crashed in the Dining Room, and the furniture played musical chairs. After more than 45 minutes of violent tremors, everything had mercifully come to a halt.
A few more minor seizures shook the shelter and then all was still. Indescribable sounds echoed through the Earth. It was like the Earth was crying out in pain and there was nothing there to help it. Although none of us could see the damage that the asteroid had wreaked, based on the horrific screams from Mother Nature that echoed through the underground corridors of the Earth’s surface, all of us had a pretty good idea of how bad it must have actually been.
There are only three things that I can remember following the collision. The first was looking at Elizabeth and seeing that she was still seated and unharmed. The next, was seeing a look on her face that communicated, “I am OK.” The last, was a look of true terror cross her face as I fell to my knees and lost consciousness.
This is one chapter in my upcoming book The Annals of New Earth: Origins. Check it out at: http://bit.ly/1aQqgoB — available in stores and as an E-Book during the 2013 Holiday Season!