They told me the sky would stay blue. I remember that. The voice on the radio – calm, official – said, “Remain where you are. Help is coming.” And so I believed them. I believed that if I stayed still long enough, the sky would stay blue and someone would come walking through the water toward me.

That was three days ago.

Or maybe four. The watch stopped when the wave hit, and my phone battery died sometime yesterday. I only know it’s morning because the sun crawls in through the hole where the kitchen window used to be. Its light slices across the broken floorboards, bright enough to make the dust sparkle, like tiny, cruel stars.

The house is half-gone. The wall facing the sea collapsed during the second surge, taking the porch and my brother’s motorcycle with it. What’s left of the roof leans at a strange angle, creaking when the wind moves. If I breathe too loud, I imagine it will give up and collapse.

The air smells of salt and gasoline. I can’t tell if that means a rescue boat is near – or just that another fuel tank broke somewhere upstream.

Day One (I think)

When the wave came, I was making tea.

That detail keeps coming back to me – the small, useless things that were happening before the world became water. I remember the way the kettle whistled. The way I looked out the window and thought the horizon seemed wrong. Too straight. Too dark.

Then, the roar.

I didn’t run. Nobody really does, not at first. I just stood there, holding a mug with chipped paint, watching the sea stand up taller than any building I’d ever seen. When it fell, it took everything with it.

When I woke, I was wedged between the refrigerator and the stairs. The floor was tilted. The walls hummed like they were remembering what it felt like to be solid. I could hear people shouting – then the sound of something large breaking.

I crawled to the highest part of what used to be the second floor. That’s where I am now. There’s a hole in the roof where I can see the mountains – or what’s left of them – blurred by a sheet of gray rain.

The Silence Between

It’s not the water that gets to me now. It’s waiting. The way time stops being a line and turns into a circle that keeps looping back on itself. I ration the biscuits from the emergency kit – one every few hours – and sip rainwater from a pan I set out overnight. It’s warm by the time I drink it. Metallic. But it keeps me alive.

Every few hours, I think I hear something. Helicopter blades. A motor. A voice. I crawl to the hole in the roof and wave the piece of white fabric I tore from a curtain. Nothing happens. Once, I swore I saw a light far out in the flooded valley. But it might have been lightning.

There’s no one else here.

The house across the street is gone, replaced by a tangle of boards and a single roof beam like a broken rib. The whole neighborhood looks like it’s been erased by a giant thumb. Trees lie sideways. Cars stick out of the water like fossils.

I keep talking aloud, to prove I still exist.

“Help is coming,” I say, sometimes in the morning, sometimes when the thunder rolls over the hills. The words taste like iron. Still, I say them.

Memory: The Last Call

Before the phone died, I spoke to my mother. Or rather – I think I did. The line was breaking. She was screaming my name, or maybe it was my brother’s. I shouted back that I was fine, that I was inside the house and I’d stay there. Then the call ended.

If she made it, she’s probably calling everyone she knows, asking if they’ve heard from me. I imagine her sitting in the school gym they’ve turned into a shelter, holding that old phone like it’s a lifeline.

Sometimes I think about what I’ll say when they find me.

Something simple, maybe. “Took you long enough.”

But I also know I’ll probably just cry.

The Smell

It changed this morning. Not salt anymore – rot. A heavy sweetness that sits in the back of your throat. I try not to think about what it means. The water outside is no longer moving; it’s thick, greenish, with bubbles that rise and pop softly.

I keep the window covered when the sun gets high, so I don’t have to see it.

A crow landed on the edge of the roof earlier. It tilted its head at me like it was deciding whether I was food. I waved and laughed, and it flew away. Afterward, I felt stupid for laughing.

I used to think rescue was a dramatic event – sirens, spotlights, people cheering. But now I think it’ll be quiet. A hand on my shoulder, maybe. A voice saying, “We’ve got you.” I keep practicing how I’ll answer.

“Thank you,” I whisper. “I’m here.”

The Radio

This afternoon, I found the small transistor radio under the debris. It still works, barely. I turned the knob until I caught pieces of sound—music, a woman’s voice, static. She said something about “Zone Three still inaccessible” and “air support delayed.” I don’t know which zone this is. I pretend it’s Zone Two, the one where they said rescue teams had arrived.

Then the broadcast ended, and the static came back like the sea hissing at the shore.

Still, it’s a voice. Proof the world is still out there.

I sleep with the radio pressed against my chest, as if it can transmit heartbeat to heartbeat.

The Things I Notice Now

When rain hits the tin roof, it sounds like applause.

My hands shake when I try to light the candle.

I can hear the distant rush of another landslide every night, like thunder rolling uphill.

The house breathes. The beams expand and contract with the wind, sighing like an old man in his sleep.

There’s comfort in those small things. They mean the world hasn’t completely forgotten me.

The Photograph

I found it under the broken shelf – me, my brother, and Mom at the beach last summer. The sky was that same impossible blue. I remember he’d built a sandcastle shaped like a fortress and said, “Even the tide won’t take this one.”

It took less than an hour.

The photograph is wrinkled and smells like mold, but I keep it beside me. Sometimes I talk about it. I tell my brother he owes me that motorcycle. I tell Mom I’ll make her tea when I get back.

Talking helps.

The Sound of Engines

It happened just now. A low rumble that cut through the wind. Not thunder – something steadier. I crawled through the roof hole so fast I scraped my knees open. There it was: a helicopter, small and distant, moving along the valley. I waved the curtain cloth until my arms burned.

Then it turned.

Not toward me. Toward the ridge where the flood started.

I screamed until my voice cracked. The sound bounced off the empty hills and came back as silence. I think that’s when I realized rescue isn’t a guarantee. It’s a coin toss.

Still, I’m not ready to stop waiting.

Night

The moon’s out tonight, silver and full. The water glows faintly. I can see shapes drifting – branches, maybe furniture. Maybe not. I hum to keep the noise away.

I remember a story my mother told me once: about sailors lost at sea who followed the stars because they trusted something bigger than themselves. I think that’s what I’m doing now. The stars are hidden, but the moon is enough.

I whisper names into the dark. My brother. My mother. My own. Just to hear them again.

The Visitor

Morning. I woke to the sound of footsteps – or what I thought were footsteps. When I crawled to the opening, I saw a dog. Mud-colored, ribs showing. It looked at me with those half-wild eyes, then wagged its tail once. I threw it a biscuit, and it ate, watching me the whole time.

Then it left, paddling across the water toward what used to be the bridge.

For some reason, that small act – feeding another living thing—made me feel more alive than anything else in days.

Maybe that’s what survival really is: two creatures sharing the same stubbornness.

The Sky Changes

Around noon, the clouds began to break apart. Sunlight spilled through in streaks, turning the flooded valley into something almost beautiful. For the first time, I could see the mountains clearly, their slopes scarred but still standing.

The radio hissed again, then cleared just long enough for a sentence:

“Evacuation teams moving east from the main road. Survivors advised to make visible markers.”

Visible markers. I tore the bedsheet and spread it across the roof, securing it with broken chair legs. From above, maybe it’ll look like a flag – or a sign that someone still believes they’ll be found.

Then I waited.

Hours passed. Shadows lengthened. I almost gave up and went inside when I heard it again: the chop of blades, closer this time. The air trembled. Dust fell from the beams.

I scrambled onto the roof edge, waving both arms until I nearly lost my balance.

The helicopter circled once. A voice came through a loudspeaker, muffled but real.

“Hold on – we see you.”

The words hit me harder than the wave ever did.

Rescue

They lowered a rope. The wind whipped my face. I clung to the harness like it was the only solid thing in the world. When they pulled me up, the house shrank below me, a fragile shell half-submerged in green water. For a moment, I felt like I was leaving part of myself behind.

Inside the helicopter, the air smelled of metal and fuel. The rescuer handed me a blanket. I couldn’t stop shaking.

“Anyone else with you?” he shouted over the noise.

I shook my head.

As we rose higher, I saw the valley spread out below – miles of water, broken roofs, tiny flags of white fluttering in the sunlight. Others are waiting. Others are still hoping.

I wanted to tell them I was sorry. That I’d been lucky.

But all I could do was whisper the words that had kept me alive:

“Help is coming.”

And for the first time, it finally had.