Describe a village after an earthquake. Focus on what you see and hear along with thoughts and feelings.

I was getting ready to sleep. I decided to go for a walk nearby. Few people around me were alone and some were with their loved ones. The room near my hut was a public house, that anyone can visit at any time, they want to. The gyms were closed at night time, and people were either watching IPL or were eating dinner. Everyone was in a good mood. 

The news channels were warning us, that somethings gonna happen. No one of us understood this statement. We thought it would be a heavy rainstorm coming. But we didn’t think about anything else coming up. So we prepared ourselves, before the rainstorms.

 Everything was as usual. The night workers working on the new bridge that could connect to Leh Ladakh’s main road. 

We stayed in an old public room, so there were many people near us, hence we had to adjust ourselves and sleep in there. Although we didn’t have beds, pillows and blankets, we made beds, by taking any mattresses and put them directly on the floors. It was rough, as it wasn’t made up of cotton. And for the blankets, we used to mostly use our towels, but if our towels were wet, we used to borrow bedsheet covers from neighbours and share them between the two of us.

The sky was dark, the weather was cold, windy midnight. The area was completely silent. Everyone was sleeping, except me. I was roaming out in the woods searching for the washroom. 

The old brown shelves banged. The buildings started shaking. Everyone wasn’t able to understand anything, the news channels mentioned the heavy rainfalls and not the earthquake. The windows started cracking. The cupboard was about to fall on me, unfortunately, I was saved. Staircase shuddered.

As soon as I blinked, everything started to fall. We ran as fast as the cheetah. The workers hurried and they ran and then they jumped into the lake. Thinking that the lake would save them. The half worked bridge fell upon the workers. The cars were upside down and were bouncing up and down like the bumpy bouncy balls. The neighbouring house was like the Earth tilted on its axis.

In my single-story building, I could definitely see the floor rippling and moving. On the second floor of the building, I could see the floor moving but also the walls. The walls start with the ripples but, then started doing a circular motion.

We all were rescued from the lifeboats and were taken to a safer island. We were shocked, tired and sad. Several of us cried and wept the tears up. Children were separated from their parents, family, and their friends. While some of them had to build the house again.

In the end, many people were dead. Most of them were hurt. We had to pick up the main important and needed things that were torn into pieces. The brickwork was like the smashed potato waiting to be mixed with the bowl full of veggies and masalas.