The Silent Surge
By Olivia Salter
Word Count: 2,491
The emergency alert screamed through the sun-bleached sedan speakers, cutting through the hum of the engine like a knife:
“A 7.0-magnitude tsunami has struck the California coastline. Residents must evacuate to higher ground immediately.”
Devon’s foot hovered over the gas pedal, the car coasting at a crawl as his gaze remained locked on the rearview mirror. The horizon, once a stretch of peaceful blue, had transformed into a jagged, furious wall of water. It surged toward them like an unstoppable beast, a humongous mass, swallowing everything in its path—palm trees, cars, entire buildings—all devoured by the ocean’s rage.
Simone slapped the dashboard with a force that startled him out of his trance. “What the hell are you doing?” she shouted, her voice high-pitched with panic. “Drive! Now!”
Devon's knuckles paled as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel, his foot remaining firmly pressed against the brake. His mind was a storm of confusion and guilt. The tsunami was right there, swallowing everything he knew. And yet—something held him back. Something gnawed at him.
“Devon!” Simone’s voice cracked, and her hand shot out to yank at his sleeve. “What are you waiting for? We need to go!”
“I can’t just—” His words trailed off, the weight of the moment pressing down on him. His eyes flicked again to the rearview mirror, watching as the ocean swallowed the horizon, its dark wall reaching farther in every second.
Simone’s voice was sharp with disbelief. “What are you waiting for? The water’s already here! People are dead, Devon!”
The words stung more than he’d expected, and he jerked his head toward her. Simone’s face was a portrait of fear, but there was something else behind her eyes too—anger. Desperation.
“I can’t just leave them,” Devon muttered, his voice low, like he was trying to convince himself. His heart beat harder now, his chest tight. “There might still be someone we can help.”
Simone’s laugh was bitter, an empty sound. “Help?” she scoffed. “It’s over, Devon. You think you can just turn back time? You think you can save them? The water’s here, and you’re still trying to be some kind of damn hero.”
Her words hit him like a punch to the gut. They weren’t just words—there was history behind them. Her voice was laced with the venom of years of anger he couldn’t quite place. She was still so young, but in that moment, Simone felt older than him. Wiser, even.
Devon looked back toward the darkening sky, the roaring ocean now so close he could almost feel the cold spray in the air. Every second counted. But in his chest, there was a knot—a twisted sense of duty, of guilt. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t make himself leave behind whatever fragments of hope still clung to his heart.
“Devon…” Simone’s voice softened, but it was a softness with an edge. “We can’t save everyone. We have to save us.”
She was right, and it sliced through him like glass. Devon’s throat tightened, the words getting stuck behind a wall of regret. But his heart—his heart wasn’t done. It didn’t know how to give up. Not yet.
“I can’t just turn my back on them,” he muttered. The truth was heavier than he wanted to admit. He wasn’t sure if he was still chasing a need to redeem himself for some past mistake or just the damn need to believe that there was something more to this life than running away when it got hard.
“Mom left us,” Simone said, the words cold and sharp. Her hands gripped the armrest with such force that her knuckles were white. “She left us because she couldn’t fix anything. You’re just like her.”
His chest tightened, a wave of heat flooding through him. He flinched as if struck, but there was no strike, just the raw truth of it sinking in. His mind reeled. His mother had left when he was just a kid, and though he’d tried to pretend it didn’t matter, there was a wound in his chest, one he could never fully close.
Simone’s eyes locked on him, and for a moment, the tension between them was unbearable. She didn’t need to say another word. She had laid it bare. He wasn’t just running from the ocean. He was running from the parts of himself he couldn’t fix. From the guilt that had lived with him for as long as he could remember.
“You think you can fix everything,” she went on, her voice barely above a whisper. “But you can’t. You didn’t fix Mom. You won’t fix this.”
Her words sliced through the air, sharp and jagged. Devon jerk back, as if struck by something solid. His hands trembled on the wheel, the guilt—a thing that had once felt small, manageable—now roiling in his gut, the tsunami at his back forgotten for a moment.
“Simone…” His voice was small. “I didn’t—I didn’t fix anything. But I can’t leave them. I can’t.”
The roar of the wave behind them grew louder. Devon turned back toward the rearview mirror, his heart beating in his throat. The wave was closer now, towering over the buildings, blotting out the sun, blotting out the world behind them. It was here.
Simone’s breath came in ragged gasps. “Devon, we’re not gonna make it.” Her voice cracked, the walls she’d built finally breaking down. “Please. You’re not going to fix it. You’re not gonna fix us.”
Her words lodged deep in him. He had always tried to be the one to fix things. Fix people. But maybe… maybe she was right. Maybe this time, there was nothing left to fix.
Devon’s foot hovered over the pedal for a second longer, time stretching, the weight of everything crashing in on him. The world was falling apart, and he didn’t know what to do. The desperate cry of his sister, the pulse of the wave pushing forward—he couldn’t escape either.
“Please,” Simone whispered, her voice raw. “Please, Devon. Just go.”
Her words hit him harder than the tsunami’s roar. The love, the frustration, the understanding between them—it all coalesced in that moment. She wasn’t just telling him to drive; she was telling him to stop trying to save something that was already lost.
His hands fell to the wheel, and for the first time, he let go.
The engine roared to life, tires squealing as he slammed his foot on the gas. The car surged forward, the world around them becoming a blur. As they tore through the streets, racing to escape the inevitable, a part of him—the part that had clung to some foolish hope—was finally, slowly, letting go.
They didn’t speak for the rest of the drive. The sound of the wave swallowing the world behind them was a constant roar in the distance, a reminder that the world had changed forever, and they were just two people trying to outrun something they could never truly escape.
Devon’s gaze was fixed on the road ahead, but his mind was still reeling. Still trying to reconcile what he couldn’t fix. What he had never been able to fix.
But as the wave crested in the rearview mirror, the realization settled deep in his chest. He hadn’t saved anyone. But maybe—just maybe—he had saved himself.
The road ahead blurred as Devon gripped the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles lacking color. The windshield wipers swiped at the mist that clung to the glass, but it wasn’t enough. The world outside felt distorted, a strange and frightening mirror of the chaos that had consumed their lives.
The wind howled, throwing the scent of saltwater and panic into the car. Waves of dread rushed through Devon’s chest. Every mile they put between themselves and the tsunami felt like a small, fragile victory—but it wasn’t enough. The reality kept setting in, slow and suffocating. The wave would hit soon. If it hadn’t already. The buildings, the people, the memories—they were all gone. And somehow, he was still alive.
Simone didn’t say anything. She sat with her arms crossed, her gaze out the side window, staring at nothing. Her eyes, once sharp and defiant, were now hollow. She had let out all the anger, but there was nothing left but a quiet emptiness. She wasn’t looking at him anymore. She wasn’t even looking at the road.
They were so close to the mountains now, the jagged peaks of the hills impending ahead, their dark silhouettes framed against a sky darkening by the second. It felt wrong, like the earth itself was holding its breath, waiting for the moment when it would all crash down.
Devon’s foot eased off the gas, his hands trembling on the wheel. He could feel Simone’s gaze shifting, like she was finally seeing him again, but the weight of everything between them made it hard to even breathe in the same space.
“Devon…” she whispered, her voice distant.
He didn’t answer, but his heart clenched at the sound of her voice. It wasn’t the frantic shouting from earlier, the panic that had kept her moving. This was softer. Something that barely made it past the storm of emotions they had both been battling.
“Do you think we can stop it?” She asked, her eyes narrowing toward the mountains, as if expecting an answer from the jagged peaks themselves. “Stop what’s coming?”
Devon didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he thought of the tsunami crashing over everything they had ever known—the homes, the streets, the faces of strangers he could never save. He thought of their mother, gone before they had a chance to understand her, before they could fix the space she had left behind. And now, here they were—two kids still fighting for something that felt as unreachable as the safety that seemed so distant.
The weight of the question hung in the air, a slow-moving poison.
“No,” he finally said. His voice was quiet, but there was a sense of finality to it. It wasn’t just the tsunami anymore. It was everything. The past. The guilt. The anger. The memories of long-forgotten moments he could never take back.
“We can’t stop it,” he repeated, this time to himself more than to Simone. “What’s happening... it's too big. Too much.”
Simone let out a shaky breath, like the air itself had finally escaped her. For a long time, she didn’t say anything. The silence between them stretched like a taut rope, the tension so thick it could snap at any second.
“I didn’t want to be like her, you know,” Simone muttered suddenly, her voice soft and almost lost in the roar of the engine. “I didn’t want to leave. But then, I didn’t know how to stay either. She left. And I just—” Her voice broke, and for the first time, Devon saw it. The crack in her armor. He didn’t speak, but the words sat heavy in the car. Simone swallowed, her gaze shifting down to her lap. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to stay when there was nothing left.”
Her words hit him like a shockwave. For so long, he had carried his own guilt, thinking of how their mother’s departure had left them both in pieces. He had always believed it was his fault somehow. That if he’d been better—more of a man, more dependable—maybe she wouldn’t have left. But hearing Simone’s voice tremble, hearing the hurt in her words, cracked something deep inside of him.
“I didn’t know how to stay either,” Devon whispered, his voice raw. The weight of everything they had lived through together seemed to collapse around them. Their mother’s absence, the broken promises, the quiet fights. All of it. It wasn’t just that she had left them. It was the things that were left unsaid, the things that Devon never realized he had carried. He had stayed, yes, but he had never known how to stay.
Simone let out a deep breath, her shoulders slumping as if some invisible weight had lifted. “We’re not going to fix anything, are we?”
The question wasn’t meant to be answered. It was the acceptance hanging between them, like the end of a road. There was no point in pretending anymore, no point in holding on to something that couldn’t be saved.
The car kept moving forward, the tires screeching slightly as they navigated a winding road that curved sharply upward into the mountains. The distant rumble of the wave seemed to fade with every passing second, swallowed by the heavy sound of their own thoughts.
Devon’s eyes stayed focused on the road, but inside, his mind was racing. Simone’s words kept echoing through him. We’re not going to fix anything. He had thought that he could, once upon a time—fix their broken pieces, hold everything together. But now, it felt like the only thing he had control over was the next second, the next breath. And that wasn’t much.
As the car finally crested the ridge, they could see it—the full devastation of the coast behind them. In the distance, a smudge of white foam crashed against the dark silhouette of a city. The black water stretched out into the horizon, a monstrous wall of destruction that could have swallowed the world whole.
Simone shifted in her seat, her gaze distant but not as cold as it had been. “Do you think they’re all gone?”
Devon took a long breath, trying to steady his pulse. “I don’t know. But it’s over. We can’t fix it. Not anymore.”
The truth hung there, suspended in the air, as heavy as the mountains approaching around them. They had always believed they could fix the world—fix their lives, fix each other. But now, in the face of this incomprehensible destruction, they understood something deeper. Maybe that was the hardest thing to accept—that sometimes, the world just happens, and there’s no fixing it.
The silence stretched between them again. But this time, it didn’t feel heavy with blame. It felt like acceptance.
They kept driving, leaving behind the destruction. Not because they thought they could outrun it, but because it was the only thing left they could do.
They didn’t look back again.
Not for the cities. Not for the people. Not even for the shattered remnants of their own pasts.
The only thing left was the road ahead.
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