A Tug for Life

"Ahhh!"

Instead of car horns or other vehicles, the tumultuous metropolis of Maharlika is now filled with wails and screams from the lava spatter rushing through the city's crevices.

People's fears were increased by the ferocious, vicious lava and the aftershocks from the massive quakes. They had to watch out for falling debris throughout the city, avoid falling into the wide, open lava passage that the catastrophe had created, and tightly hold onto anything that caught their eye each time a small-scale tremor reappeared.

Clinging to the downed light post on the side street, a man yelled, "Help!" with all his might.

He was grabbing and clutching at everything that may have freed him from the cracks and prevented him from falling into the crimson, blazing, scorching lava river. As soon as he gives up, his sad demise is assured.

Leading the crowd to run, Kaia, who was just a step ahead of the man from the crevasse, halted.

During the confusion, Kaia heard his frantic pleas and screams for assistance. As the road began to gradually collapse in on itself, Kaia turned around and hurried in his direction, grabbing anything for him to grip onto. She urgently reached out to take the man's hand to get him out of harm's way.

Though she felt the man's weight as well as the heat from the lava, she pushed herself to be her strongest self, thriving to pull out the man, who was presently suffering from burns and pain where the lava splatters touched his skin.

She looked around and asked others for help. "Kuya, would you mind helping me get him out of the cracks?" she asked a middle-aged man passing by; she was neglected.

"Ate, can you please grab something I can use to tie him?" Kaia pleaded with a lady who passed ardently, holding a man's hand behind her.

But all Kaia ever received in return was a cold glare and complete contempt. She asks many more bystanders until a tremor reappears.

"Ackkk!" Her right leg has now slipped and is now dangling in the crevice, leaving her weak left leg as the support to help her and the man hold out. Until-

Kaia spotted something and instructed the man to hang on to the pole he was grasping as hard as he could since she would soon be letting go of his hand while she sought a better way to get him out of the crack.

Despite being ignored previously, Kaia has been on the lookout for someone she can persuade to help the man. However, all she got was a strong shove from the crowd away from the man's location.

The man's grasp on the light post gradually began to weaken, which Kaia saw while swimming into the crowd and being buffeted by the mayhem.

Yet despite her struggles, Kaia exerted all of her effort to cut through the mob the other way.

She broke free from the crowd and rushed back. She was looking for whatever she could use to aid the man when she discovered a small store standing alone in the middle of the chaos.

She picked up the rope holding the store's tarpaulin roof in place, attached it to a metal object with a hook, raised it, and threw it at the man. Kaia wrapped the rope around the only remaining tree in the vicinity in the hope of drawing the guy away from the danger.

Kaia used the pulley mechanism to get the man out of the crevice.

The man cautiously ascended the dilapidated side street once more.

"Thank you, Miss!" The man said this while puffing her lungs out in relief as he just escaped from danger.

"Kaia. My name is Kaia, Uncle!" She enthusiastically said so, flexing her non-visible muscle towards the man she helped, clearly relieved after getting the man out of the fissure.

"Uncle?" The man's demeanour shifted quickly, confused.

"Is that so?" he answered, temporarily caught in contemplation.

"Then let me introduce myself. I'm Lan, short for Bulan," he began as if he were about to add anything else to his introduction.

The man stood up and held out his hands, saying, "Kaia, right?"

"Mmm." Kaia nodded, scanning the area for any hint of disaster.

"You know what? I sincerely thank you for saving me, but calling me an uncle? How rude!"

"I am not an uncle; I just turned 18 yesterday," he sulked incessantly.

Kaia, who was overwhelmed by the abrupt occurrence of a disaster, was at a loss for words and chuckled in astonishment. She scanned Bulan from head to toe, realizing that he was indeed a teenager. However, she doubted why Bulan wears grandpa shorts and a tucked-in polo in an era where swag is king.

While engrossed at the moment, Kaia and Bulan shortly forgot that they were in the midst of a catastrophe and that their lives were in danger until another powerful earthquake struck.

Uncontrollable alarms from emergency and police stations indicated an even larger disaster.

After hearing the warning from auto-generated alerts from government institutions, Kaia and Bulan immediately ran in the crowd's direction.

Running with a weak right leg beside someone with lava-spatter burns isn't getting them to the crowd. Groans from Kaia's lips began to escape, as did hisses from Bulan's severe burns.

Lava started to rise, and then there were sizzles. They had no idea that the real surge was on its way—a tsunami three meters high, powerful enough to devour them.

The crowd in front dispersed, searching for a compact high-rise structure to take refuge in; however, due to the quakes, not all of them were safe. It's either all or nothing.

Realizing that they could not keep up with the crowd, Kaia noticed an uphill grotto and rushed up, yanking Bulan's wrist. She was gasping for breathable air after all the running they did. And her wound-infested palms began to hurt from all the tugs she had to make to get Bulan out of the crack.

Bulan, who was standing only a foot away, could see Kaia's reaction and the impending expression on her face as the steaming water's rushing waves munched those who were nearby one by one. Soon after, the hundreds of individuals in front of them began reaching out with their hands submerged beneath the raging mass of water while the bubbling of their lost breath on the surface continued.

Bulan pulled Kaia while she was dazed with shock and unaware of an even bigger wave approaching. He grabbed hold of a post near the Mary statue in the grotto and wrapped her in his arms and body. A massive splash of water arrived at their spot, drenching them completely. The surge seemed to have never happened as it faded away.