Monday One-Word Writing: Rumble

It’s time for another Monday One-Word Writing! This week’s suggestion comes from three weeks ago (my Christmas Eve post), and the word is “rumble”. Enjoy!

 

They slowly ground against each other, tension building up over centuries. It was only a matter of time. So much energy could not be contained.

Michael woke up just as he normally did. He grudgingly got out of bed, considered showering, and decided it was pointless to try to feel clean when you worked in sanitation. He ate his plain, untoasted bagel, drank his orange juice, brushed his teeth, and immediately regretted doing the last two. A pair of blue jeans later, and he was out the door of his apartment.

That was when the first vibration hit. It was a rather small tremor, one that all San Fransiscans were used to. Michael braced his arm against the wall and waited it out.

When the shaking stopped, Michael called out, “Everybody okay?”

A small voice replied from the end of the hallway, “I could use a hand.”

Michael jogged to end of the hallway and found the elderly man from 5C lying on the floor. “I’m fine. My knees just don’t have the strength in them to get me up of the ground.” He let out a feeble laugh.

“Alright, let’s get you up,” Michael send. He grabbed the man’s hand as the second tremor hit.

This one was huge, the biggest the Bay Area had had in sixty years. The old apartment building rocked violently, and unable to withstand the earthquake like the newer buildings, began to shake apart.

A wooden support beam fell from the ceiling. Michael, still leaning over the old man, took the full force of the beam with his back. He let out a cry of pain, and his knees crumpled from the impact. He still kept enough strength, though, to keep the beam from crushing the man.

The old man scrambled from beneath the beam with new found vigor, and made it out from under it moments before Michael grew too weak to hold it up. It collapsed onto Michael, and he felt the air rush from his lungs. He tried to regain his breath, but found he couldn’t inhale. The last thing Michael heard before he passed out was the old man saying, “I”ll go get help. Try to hang on!”

 

I hope you liked it! Circumstances called for a rather short one, but that isn’t alway bad. Once again, if you have a suggestion for a word to use next week, please leave it in a comment below!