The Mountain

  The Mountain

                                      A Short Story by Juliana Jamison

  I looked at the mountain as it fell for the 47th time, remembering all who were lost that day: including my parents. The tape was playing for the 100 people out of 5,000 that are left in our small town: Tailors Edge on Channel 35 Action News ( which now only two people work at now, so the quality was kinda bad. ) You’re probably wondering what even happened, well let me tell you it all started with the construction…

   “ Move! Move! Let’s move it boys! C’mon, get a move on! Set her down! “ screamed the construction manager at his employees to put the structure on the platform. They were building a ski lodge at the top of Mount Tailors Edge, it was going to be the first ski lodge Tailors Edge has ever had! When the structure hit the ground it created an earthquake that spread all through Tailors Edge: the first 1,500 people were lost. We thought it was the worst that could happen to our little corner of Colorado, boy were we wrong. Me and my family hid in our little cottage that miraculously stood through the quake, waiting for the after shock. It didn't come until 7 PM that night, and the after shock was the avalanche. The workers started labor again despite the quake, and at 7 o’clock PM from down in the town we started to hear rumbling. My parents were out stocking up on groceries and me and my twin sister called them from home to check up and see if everything was ok. That's when the mountain started to fall.

    If my parents were home they would have made it. Our little house wasn't in range of all the snow, but the grocery store was. It's been one night since tragedy struck and the store is still covered in snow, only 100 people have been classified as alive in our little town, but there still could be people alive in the stores. Me and my sister only hope our parents are still in there trying to get to us. 

   “ Cass! Cass! Oh boy. It happened, we ran out of food. “ Yelled my sister Claire from the kitchen.

   “ What are we going to do? “ I was honestly really scared. ” The store is closed in so we’ll have no food! “

   “ There’s only one thing we can do, we have to dig out the store! “ Claire really thought that would work, but it seemed like our best shot so we got our shovels and headed to the store. We dug for a few hours and got pretty far and we were really tired, but we had to keep digging to get food. We eventually got to the door and pried it open. When we opened the door you would not believe what we saw… everyone that was in the store was alive! We saw our parents and ran over to them and embraced them in a hug!

  “ Mom! Dad! We missed you so much! “ Me and my sister said in unison. They missed us too. Then I thought of something, if everyone was alive inside the store people could be alive all over the town! So we formed a team and got all the shovels we could find and got to work. Everyone split up and went to a place to start digging. Me and my family went to the hospital, all we had to do was open up one way out. It was pretty hard but we eventually could see the door. With a few more hours of labor we could open the door. Scared of what we would find we opened the door to see everyone there gathered trying to think of a way to get out! Luckily no one there was killed or seriously injured. Only some were hurt, we quickly brought them to the rooms for exams. It was pretty late so everyone left and went to sleep, and the ones whose houses were closed in stayed with friends or neighbors. 1,500/5,000 people counted alive now. We thought it was 100 we were so wrong.

   “ Our town is really coming together huh? “ I said to Claire as we were in bed trying to get to sleep. “ Claire? “ I looked over and saw her asleep. Wow it was a long day, I better get some rest too. We are going to have a big day tomorrow as well. The next day we started digging at the mall, restaurants, and shops. Pretty soon every single place was uncovered… except for the zoo. No one could do it, we knew the animals were dead but we couldn't bring ourselves to see it. But we knew we had to do it, so we did. And we couldn’t believe that the animals were alive! They must have been eating the snow! We rescued them all and brought them to somewhere safe. Wow now we had animals and people! 3,000/5,000 people was our final count. Some were lost because of the avalanche, but most were from the earthquake.

  The whole town gathered in the square for a big party! It was to celebrate that everyone was dug out! After the party me and Claire went home and had a nice dinner with our parents, and family, and friends, and neighbors! It was a feast! Everyone was laughing and talking together as a town.

  The next few days it was plows going around clearing the snow, animals being found, and the construction manager was being sued for keeping the construction going even after the earthquake. It was very eventful. Finally things settled down and went back to normal, schools opened, stores opened, and family gatherings occurred. It was great! Everyone was praising me and Claire because we dug out the people from the store! We were the saviors of the town! We got money, cards, gift baskets, and homemade meals! It was perfect. Our town was back. My name is Cassidy Jones and I survived the 1976 avalanche of Tailors Edge.

                                                     The End