Past the Point of No Return

I was riding my bike to the town square for the monthly ritual of worshipping Mother Nature, to supposedly keep our small town safe from natural disasters. Suddenly, my bike hit a bump and the ground started shaking. Was it an earthquake? Did the rituals stop working. All around me people were screaming and running around frantically. What was happening? I heard someone calling my name? It sounded close, I looked around and didn’t see anyone.

I sat upright in my bed to find my sister shaking me and telling me to wake up and get ready. I completely forgot that today was the ritual day, and it was supposed to start in a few hours. I went to the bathroom to shower since we are supposed to look nice for the ceremony. After I showered, I made sure my hair was nice and pulled on my ceremony uniform. We have to wear a uniform that has a good quality, nice shade of green, button up top and nice blue jeans. Everyone had to wear it, but you could only wear it for the ceremony. If you break any of those rules, or any rules, there are severe punishments.

I personally do not like the ceremony. Sure, we have never been subject to any major destruction, but there has to be some other explanation than “Because we worship Mother Nature.” But I have to go. No one has a choice, it’s mandatory. The last time someone missed the ceremony, it was because they were really sick, they killed the person. We don’t take rules lightly here. 

After I finished getting ready, I ran downstairs just in time for us to leave the house and make it to the ceremony. Everyone has a bike, but we have to walk to the center of town, where the ceremony takes place. It’s a good thing we don’t live too far away. 

The Ceremony of the Mother of Nature takes place right after a community lunch of veggies and fruit, all natural, plant food. Then, we all gather around one tree that is tall and old. It is truly a beautiful tree. Kids are allowed to climb on any tree except for this one. It is considered sacred. That was tradition. Until one day, things changed. 

The lunch isn’t mandatory, but people go because, you know, there is free food, but the lunch crowd was significantly smaller than usual. People didn’t seem to mind very much, but everyone definitely noticed the small number of people present. Once it was time to perform the ceremony, there still weren’t many people there. We were all confused. Had everyone boycotted the ritual? There was tension in the air. We waited a minute, and one family with a small child came, but that was it. 

Then, the police left the tree and went to knock on the doors of people who didn’t come. They found one person hiding in their house. They shot him on site. All the other houses were deserted. The families just left. We were all baffled. No one knew what had happened. We did the ceremony, but then they dismissed us and told us to go into our homes and stay there. 

Once we got home, my parents told me and my sister to go to our room that we share. We didn’t argue. As soon as we got there, my sister started saying what she thought had happened. She said that everyone left in the middle of the night and went to start a new town without the “stupid” rituals and traditions. She didn’t sound wrong.

My parents brought us dinner and told us that we were to stay in our room until they knew things were okay. We continued talking about what had happened until we decided to crawl into bed.

When we got up the next morning, there was a plate with some breakfast that was still warm with a note from our parents that said they had gone to a town meeting about what had happened and that we were to stay in our rooms until they got home and gave us the clear.

After we finished breakfast, we didn’t have much to say so we just read some books. I was really into mine when it started raining. I didn’t pay much attention since it was the rainy season and this was normal. But it only started raining harder and harder until it was so loud and heavy that we could see some water dripping through the ceiling and we could no longer focus on reading. We put our empty juice cups from breakfast under the water drops from the ceiling.

Our parents came home soon after and told us to come with them to a safe house in town with the other families and people who stayed. We just got through the door when the ground started shaking. The mayor said grimly, “Mother Nature is mad. She didn’t get the respect she deserved. We are in danger until we fix this.” 

There was so much rain that the room started flooding, so we had to sit on the tables. The rain didn’t stop for two days. When it finally did stop, the adults went outside, leaving the ten kids inside. Suddenly there was a scream and a crash. The storm had struck a house on fire, and half of the town was burned down to the ground. The big tree snapped when they walked outside, and fell, killing two men. One of them was my dad, the other, a policeman.

Things only went downhill from there. My sister was in tears and chaos had erupted. There was no order. People were running all over the place. One woman just ran out. Just left. It was the end of the world. Then, the building started shaking and collapsed, but we all managed to escape in time. If there was any hope of achieving order before, it was gone. We were past the point of no return.