Long Story - Four Days of the Catastrophe - Part 2

Part 1

Part 2

The sea was drawn down, and it was moving calmly under the silver-colored light of the stars. I was trembling because the gentle wind hit my wet clothes, and I'd better get off the tree and dry. The fire on the hill that I tried to reach before the tsunami has grown. At that moment, I let myself down because I wanted to be at the side that fire. When I hit the ground, I felt unbearable pain on my wrist that had been strained before. I stood up and started twitching towards the top. I was afraid that the sea would swell up and swallow me, and this anxiety was not baseless; a new earthquake had shaken the soil under my foot.

When I reached the hill, I saw a dozen people there, and they thought I had come out of the wreckage because my face was in the mud. A tall woman asked me if there were others under the debris, and then she poured the water out of her backpack into my palm and made me wash my face with care.

“Do you know what happened to us?” I asked.

“It's said that an atomic bomb has exploded somewhere,” she said.

I approached the people who circled the fire, and they made room for me by expanding the ring to sit down. After I got warm for a while, “Anybody knows me?” I yelled. People looked at me strangely, and it seemed they didn't like me to put myself forward in such a position. “I don't remember who I am,” I've clarified my question. Many of the survivors were still unable to get over the shock of the event; there were those who looked at the world with a dull eye, some opened their hands to heaven and prayed, and a man turned around in a narrow area to calm down.

A man with a bright face said: “Don't worry, my fellow, at least you can talk.” I looked at him with the eyes asking.

“Some people had become speechless; you can at least talk,” he said.

The woman who greeted me on the hill threw the shrub she collected from the environment on the fire. The man who tried to comfort me showed me to the woman and said, “Do you know this gentleman?”

She said, “Arda Ünal, HBR Media, editor of economics.”

I stood up, took a few steps towards her and said, “I don't remember anything.”

“We were all so scared. My name is Nihan. I'm a banker, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“We met yesterday, we were talking on the same panel, I suppose you'd forgotten me.”

“It would be a strange question, but what is the date?”

Nihan paused for a moment, then “October 28, 2023, we were at the seminar 'The Hundred Years of the Turkish Economy’ she said.

My situation was embarrassing, but under the circumstances, I wasn't going to worry about it. “Do you think I have children?” I continued.

"You don't have a ring on your finger.”

"What if I'm married and don't wear a ring or get divorced?”

“Do you have a mobile computer?”

I checked my pockets. There was no money, wallet or computer, nothing; they should have fallen into the water. “How did you survive?” I asked her.

“My room was on the first floor. When the earthquake started, I threw myself out.”

The clean-faced man who just tried to comfort me, said, “Friends, come by me. Let's talk about what we do."

“Brother, what was your name?” I asked him.

”Salih, the hotel's chief cook, " he said.

Some of the people gathered on the Hill did not hear the words of Salih. Only a few people came to us, and some of them were unable to move because they could not get over the shock or because they talked to each other.

Salih renewed his call by saying, “Friends, let's gather here.”

"Is there anyone at left in the hotel?" I asked.

”I don't go there; my kids are at home, I can't get there, " a woman said. “Take me to my children for God's sake; my phone is not working,” she added.

"No one can reach anyone. Neither the internet nor mobile phones don't work,” said Salih.

I said, “They'il fix it I suppose.”

”The phones have gone before the earthquake," said the security boy. I thought he was on duty during the earthquake because he was wearing his uniform.

“Before we decide what to do, let's understand this,” said the middle-aged man with glasses, and I thought he was one of the conference participants, and he looked like a trained man.

“There was an earthquake, then the tsunami, God knows the rest,” said Salih.

“There were two voices in a row. I think they have dropped an atomic bomb. Bastards! Let our republic not reach its centennial. When the atom bomb shook, the fault was also broken,” said the security guy.

“Come on; there is no internet and electricity, that's ok. TVs? Radios? The state should know what happened?" said the man with glasses.

“There's a TV in the hotel, but where do we plug it in?” said the security boy.

"Haven't you heard of a generator?"

“Let's focus on basic needs. Water and food,” Nihan said.

“There is everything in the hotel. Also, we need to check if there is anyone in the collapsed section," Salih said as the earth started to shake again.

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