The Moon's Force

Someone was knocking on the door. It was very late in the evening, Rachael had already fallen asleep. The sounds of the night surrounded her, with leaves and gentle rain upon the rooftop. The knocking grew louder and more erratic, as though this late night guest's arrival was hurried. Rachael had already wrapped herself in her robe and had hurried to the foot of the stairs when suddenly there was a crashing sound that boomed throughout the comforts of her home. The floor shook beneath her, and the unknown man entered the doorway, drenched, with a gash along his cheek.

"Listen, we need to hurry, the National Guards are outside, you need to come with me!" He yelled through the rumbling noises, yet his voice still came through to her faint. He grabbed Rachael up in his arms, and carried her out to an awaiting truck.

Rachael awoke with a shock of smelling salts and men in business suits, surgeons, nurses, and what looked to be scientists in the midst of working on something. "What is happening?" she asked as she tried to get up from the bed she had been placed on. One of the business men replied, "Rachael, we know of your history with working for NASA, we need to know what you had seen in your latest discoveries within our solar system. We have a major problem going on in the earth's atmosphere which is effecting our weather and the existence of the planet. We need all of those documented records, can you pull them up on our data systems?" Rachael didn't know what kind of sense it would make, she couldn't remember seeing anything out of the way pertinent to the livelihood of the planet. It was like some crazy sci-fi movie. "I can assist in getting you all the documents, but if something grave is about to happen, how are you going to stop it. These records don't indicate anything in a manner of cause."

"The truth is, we can't stop it, but we need to find a place for us, and those survivors left out there." The man whom she remembered at her door, standing before her. He took hold of her arm and brought her to a window of heavily paned glass. She could not believe what she was seeing. The skies were filled with purple and red. Tornadic activity tearing through the distance in many numbers, and the clouds seemed to be bursting with hurricane forced twists. Cars, trucks, animals, and the images of people whipping around the sky, as though they were part of some doll-house collection.

"Tell me, who is surviving this major catastrophe out there right now?!" Rachael trembled over her words, as tears started to fall from her eyes, she could not contain the emotion. "We're just not sure, those who have maybe found an underground shelter, but we're not sure how long that will last, the force of this has effected the gravitation levels on earth, which of course effect also the waves of our oceans. The ozone layer has depleted greatly, and we believe that will all but diminish in the course of this." the man said. Rachael looked back out the window, wondering, why this was happening, and how she could help save some lives. "How did you know where I was, who I was, and how long did you know about the events of something like this before it actually happened?!" she screamed.

Quiet came over the room, and suddenly a side door flew open. "We need some help in here! My wife is having her baby now, but she has fainted! Please hurry!" One of the doctors emerged and headed toward the room, with Rachael quickly following. She peered in to see many hundreds of people, families, pets, crowded together, with other people in suits, uniforms, and many doctors. "Is this our only shelter?" she asked the man standing behind her. He put his hand on her shoulder. "We have 15 rooms, all filled with people, just like this one. We cannot save all, but we had gotten to as many as we could before everything worsened through the day into the night, this is where your help may come in, you have also passed the Astronauts courses in your employment with NASA, we have many suits, with all of the necessary gear to go out there and try to retrieve more of our people, as well as some of the things we need to retain life, be it on another planet, or elsewhere."

"What is your name?", "Isaac," he replied, "I'll be going out there with you." "We need to start moving" one of the men in the business suits interrupted. Rachael sat down at the computers pulling up all of the available resources that she could to provide to the group. "There, there!" one man shouted. "Look at the moon! Something has struck it, and it looks like it was a major impact!" More became visible on the screen of a meteor shower in large proportions that had destroyed major sections of the moon and had pushed it partially through space. "Our radar and views on the telescopes indicate that it has stopped, but it happened so suddenly, that there was not time enough to put out the proper warnings, and attempt a major evacuation. We knew something like this was coming, but did not anticipate the speed to which it did, nor did we realize how large the numbers would be, impacting the moon."

Rachael got up from the seat, she was sick with nervousness, and sadness, but felt the impending need to venture out into the maddening world outside, and attempt to bring back as many as she could. "Isaac, I'm ready, lets do this." All of the suits were handed to those who were able. The world inside was quiet, perhaps the confusion and fear, wondering what would happen next.

Rachael found herself outside, looking at Isaac, with the winds, rain, and swirling, howling around them. They entered into the darkness, trying to find fragments of life that were held down in concrete. Homes, like that of a movie, stepping inside, everything above them on the ceilings. Isaac pointed toward a stairwell, and motioned that he would investigate the basement. The numbers mounted as they continued their search for life.

Rachael looked up inside one of the homes, a young boy, clinging to what use to be his bed, hung upside-down against rafters. She climbed the stairs making an attempt to reach him. His breathing was shortening, and he whispered for his mommy. She pulled him to her, and hung onto him as best she could to get him to safety, administering some much needed oxygen to him. Isaac emerged from another room, carrying the mother, as the ground started to quake. The floor split. Holding on to these two lives, Isaac and Rachael made a dash toward the confines of the shelter. Looking back they saw water rising quickly, filling up what was left of the man-made structures on the earth's barren landscape. The oceans were starting to emerge, closer, closer, closing in on them. The earth was shaking so much, Isaac lost his footing and floated further away. The woman he was gripped to still, seemed lifeless in his arms. Rachael stopped to attempt a rescue of him. A tangled rope that was twisted into someones barbed-wire fencing lost in the storm, she pulled at against the winds of the storms raging around, debris falling like raindrops. She threw the rope to him once, again, again. He caught hold of it. The water continued to flow up the banks, catching him. He grasped at a trees limbs, still holding on to the woman he did not want to leave behind. Rachael lost site of him, but felt a tug against the ropes. She pulled as hard as she could, trying to maintain the boy, she quickly tied a portion of the rope to herself and him, and yanked back in all of her might. From the water emerged the woman, tied around the waist, but Isaac was nowhere to be seen.

Rachael returned to the door of the shelter, with two, only two, that she could save. She took off the head gear, as the doctors quickly grabbed up the the last two survivors rescued. "Isaac?" one asked. She just shook her head. Others that had gone out on this mission had come back, 2 and 3 survivors per team. Rachael thought, how this was all going to end. How were they all going to survive?

A baby crying in the next room, broke the silence, as a tear fell from Rachael's eyes hearing a father, boast proudly of a newborn son, and that his wife was going to be fine. Maybe they would be, maybe they all would be.