Alex Mitchell - The 13th Tablet

‘Mina! Please! Mina, wake up!’

In the distance, a young Asian man with a baby on his shoulders was frantically trying to tie himself to a palm tree. Closer to Jack, a German couple in their colourful shorts and monastic sandals, were helping one another scramble up to safety onto the balcony of a newly built hotel which, incredibly, had withstood the wave. The room was on the first floor, facing the beach. It was an absurd scene as the man stepped onto the nose of a speed boat which had somehow been thrown into the lounge area of the hotel, and was protruding from its side. His companion was pulling herself up to the balcony.

Mina stirred against Jack and looked at her lover’s face, covered in cuts and bruises. She tried standing on her own, as Jack seemed at the end of his tether. She had just found her footing when something smashed into them and pushed her under water again. She could feel an object pushing into her back as she pushed up to the surface, trying to catch her breath. She turned around and a scream bubbled up in her throat — a woman’s corpse, pressing into her. Her head was bent at a hideous angle and her long black hair floated on the water’s surface like an old rag. A sudden current wrenched the body to one side and Mina caught sight of the woman’s face. She had the most beautiful chiselled Eurasian features, high cheekbones and almost transparent skin. Faced with the wanton destruction of such beauty the scale of what had occurred hit her and Mina burst into tears. Jack was also horrified; the surrounding desolation was beyond comprehension but he would not, could not, break down. Would he have to carry Mina on his back? She was really struggling. He would have to keep life and limb together for them both. The beautiful corpse was finally swept away by the fast moving current.

Mina was sobbing uncontrollably.

‘Jack, I can’t go on. I’m sorry!’

‘You must, Mina, one last effort.’

‘It’s too much,’ she whispered.

‘Mina, we can’t stop now. I think the waters are receding but we still need to get to higher ground, fast.’

Sweeping the scene quickly, he noticed a few buildings not too far away. He suddenly recognised Noi, who was screaming to catch their attention. He waved to acknowledge he’d seen him and realised that the young boy had been lucky enough to land on a sturdily built hotel, with a high, flat concrete roof roughly forty metres away. If only they could reach it without losing their footing in the dark water they might just be out of danger, and would have time to assess their injuries.

They pushed hard, feeling submerged objects scratching and cutting their bodies under the water, as they moved through the path of the dissipating wave. The level of the water seemed to be dropping. They were almost there. Noi was on his knees and stretched out his hand for Mina to grasp. Just as their hands touched, Jack felt a sudden shift in the current of the water. By the time he realised what was happening it was too late. He gave Mina a shove in Noi’s direction and the boy caught her and pulled her clumsily onto the landing.

Mina had also felt the change in the water and turned back to grab Jack, but it was too late — with an immensely powerful sucking force the waters, receded all at once to the sea. Jack was wrenched from them with an irresistible force and dragged back. He screamed at Mina to stay put. She screamed his name. Noi tried to restrain her, but she had already jumped down into the puddles and mud left by the fast-receding wave. She thought she could see Jack’s head bobbing about, far away. She set off as fast as she could, trying to avoid the debris, upturned cars, smashed furniture with jagged edges that littered the way back to the shore. She barely noticed the snakes slithering rapidly down into the surrounding chaos.

‘It’s over,’ Mina thought to herself. ‘The wave has come and gone.’ She shivered and pressed forward, desperately looking for any sign of Jack. Her progress was slow but she managed to keep close to a row of trees that were still standing. It seemed hard to believe that the trees could withstand God’s wrath but so many man-made constructions had not.

When she came across mangled bodies, she looked away. Many people had perished but many had also survived, albeit in terrible conditions. She noticed a middle-aged couple hugging a young girl who was in a state of shock, bleeding from a large gash in her forehead. She walked on. ‘Where are you Jack?’ she thought, as tears streamed down her battered face.

She finally arrived at the point where she thought she’d last seen Jack when he’d been washed out to sea. But he was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, a deep rumbling sound engulfed her. It was much louder than the previous wave. She froze. Was it an earthquake? But as she turned to the shore she saw to her horror a second, huge wave returning with a vengeance. It was mightier than the first and was crushing anything that had been left standing. She frantically tried climbing up one of the trees, but her shoes kept slipping off the wet bark and then it hit, blue oblivion. It ripped Mina like a rag doll from the tree she was holding on to with her last strength, and swept her into the road.

The second wave had carried Jack like a cork back towards the shore, much farther this time, two blocks inland. He was unable to move left or right, pressed and paralysed by the ferocious current that was pinning him against the wall. Stricken with horror, he watched as a huge Coca-Cola lorry was washed away sideways like a matchbox toy and literally crushed on the hotel’s outside wall, just a few paces from where he was trapped.

Mustering his strength, he clawed his way back around the side of the building, inch by inch, to avoid being taken further inland by the current. He heard high-pitched screams nearby. As he turned the corner, he saw them: two boys, one about fifteen and the other around ten. They were stuck by the hotel entrance, screaming for help. Two mangled motorboats, which had been sucked in by the force of the tsunami were hurtling towards them. Jack calculated that if he could let go of the railing and let himself be taken by the current he might just get close enough to help the boys. A torn volleyball net was entangled in what was left of the entrance to the hotel. The free end of the net was thrashing about in the water. He jumped forward, and was immediately taken by the current with tremendous force. He had just a few seconds to reach out for the net. He caught it and pulled himself forwards to the hotel entrance. He felt one of his fingernails rip as he made one last lunge towards the boys and yelled at them to join him. The older one did but the younger was frozen in panic. Jack pulled the elder one around the corner and safely into the restaurant. ‘Climb the stairs and go as high as you can’ he barked at the terrified youth. He saw the smashed boats arriving at full throttle. He reached out, searching for the younger boy’s hand and yanked him towards him. They struggled around the corner together and the young boy managed to get in and run to the stairwell. Jack wasn’t so lucky. He had managed to avoid the thunderous crash of boats into the hotel lobby, but a huge splinter of carbon fibre from the smashed hull had pierced his right thigh.

The two boys huddled on the roof, watched their saviour’s body drop back into the waters as he passed out from the pain. That was the last they saw of him, as he was carried away by the wave. They could see other people vainly trying to swim in the debris but being cut to pieces by all manner of sharp objects and shards of glass from smashed car windscreens and hotel windows. The two boys looked at each other as surviving soldiers do after a raging battle, without feelings, but with the palpable relief that life was still pumping through their veins.