I don’t get out much, but I’m perfectly fine with it. Order in, work from home, avoiding the outside is kind of my thing. That’s why at this moment my…skill is helping me survive. at least I think it will.

First everything around me starts shaking. I’m talking shelf’s, beds, lamps. But what concerns me is when the ground starts shaking, hard.

I crawl to my window and look out to see panic on the streets. Trees falling, cars crashing, it’s a mess out there. I need to stay inside and find a place far from anything that can crush me.

But as I try crawling away on the shaking floor, sometimes catches my eye.

In one of the cars there’s a dead woman with her head smashed against the wheel but behind is a toddler.

No i can’t help her. Number one rule during earthquakes, stay in a building if your in one. Going out would be a suicide mission. And I haven’t been out in almost two year, what will that do to a man. Maybe I’ve become sensitive to the sun. Maybe I can only breath apartment air. But then it all stops. The shaking, the chaos, everything. Maybe I can go out, help the kid, and come back.

I run down the stares and start running across the street where the little blonde girl still cries. I’m almost there until the ground starts shaking again, but harder this time. I fall to the ground and hit my head so hard I wonder how I’m still alive. I need to get to her. I need to help her. I get up and begin crawling towards the car cautiously so I don’t fall. A car comes rolling towards me and I quickly dodge it by a inch.

When I get to the car the doors locked so I grab a brick nearby and smash the window in the front of the car. I unlock the door and open it. The toddler still bawling her eyes out cry’s, “my mommy”.

“It’s ok” I say as she clings on to me. “We’ll take your mom to the doctor, but now we need to take you somewhere safe.”

She hangs around my neck and as I try to walk away inching ever so slightly, a lamp post falls and crashes into the car.

“Oh God” I scream and the kid cries louder.

When it finally stop I collapse yo the ground and the kid fall in top of me.

What am I going to do with this kid?

5 years later…

One year after the incident I adopted her. Her only family was her mother who died do you hitting her head against the wheel. Sasha’s been motivating me to get out. I began seeing a therapists throwing away my, I’m a grown man pride. I was diagnosed with social anxiety but Sasha’s been helping me through it. Next week I’ll be her chaperone for her fourth grade field trip to the science museum. A week later I’m going on my first date in ten years, and it’s all thanks to Sasha.