So, I'm going to a hotel. It's hard to describe. Think Isengard meets Alyeska, on a mountain island in Resurrection Bay.

As I'm waiting to check in, I decided to walk around the hotel. I go to the top floor, which, based on the altitude, I liken to being at the top of a skyscraper.

Then the earthquake starts. The building lurches, glass buckling under extreme angles. The building holds, however. The earthquake stops, long enough for me to stand up and see the tsunami coming at us.

The wave hits the building and sheers it off of its foundation. The building falls backward onto the slope of the mountain. I come to, barely alive in a pool of water and destruction in what's left of the top floor of the hotel.

I stumble out. I happen to notice a number of people calling out from the top of the chairlift building a few hundred yards up the mountain.

I find my sister among the survivors. She is trying to contact our parents on her phone. There is no response.

I think about the trajectory of the wave. The direction it was going, there's no way it could have worked its way up to Anchorage, or at least, not without losing considerable energy after bouncing off the shoreline a few times. Had the wave reached Anchorage, it would have been mostly diminished.

I look at the trash scattered around. I notice a soda can, one of the new ones with LCD and cell phone circuitry as part of the packaging. I flashes a message about Pepsi, and social network updates as news of the earthquake hit the rest of the world.

It starts to sink in. I'm trapped on an island. My family, though they no doubt survived the wave, may not have survived structural damage or landslides or crevasses.

"Earthquake Death Toll Numbers in the Thousands" flashes across the red and white label. I disconnect the Pepsi's power source from the packaging. I might need it later to get a message out, if there's anybody listening.

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4:21am.

#1749, posted at 2011-01-10 19:43:06 in Perchance to Dream