The dreadful tsunami

I LIVE near the sea. It’s the best place to live, seeing the huge space of water coming home from school, swimming in the sea or playing beach volleyball every evening.

Two hours after a scrumptious dinner of fish and other delectable seafood, I went to sleep after a fun day. I slept peacefully, with the sound of small waves splashing against the shore in my ears.

Then all of a sudden, a strong arm pulled me out of my sound sleep.

Startled, I blinked and looked at the figure cautiously. It was my older sister. She was scared and anxious.

“What are you doing?” I screamed, frustrated.

Before I finished my sentence, she grabbed my hand and pulled my out of the house, ignoring my screams or questions.

As soon as I got out, I saw we weren’t the only ones who had woken up in the middle of the night. The people living next to the sea were all awake, and in each of their eyes was fear. “Is everyone here?” a middle aged uncle asked fearfully. Everyone nodded, staring at the sea like it was a T-Rex.

All of a sudden, the water started receeding. The only thing we could see was the pale sand. And then, without warning, everyone ran as fast as they could to a tall building. I didn’t know what was happening.

But I felt danger and charged towards the tall building too, which I found out was an apartment farther from the sea. Then, I saw it.

A tsunami was hitting home! I watched in horror as the houses were destroyed like a human stepping on an ant. I bit my lip sadly.

“We were all lucky to escape just in time,” a teenager said solemnly and quietly. A few grown-ups nodded in agreement.

After the tsunami ended, we headed back to the beach.

Everything was so messy, we didn’t even know what was what.

But as I was searching for my schoolbag, I saw something glistening in the sand. It was our precious family photo album.

Delighted, I rushed to my parents and gave them the treasure of our home. They just smiled and kept it in a plastic bag.

Then, I followed my sister to find more lost things. We found our schoolbags, but they were all scraped and broken, they looked more like junk and garbage. Our textbooks were all wet and soaked, and the pages were almost ripped to pieces.

Then a helicopter landed at our site. All of us were allowed to have a ride. Since our homes were too broken to even sit in, we had to stay in a shelter for the time being.

Oh well, luckily everybody is safe and unharmed, I thought as I sipped from a cup of warm chocolate. –

Yu Han, 10

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Soon it disappeared into the darkness of night,

So when I sleep it can give me a fright And probably an agonising bite. – Lim Li Jie, 10

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