Luisa and Javier sat in their well-kept little house, surrounded by all of the lovely things they'd worked so hard to get. It was dark but for the light of one small candle, and wondered what would happen next.

It had started a week ago with the awful smells. Then the hills above the village began to belch smoke. Then it was the tremors. Their nerves were taut, stretched nearly to their limit.

Now the sky was completely dark at two in the afternoon, and the ash was falling like thick snow. A constant rumble had begun, so pervasive that it was hard to identify its exact source.

Silent tears slid down Luisa's cheek, and Javier reached over to brush one away. "Don't be frightened, querida," he said softly. "My father said this has happened before, a few years before I was born. Then, one day it just stopped. It will stop again, you will see."

Luisa tilted her head and caught his hand between her cheek and her shoulder. The infant in her arms coughed and she looked down at him. "How bad can it be?" Javier smiled at her. "Esteban is still sleeping. How bad can it be if he can sleep through it?"

As if on cue, the rumbling that had frayed their nerves for the last day and a half quieted. The sudden silence rang in their ears.

Luisa sat very still for a moment, listening, then laughed and burst into new tears, of relief this time. She hugged Esteban, then reached over and pulled Javier to her for a kiss.

The first jolt knocked Luisa off her chair and the second brought part of the stucco ceiling down on their heads. "Outside!" Javier yelled, and took Esteban from her, pulling her to her feet in the same movement.

They ran for the door, Javier still pulling Luisa behind him. All her beautiful china was crashing to the floor and the copper-bottomed pots were being thrown from their hooks in the wall. She hesitated at the doorway to cast one backward look at their little house as the rear of it began to fall in.

Javier stopped as soon as they were clear of th house, staggering drunkenly against the heaving ground beneath his feet. "Look!" he yelled to Luisa, and pointed toward the hills.

The crest of the hill was silhouetted against a sickly orange glow, and the crimson skies rippled with static charges. Huge sprays of molten rock were spewing from somewhere behind the hills, and Luisa could hear the projectiles landing in the distance.

His father raced toward them in his truck, and Javier didn't hesitate to jump into the back even before the truck had come to a full stop. "Come on," he urged Luisa, holding his hand out to her as she stood, frozen by the awful beauty of the crimson skies.

Another huge explosion roused her from her stasis and she scrambled into the truck to join Javier and Esteban. She looked back again at the house as they sped away and thought about all the things that they'd worked so hard for, gone now and probably gone forever.

But they had each other, and Esteban. They could get more things.

Props to the CHPercolator List for the prompt
February 19, 2001
543 words