The 26th of November. I remember that day well. The day before had been a long and dreadful Monday at school. Though I think I would have found it less dreadful if I knew that I wouldn’t be going to school anytime soon after.  

It was Monday afternoon, and I was stuck in my room, doing homework. Around seven we had dinner outside on the terrace. Me and my sister did the dishes and went to bed. Once in bed, my cat joined me. And placed himself on a pillow. Later, we were both fast asleep.  
My bed was rocking from side to side. I jolted awake. The room was trembling. It seemed as if my dream had continued into real life. My clock indicated it was 3:54 a.m. The quivering made my cat, who was sitting on the pillow next to me, look blurry to me. Like a picture that my little siter would take. I managed to catch a glimpse of wide, panic-stricken eyes pleadingly staring at me for help. Having had experiences in witch I was woken by thunderstorms, made me, in hypnopompic state, conclude that a lighting bolt had hit our house and caused all the grumbling of the ground. The sound that my room was making was indeed quite similar to thunderclouds. But a new thought overtook it, one that thought my cat had done something bad again. Resulting in a swaying bed. Both very ludicrous thoughts. My poorly built window vibrated, making a horrible sound. A deafening noise of objects crashing on my bedroom floor stopped my train of thoughts and made me take action. I ran. I ran as fast as I could. It had no use, but I could only understand that if I knew what was happening. 

  
 I ran to my parents' room. My parents' room was a few meters from mine, at the end of a beige tiled corridor with white walls. It felt like an eternity. The thunder like grumbling noises were louder than ever. The spinning and blurry corridor made me feel like I was very dizzy. The house creaked. Objects shattering, and for a second I thought my end had come. I ran into my parents' bedroom, who looked petrified. And then reality hit me. It was an earthquake. “Earthquake!” was all I managed to shout. 

The ground was still, silent. My whole body was shaking. Maybe from fear, or maybe because it hadn’t realized the earthquake stopped. I was now lying on a mattress in my parents’ room patiently waiting for the aftershocks to occur.  

My parents had been frightened but were also very tired, “It’s okay, it’s just an earthquake...go back to sleep.” My friends had texted and said their parents had immediately awoken them and evacuated. My parents had done no such thing, which was understandable because it was 4.00 in the morning on a Tuesday. Lying on the ground next to my parents, I knew that I wouldn’t forget this experience any time soon. The Dutch news even asked me to say something about the earthquake the next day. And yet, I was lying there, wide awake, wondering how in the world my sister had slept through this all.