SHINNING EVERYTHING WITHIN ITS REACH, also the sun didn't let this moment-- when the smudged white clouds didn't protrude its ray-- passed.

Just sixteen inches above the ground, which apparently suffering its disastrous episode, pinned on the police uniform of Chief Tim, was his police badge.

A very well polished embraced by a silver metal shield which written the current position of a person who wore it glimmered to everybody's eyes when he tried to confine the situation.

The place was an open field: away from anything higher than the average person's height. There was no need to do this, they were already safe. The spot would already serve as an evacuation for the instances. And because they already were here, they were already safe.

No.

As the Chief of Police of this place, he wouldn't settle for that line of thinking. He knew what to do. He had gone to school and had trained for the respondents of this inevitable event. He had spent ten years before he became the Chief and gained the trust of this community. This was his duty: to serve and protect the civilian authority of the Municipality of Pulupandan.

It had been ten seconds when everything started to move slowly at their regular pace. By these, a lot of things with regards to the current event entered in every mind's eye: themselves, their family, their friends, inside their circle, the place. Concurrently.

For what's next for this, they couldn't tell.

The only thing that Chief Tim knew and perhaps someone in the assembly who was looking at the same spot as what he was captivated also, was the moment that a particular leaf of Acacia fell to the ground.

Such a scenic to watch: in the place where the earthquake was prolonging every second passed, a free falling object, certain about his destiny, flipped itself back by back by back.

Unlike the faces of the assembly whose countenances were already in confusion. This innocent-one-of-a-kind leaf was gracefully stashing away from its sleeve the weight of the world.

Usually the earthquake just last ten seconds on the average, and when it was-- if there was another one to come-- that previous occurrence would be called, if stronger than that the most recent one, as the foreshock.

Chief Tim, at the still time, already found this progressing event as a strange phenomenon: same as ices were falling in tropical countries and eerie voices that sprouted out of nowhere. But unlike of those, the incompatibility of the event in the place had no match to the nonstandard length of time of this earthquake.

If this one would continue to happen, the worst would take place: Many structures would collapse, if not, people that were in around its epicenter would become sick. Both of it, based on his prospect was already happening.

Not here maybe somewhere.

People that recently stood beside the flagpole already joined in the assembly. They left there the national flag fastened much lower than half-mast could be called.

Though the wind was strong to make everything that was light to make a lift, including but not limited to tarpaulins, hairs, and leaves, it failed the rectangular-sized national emblem to move based on expectation.

It was left there idling, alone and embracing the base where the flagpole was erected. The blue portion of the flag had been toppled by the other portion of red, same as the three stars and the one sun. If it had been raised higher to touch finial. Everyone who could see it, especially the citizen of the Philippines, would be advised that a war was happening.

That would be an international issue: the Philippines had declared a war on the countries it had more tense to.

An all-out war, per se, the war of their capabilities. And if that one happened, the Earthquake they were experiencing right now could be just bearable. For there was more list of things that might occur brought about by this factor: missiles ammunition, atomic bombs, and-- the worst of them all-- nuclear weapons.

But Chief Tim knew that this Earthquake was not the after-effect of those three. For he understood that if any of those had been set to serve its purpose, this assembly had been obliterated already. Completely wiped out.

Confused about the duration of this event, he was sure that this wouldn't last long. Not any further.

The time when that particular leaf of Acacia touched the actual ground, when the clock marked its 8:13th mark, and when a scream of a lady in the stockroom could be heard, the Earthquake had finally stopped.