​I had a dream last night….

I was in a house right at the beach, it was perfect. My wife and I were there, walking through the house, just laughing and basking in the life we had…. I heard it first, a low rumbling, distant but distinct. My whole body got tight as my eyes shot over to my wife. It was clear that she didn’t hear it. I walked over to the window, expecting to see the same beautiful view I had gazed over a thousand times before. 

I walked to the window and I saw it. A tidal wave, a wall of water that stretched higher to the heavens than my eyes could even reach….it was so big. I turned to my wife who was still chatting away, I grabbed her hand and whispered,  “Run.”

We were running so hard, I recognized the path, but at that moment the familiarity was the last thing on my mind. The roaring was causing a vibration that penetrated me to my core. I remember my wife’s hand, that was my focus, well that and the enormous wave promising our complete destruction….. 

“Don’t let go, keep running”, was all I could repeat. I felt the mist of the water lightly kissing my neck, almost taunting me. We crested a hill and stopped, completely exhausted and turned to look. We turned around expecting the wave to slam into us…. 

Strangely I was looking through the same window on my indoor patio that revealed this monster wave in the first place. Somehow my house came with us. I don’t know how, but we were back in that house. Looking out that window, gazing at the blue water that had just destroyed everything in its path…..it was quite, very quite. We both had a puzzled look on our face, looking back from the window, to each other’s eyes, and back to the window again…..silence.

We let out a deep sigh of relief, and as soon as our shoulders relaxed we heard it. It was like freight train, so much louder than the last time. I didn’t look up to the window at first, I already knew…..then it went dark. I looked up and there was another wave, this one was so large it blocked the sky and blotted out the sun. I shot my gaze to my wife, my eyes filled with terror. She asked me, “run?” I grabbed her, pulled her close and said, “We can’t outrun this one. It’s too big, there’s no time.” 

I grabbed my wife, pulled her close and closed my eyes. I told her how much I loved her, I told her it would be over soon….that everything would be ok, we have each other, right here, right now. I held her so tight…… then, darkness.

Written by: Justin Ludwig