The building that had once housed this room was in ruins. It had once been a luxury five star hotel on the south of the island in a town called Santo Domingo. It had a swimming pool, tennis courts and a golf course. Now the fairways of the course had been split down the middle with immense accuracy. The tennis court was a pile of rubble and the swimming pool was parched, full with bits of bodies, concrete and toppled palm trees. Sirens began to surround the smashed hotel. Panic started to set in as screaming adults and children began the desperate search for lost loved ones. I could not see or hear my child and so many questions were going through my mind. Is she safe? Is she even alive? Has someone found her? The state of the hotel was disregarded now. Ambulances and fire engines sped across gardens and through saunas to get as close as possible to the wreckage. I started to feel faint, the blood was pouring from my head. I felt that I wasn’t going to last much longer.
Footsteps started echoing through what was a corridor but now resembled a cave. I could hear someone yelling my name. My eyes lit up using up vital amounts of the minimal energy I had left. I made an attempt to speak. Nothing came out, I then coughed and spluttered. The voice was getting louder it was a young male with an American accent. My hopes became raised. I heard some debris being moved and kicked away as he approached .I thought I am safe, I will survive. The figure was now metres away from me just the other side of the bricks. I was going to survive. Then the voice got quieter. He had turned around. I tried to scream once more but again nothing came out. I was not going to be found, I was going to die. I gave up. This was it, the end of me. My eyes began to close, brain to switch off, my heart to slow down, my muscles relax. This was meant to have been a week’s break with my daughter and instead it had turned into my burial and almost certainly hers. Then a voice, again. I didn’t hold much hope but I fought, I tried to keep myself going. I shouted in utter desperation. A slight sound came out. There was some banging at a few jammed planks of wood. They broke, dust was stirred again, fragments of concrete fell, but what emerged injected kicks of adrenalin into my bloodstream, my seven year-old daughter had found me. She ran over, wiped the blood that masked my face and kissed me above the forehead. I was safe, I could feel it. She shouted for paramedics and they came loaded with equipment. I was going to survive. They moved beams and planks from on top of me. I was then stretchered out of the wreckage. Once more I hugged my daughter. I had survived, thanks to her. They treated me, I spent days in hospital. My leg still will never fully recover. I cannot fully extend it due to the damage done to my right knee but I am still alive to see my daughter and that is all that matters.
