Black, swirling murky water, dirty and smelly rushed into a room like the way students did when they were late to class.

Screaming, my aunt grabbed her laptop, my two cousin and told us to go to the second floor. My grandma grabbed her mother and my grandfather appeared by the door, telling us to run.

I jumped down from the bed and made a splash the water, which was almost up to my knees, quickly rising.

We ran for the stairs the water quickly following, rising dangerously every second. I saw out wooden coffee table floating and I leaped on to it and rode it like a mad woman. I went boating in out living room on my coffee table.

Weird sentence?

Yep.

Someone grabbed me as I was about to hit the door, and I was pushed towards the stairs that led directly to the balcony, you see, our house was a two story house with only one huge balcony and one small room in the second floor.

I felt my ears throb, the noise was too much, it sounded like the wind was screaming incoherent words into my ears while raindrops shot into my eyes like bullets, the water was barely visible now the winds and rain making it almost impossible to see anything. We ascended up the stairs, my aunt pushing me forward. I was thankful with the support, because the wind kept pushing me down, preventing me from stepping into the next step without almost falling to a void of water. The wet steps weren't helping either.

I didn't dare look back, because I felt the water reach up to my feet, and mind you I was standing on the fifth step. I knew my eighty-plus year old great grandmother was having a hard time.

I grabbed on to the banister and made my way to the second floor's balcony. Three of us made it first and we held on to the wall as we were almost blown away the unforgiving wind. My aunt grabbed a hold of the door knob that opened the only room in the second floor.

It didn't budge.

In vain, she twisted the knob but it didn't open, she screamed something but I couldn't heat it. Suddenly I lost my balance, I came crashing to the floor, I gasped as I tasted blood in my mouth. My teeth had sunk onto my bottom lip, which was bleeding.

I tried to get up, but the wind was faster, I screamed as I spun round and round on the floor like a whirling top. You may think it would be hilarious, which it was, but in the situation, I wasn't laughing. It was hard to explain.

Imagine an invisible force spinning you round and round like a horse on a carousel, on the floor, like using you as a mop to clean the floor. It was like that.

Anyway, the wind pushed the spinning me forward and my head almost slammed into one of the cement post that held up the roof above the balcony.

Luckily, my hands grabbed a hold of the lower part of the balcony's railing. I held on, a rosary in my hand and my phone in the other, my phone though extremely wet, was still working, and would obviously come in handy. But what did I do? Oh, I dropped it from the second floor's balcony and it took a relaxing dip in the water below.

Oops.

I couldn't think of it at that time though, I had my priorities, one of it was not dying. Suddenly, I felt something pull at my feet and I was dragged across the floor like a broom.

Sounds painful? It felt painful too.

Usually when someone decides to drag me by my foot, I would scream and kick them in the face but this time i was thankful. When the hand let go of me, I stood up and tried to help my aunt open the door, turns out it was my cousin.

We tried to open the door butbit just wouldn't budge. Suddenly my grandfather appeared, luckily unscathed, my three-year old cousin in his arms.

My aunt rejoiced at the sight of her child, and quickly informed her father that the door wouldn't open. I expected our grandfather to kick the door open or some crazy action stunt that he learned from watching all those Chuck Norris movies he likes so much, but he just turned the knob and it immediately opened.

Wow. Just wow.

My cousin quickly pulled me in, quickly my aunt and her daughter followed, grandpa stayed behind.

"Hain iyo nanay? ", he asked, (translation: 'Whete is your grandmother? )

"They're still back down!", cried my aunt, "We have to get them! "

"Stay here!", he said and the door closed, he went back to get the others.

The room was in bad shape. The boxes were soggy and wet, the water in the room was only little, which was a relief. The wooden bed was there, including two mattresses, the round table that you could easily assemble was pushed at the side, and pieces of paper, and soggy cardboard floated on the water like boats parading the sea.

The wind still yelled in my ears and the storm didn't seem to want to pass, I was scared, frightened. Not for just me, but for all of us.

My friends. Were they okay? My teachers? My other grandmother? My uncles and aunts? My neighbors? Did they make it as far as me.

Then, in the midst of screaming winds, terrifyingly strong rain and floating paper, I sand to my knees and the only bit of sanity I had left, the one string that kept me from collapsing snapped.