The earth rumbled in Akrotiri. It had been happening more frequently, but usually, Elpis did not worry about it. Living on Thira meant that you became used to the smoke from the mountain and the shaking of the earth. When the gods were displeased, the community would make sacrifices in their honor. After a time, things would settle back down, and you stopped noticing the shaking. Sometimes when the mountain smoked there would be an especially large sacrifice, maybe several bulls, or even a ritual feast. But nothing like that had happened since Elpis was born - she only knew the stories her mother had passed on.
Lately, the shaking came more and more. The priestesses had been busy with praying and constant sacrifices to Poteidan, the earth shaker. The mountain continued to rumble and now belched smoke. Even more troubling, despite a recent feast day, the mountain now glowed at night like ten thousand hot forges were lit inside. The prayers and sacrifices were not working this time.
Elpis began to doubt in the sacrifices of the priests, and she was not the only one. Soon the earth was not the only thing rumbling in Akrotiri - people were talking of leaving, of that worrying glow around the mountain top, and how the smoke was so thick some days, you couldn't go to the market without choking. Some people did not go out at all, fearing they would choke in the poison air.
Then the fish began to wash up onshore. Going down to the oceanside now meant wading through waves of stinking fish. Elpis wondered if it really was time to go. Perhaps a few more days, just in case the gods were trying to make a point. Maybe they had not been taking them seriously enough during the times the earth shook before.
The next day there were no one in the market at all. The smoke was even thicker, and now ash was falling from the sky. Poteidan was not pleased with Akrotiri - the ash had not come in living memory. Still, Elpis wanted to stay. She had always lived in Akrotiri but she worried that waiting any longer would displease the gods even more. She gathered a few small items and what valuables she had and headed to the docks, hoping to find a way off Thira before it was too late.
Elpis was in luck. Finding no one in a mood to trade, a merchant from the mainland was preparing to head for calmer shores. Elpis bought her way onto the ship and left everything behind.
Half a day's sailing took the ship clear of the smoke and ash of Thira. Another half-day of sailing and there was no evidence of what was happening on the island by nightfall, just a vague red smudge on the far horizon. Elpis wondered if she had overreacted. Had she left her life behind for no reason? What would her neighbors think of her?
A few days later, as the ship prepared to dock in Lygos, a great wave nearly capsized the boat. Within the week, news reached Elpis that Akrotiri, and indeed all of Thira was no more. The gods were not satisfied, and the mountain was gone in an explosion of fire and ash. The great wave that had nearly sunk the boat she was on reached settlements near and far.
Elpis hoped somewhere, her neighbors were alive to think of her at all.
Image information: Fresco from Akrotiri, Santorini, Greece. Image shows a town and boats in its harbor. Source