for three weeks, the rain had come. the weather brought an endless deluge, overfilling rivers and flooding canyons, and the coastline had not been spared. storm after storm soaked into soil and rock unused to such a volume of water, until one particularly precarious jut of the cliffs could hold no more.

it happened very suddenly. one moment, there was silence but for the wind and the rain and the crash of waves; the next, the cliffside shifted, and the earth broke and crumbled atop it.

with a heavy crack best likened to a lightning strike, the face of the bluff fell away, sending several tons of sodden dirt and stone down a hundred feet into the water below. at a distance, the roar could have been mistaken for thunder; up close, it would be deafening, and though the rain dampened down any dust that would otherwise rise it did nothing for the seaspray that lifted high into the air.

anything taking cover in the crevasses and sparse beaches beneath would have no chances of survival. the rockslide buried everything below, and when it finally settled, it left an empty wound in the side of the cliff, as though some great creature had risen from the deep to carve it away.