Everyone might have been on guard for another potential quake - but this was so completely off the scales of what anyone imagined. At around 3pm on Friday afternoon, the ground buckled and rippled out from the epicenter, quickly extending far out beyond Santa Monica's borders, the entire state and the surrounding areas soon feeling the shake.

At Paradise Hotel, they were luckier than most. Thanks to the quick thinking of Jean Grey and Madeline Pryor, they were able to reinforce the hotel, keeping it from completely collapsing around everyone's ears. It wasn't perfect - the top of the building still swayed and buckled, the two top floors crashing down in on each other and partially damaging the third. Most of the windows shattered, with the balconies quickly collapsing in on themselves and the back stairs following suit.

In the upper levels, Julian Keller found himself caught underneath a piece of falling concrete, knocked out as it pinned him down. Mark Sheppard, having stepped out onto one of the balconies not long before the quake, was instead impaled by a broken railing, suspended almost in midair. Forge would later be found buried underneath a slab of concrete that had once been part of the back stairs. They weren't the only residents who needed immediate help, and everyone needed to get out of there in a hurry.

Paradise Hotel was trying to fall down.

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