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  The tall boy who was with the girl spun her around so she was facing the house and the guy with black hair stood in front of me to block my view since I had been unable to turn myself away from the gruesome scene. The front door to the house flung open, partly from the wind and partly from an aggressive push. The bang startled me and I jumped into the bigger guy grabbing his arm way too tightly.

  “You guys have to come with me,” he said. “Please, follow me.” He gestured for us to follow him and it took me a few minutes to understand as my brain hadn't worked the same way it had before seeing the crash. Ryan was trying to get us to go with him somewhere. I caught another glimpse of the guy across the street, he was looking at us, he didn’t say anything he just stood there. The others hadn’t noticed him, I was about to say something when I was jostled by the guy with the black hair whose name I couldn’t recall.

  “But—” I managed to eek the word out in an attempt to alert them to the guy across the street.

  “Go!” he said, his eyes begging me to make my feet move. And I did. I glanced back after a few steps and he was gone. We followed Ryan like lost puppies. The guy with black hair yelled through the howling winds, “Where are we going?”

  We looped around the side of his house going into the backyard, “My grandpa has an underground shelter. We’ll be safe there!” We ran through his backyard jumping over broken tree branches and random things that had blown into his yard— trash bins, a grill, even a little pink tricycle.

  “How far?” the tall boy shouted as a brick-sized piece of hail landed about a foot away from him.

  “Not far,” Ryan said, “this way!” He weaved between a garage and a small shed and onto the sidewalk of the next block. “That one,” he said pointing to a green house across the street and three houses over.

  We splashed through the puddles on the roadway running as fast as we could. A gust of wind almost knocked me off my feet, but somehow I managed to regain my footing without falling or blowing away. I saw a car rolling top to bottom and side to side through the air about a block away and then I noticed the twister that was propelling it. Another gust of wind came and lifted me for a full second off the ground. It happened so fast I wasn’t even sure it had been real or if I was imagining it until I felt a hand grab onto mine pulling me along.

  “Here?” I asked when we were in front of the green house.

  Ryan turned around the side of the house. Boards from the roof were being lifted off, and the siding was peeling away towards the twister that I could feel was even closer than it had been before. The winds were stronger, and the air was filling with dust and dirt, and it was getting harder to breathe. A large piece of siding from the neighbor’s house zipped past my face and pierced itself into the side of Ryan’s grandpa’s house. It stuck out like an arrow that hit its target. A target that had only been inches from my face. We were finally in his grandpa's backyard when I realized I hadn't been breathing.

  Everyone was holding onto one another. I grabbed Ryan’s shirt as he flung open the doors to his grandpa’s underground shelter. We all piled in— the girl with the gash on her head first, then the tall boy, then the pale boy, followed by the one with black hair and then it was my turn. I turned around to help Ryan inside when I saw a tornado weaving back and forth heading right for us. There was a second one the size of a full city block not too far behind it also heading our way. I wanted to scream but instead I gained a burst of extra strength and yanked Ryan inside. Together we pulled as hard as we could to close the doors, but I wasn’t much help with the wind's ever-increasing strength. I could feel myself rising above the ground. My feet were no longer touching the floor, and everything felt like it was moving in slow motion as I was gradually being pulled out of the doorway. Ryan grabbed one leg while the boy with black hair grabbed my other. I felt like an out-of-control kite as they yanked me inside and threw me against the back wall. They hadn’t intended to be rough with me, but they had to act fast so they could get the doors closed before we were all whisked away. The double doors had a huge lock that slid into place, but the wind outside was so strong the doors rattled aggressively, causing them to shake and bow outward.

  I could hear the windows shattering in the house above us, it sounded as if the whole building was being torn apart at the seams. “This way,” Ryan said as he grabbed a radio off a nearby shelf and a flashlight which he instantly flicked on. It was almost as if his grandpa had made him do test runs to make sure he’d know what to do should he ever need to come here in an emergency.

  We followed him down a cement hallway. The thudding of our feet turned into booming as the hallway turned into a metal corridor, something that had been added somewhat recently by the looks of it. I wondered if his grandpa had been one of those people that prepared for the end of the world, what were they called? Preppers? Thinking of everything going on outside right now, I kind of hoped he was. I was thankful, I knew how lucky I was to be here. Even being in this hallway I felt somewhat safe, that was until I felt a sudden breeze and heard the whistling of the wind. The doors must have been pulled off their hinges. Ryan grunted as he opened the next set of thick metal doors, he passed the flashlight to the boy with black hair, “Go down, I’m going to wait for my family here.”

  It sounded to me as if the house above had been lifted off of the foundation and placed back down in the wrong spot. “Where are they?” I asked him, wondering at the same time where my mom was and hoping she was safe in our basement or somewhere even better. I questioned how safe a person would be in a normal basement with this storm. Ryan had saved my life and I didn’t really feel comfortable just leaving him out here alone, especially with all the rattling and crashing noises. The wind was so strong I could feel it against my skin even at the end of the hallway.

  “I’m not sure, work? School? Just… not home yet,” he said shaking his head as if he was trying to sprinkle the worry that he felt out of his ears.

  “They might be hunkered down somewhere not even trying to get here, you have to come inside, I don’t think you are safe out here,” I said tugging his arm gently.

  “I have to wait,” he said still shaking his head, because he knew better, he knew they weren’t coming. He also knew that he should go inside and that the last thing anyone in his family would want was for him to wait outside of the shelter for them.

  “Please,” I begged, “if they come we’ll just let them in.” I tried to talk some sense into him, I hoped it wouldn’t take much to sway him. I couldn’t have timed it better, the wind picked up again with an ear piercing whistle. It was a forceful gust that shifted both of our bodies. At the end of the long hallway, I saw a piece of wood, maybe from a shelf, go flying up into the air and out of the basement with other pieces chasing after. Each airy blast was stronger than the last. The pieces of his grandpa’s house were being plucked out like the loose pieces of a Jenga tower and at any minute it would come crashing down. He inhaled sharply and guided me inside, he tried to pull the door closed, but it was like a vacuum preventing it from shutting. Luckily we were able to get it closed working together, but we lost our footing and tumbled to the ground. Ryan vaulted up and slid several locks into place and pulled down a huge bar to secure it even further.

  He offered me his hand to help me to my feet, I gladly accepted the help. I just stood there gawking at him, waiting for further direction, like I no longer knew how to function without guidance.

  “Down.”

  “Excuse me?” I said looking at him as if he were speaking another language.

  “Go down the stairs.”

  I pivoted and descended the approximately fifteen steps quickly, fearing the door would be pulled off its hinges and I’d be whisked back out into the storm, but the buckled down solid door didn’t even rattle. It gave no signs that it was weak. The others were gathered by the door waiting for instructions from Ryan. He flipped some switches that caused air to start circulating, and I could hear the humming and buzzing of other thing
s starting up. Once he was satisfied it was all working as it was supposed to, he closed the last door that would keep us inside and the nasty weather outside. We were locked inside. Underground.

  Ravaged Land - Chapter two

  I was freaking out about what just happened. I held it all in mainly because I didn’t know how to express it and I didn’t want to cause everyone else to panic any more than they already were. I was worried about my mom, was she home? Was she OK? I wished there was some way for me to communicate with her so I could tell her I was safe.

  “What was that?” The boy with black hair bellowed, “I’ve never seen anything like that!”

  “I think I counted five tornadoes at one time, and that’s just the ones I could see,” the pale boy added.

  Ryan turned on a small TV that was up against the wall centered within the living room. It was mostly cracks, whistles and gray fuzzy snow with little flashes of a grayish shadow of the newscaster who was overly dedicated to his job. He sat there spouting out everything that was going on outside, and for us, what was happening above ground. We all sat in absolute silence trying to make out what he was saying between noises and the static.

  “Seek immediate sheltkrrrrrrrrrrrrrr… tornadoes, clusters of them…wizzzzzzzrrrr… here is a look at the live radar…krrrrrr. Fwaappp area covered in red, this is no joke folks…whhhhhoooooooooo in all my years… fizzzz never seen something like krrrrrrrrrrrrrip.” It started to come in a little clearer for just a moment “We’ve had reports of homes pulled right off their foundation and thrown into neighboring states. Hail the size of watermelons and as sharp and deadly as axes falling from the sky. Downpours that are causing major flooding and even landslides. We’ve just, just…krrrrrrrrip no end in sight, stay safe out there krrrrrrrrrrr.”

  Ryan broke the silence, “I guess we’ll be down here for a while.” We all stared at the fuzz on the TV trying to make sense of it all. Everything outside was being torn apart and we didn’t know where our families were or if they were even OK. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking the worst— that our families hadn’t found shelter in time, or a good enough shelter. The storm came so fast. We barely made it to safety. And why didn’t the weathermen know it was going to be this bad? How lucky I had been did not escape me, I didn’t know how I’d ever thank Ryan if I survived this.

  His grandpa’s shelter seemed quite safe, I couldn’t even hear anything that was going on above us. I wasn’t sure how we’d know when it was safe to leave this place, but the storm couldn’t last forever. We would have to wait for someone on TV to come back and tell us it was OK, and then I could go find my mom.

  Ryan held out a bottle of water in front of my line of vision, “Drink?” he asked in a low voice. I nodded a thank you even though I had no intentions of opening it. I wasn’t thirsty even though my mouth felt like sandpaper. I’d drink when I got home. The water at my house was great.

  I had forgotten about the girl’s wound until I heard her making little gasping noises as she dabbed her shirt sleeve against her forehead. “It really hurts,” she whispered to the tall boy with a sniff, and he put his hand on her shoulder.

  I hadn’t noticed Ryan had left the room until he returned carrying a mirror and a first aid kit. “That’s a big scratch,” he said handing her the kit. Her bleeding had slowed significantly. She was lucky it hadn’t been worse.

  “Thanks,” she said taking the kit and handing it to the tall boy.

  I watched the radar on TV and tried to see if I could make anything out. With everything so jumbled and fuzzy it was hard to tell what was going on, but it appeared as though the whole state of North Dakota was covered in the colors red and purple. A small portion of our state had the yellow coloring but there wasn’t a single area that had clear sky. Everything in our state and the surrounding states was currently experiencing severe weather. This was bad. The worst part of it all was that when they put the radar in motion it showed more coming. It was an endless storm of heavy rain, damaging winds, hail, tornadoes and dangerous lightning. They cut away to what appeared to be the map of the whole United States and parts of Mexico and Canada. I gasped.

  “What’s wrong?” asked the girl not even attempting to disguise her shaking voice. She now had a large piece of gauze taped to her forehead with a red dot in the center where the blood was soaking in.

  “It’s just all red, that just can’t be right.” The words spilled out. I spoke before thinking. It hadn’t been my intention to make anyone more scared or on edge than they already were.

  “What’s all red?” the tall one asked.

  “Everything, I mean, it’s not even possible! It’s everywhere, the whole United States, Canada, it’s all covered with these storms, can that be?” I flapped my arms at the TV and looked at the others waiting for any kind of logical answer, but they stared back at me as if I had the answers, which I didn’t. I wasn’t even sure this was all really happening. Everything we had been through to get here seemed like it had to have been a bad dream. Only it wasn’t.

  “We are safe down here,” Ryan said trying to keep everyone calm. “I know you’re worried about your families, I am too, but there isn’t much we can do until this all passes. We are several feet underground, this place has been flood tested, nothing can get us. It was designed to keep my family safe if there was some sort of end of the world disaster… like bombs or whatever. My grandpa was a prepper, he knew what he was doing, he was a little crazy about it…” he stopped himself, swallowed hard, “thank God he was though. I just hope my family….”

  His words were getting stuck in his throat, it seemed as though he was having trouble talking after he said his ‘grandpa was a prepper’ as in past tense. I wasn’t sure if that had meant his grandpa had died since building the shelter or if he was just assuming that his grandpa wouldn’t have survived the deadly storm outside. But I wasn’t going to ask. I already felt guilty that it was me down here and not his family.

  Everyone was silent probably thinking of their own families. I refused to think of all the things that could have happened to my mom, at least not right now. She had survived a lot of hardships in her life, losing her mother to cancer, my dad cheating on her with a 24-year-old stripper, a horrible divorce, a stint with an abusive boyfriend and that was only the beginning. If anyone would get through this storm, it would be her. I didn’t need to waste time thinking about it, I’d go to her as soon as I could.

  “KrrrrrrrOHMYGOD! Krrrrrr…wizzzzzzzz….” The newscaster screamed and the station blacked out completely. There was no sound, no picture, not even any gray snowy fuzz. TV was gone.

  “I’ll try the radio,” Ryan said, “Uhh by the way, I’m Ryan for those that don’t know me.” I already knew him, I had a few classes with him but he was quiet, I didn’t really know anything about him other than his name.

  “Owen.” He and I were in study hall together but I couldn’t ever remember his name. I’d see him and think his name was Evan, he had shiny black hair and he was all muscle, solid and outgoing. I think everyone in school liked him.

  “I know who all of you are but anyway, I’m Dean, and this is my little sister Sienna.” She forced a quick smile but I could tell she was trying to hide the fact that she was scared out of her mind. Dean was tall, I’d seen him around before, mostly hanging around with Owen, and he was crazy hot. His brown hair was messy, but that kind of messy that probably takes a half hour of styling to perfect. What stood out to me most of all were his eyes, they were the color of chocolate syrup. I wondered how I hadn’t noticed him more in school, but I never cared about things like that. Under other circumstances I might feel shy around someone this attractive, but considering what we had just escaped it didn’t seem to matter.

  “Seth,” the pale boy with the blonde hair said. I knew of him only because he stood out at school, it was nice to finally put a name to his face. There was a short time where some of the other kids tried to get the nickname ‘albino’ to stick but he didn’t let it get t
o him and it was short lived. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had heard anyone call him that.

  “I’m Ros,” I said lifting my damp tangled hair in a pretend ponytail.

  Ryan turned the radio dial so slow you could barely see his hand moving. There were a few stations that had that annoying buzz but instead of them saying, “This is only a test,” they were saying “this is not a test” and to stay tuned for further instruction. But those further instructions never came and Ryan continued searching. When he hit the end of the dial, he switched the power off out of frustration and hit the table with his fist causing a few stacked coffee cups to rattle.

  “How will we know when we can leave?” Sienna quietly asked the group.

  “Cameras.” That was all Ryan managed to spit out after his frustrations with the radio.

  “What do you mean?” I asked not understanding.

  Ryan flipped a switch on the wall and clicked a button on the remote control. The picture on the TV worked but what it showed wasn’t what any of us wanted to see.

  “Jesus Christ.” Owen choked and swallowed hard, “Is this some kind of joke?”

  The screen was divided into four panels, one for each of the cameras that had been placed in various strategic locations outside. The camera with a number one appeared to be underwater, I couldn’t quite figure out where it was located outside and why they’d need an underwater camera. Camera two wasn’t working and showed just a solid black box. The third camera showed what the weather was doing the best. It was difficult to see but there were huge chunks of ice falling from the sky. It looked like it was snowing jagged melons. Dancing along the background was a bouquet of several tornadoes. It wasn’t just a tornado or two, within the frame of this particular camera, it was at least four, and what looked like another two or three even further back in the distance. I wasn’t sure if the ones further back were actually tornadoes or not due to the low visibility from the rain, hail, and misty fog. I wondered how many more there might be outside the viewing range of the camera. Was the whole state just covered with tornadoes? The thought was terrifying.