The day changed so quickly. One moment Sheila was at the park, enjoying the warm sunshine on her face while she slept on a plaid blanket. The next, she felt cold rain droplets falling on her cheeks. Shelia attempted to ignore it, but then she felt someone shaking her arm violently.

“Shelia, Sheila wake up! It’s about to storm!” The girl’s eyes immediately snapped open when she heard her friend’s voice. When they did, her mouth dropped open in shock. Gone was the lovely warm sunshine from earlier, and what replaced it was a large mass of darkened clouds looming overhead. Sheila instantly rose, grabbed her blanket, and ran with her friend to her friend’s car. Once they got inside, Sheila’s friend started the engine and they drove away as fast as they could. Sheila stared outside the droplet covered windows as the rain increased.

“I need to get home,” she said. “My mom’s probably worried sick about me.” Sheila’s friend nodded and they headed off in that direction. On their way there, Sheila looked outside the windows again. The rain had become tinfoil now, pouring down the windows so it was difficult to see outside. But when she looked closer, she noticed that the clouds had turned a mix of light purple and sea green. Sheila’s heart rate rose substantially, and she shrank into her seat with fear. Her friend noticed and asked what was wrong, apparently not noticing the strange change outside.

“Shells, what’s wrong?” Sheila turned towards her friend and pointed a shaking finger outside.

“Tommy, something’s wrong.” Tommy looked at her strangely, then outside.

“I don’t see anything- “ he stopped talking instantly. The color visibly drained from his face, and the car suddenly propelled forward. Stunned and feeling even more fearful, Sheila held on to the door handle. She looked outside again and was horrified to see a colorful, bright rotating mass on the ground tearing up dirt. Sheila looked at Tommy again, who was driving much too fast. She saw the telephone pole and tried to warn her friend of the incoming crash. When he failed to respond to her calls, Sheila made a desperate, dangerous move. She reached over and turned the steering wheel away from the pole. This caused the car tires of the silver blue Honda to lock up and slid on the wet road. Shelia panicked and desperately tried to snap her friend out of it. But he was staring straight ahead and unmoving in his seat. 

The car then spun out and hit the metal railing of the street. Sheila shot forward and hit her face on the glove compartment and Tommy hit his head on the steering wheel. Then everything went dark for Sheila. When she slowly woke up again, she noticed that the rain had decreased, but the storm she had seen earlier was much closer. Quickly, Shelia accessed her situation. Her face felt wet and sticky, as if she spread honey on it and there was a fair amount of pain when she touched her right cheek. When Shelia looked to her left, she saw Tommy in a comatose position. He was breathing, but he wasn’t moving an inch. Forcing herself to stay calm, Sheila searched the car for a phone to use. It took a precious 15 minutes to find Tommy’s. With shaking fingers, Sheila called 911. The operator picked up.

911, what is your emergency?

“Hi, um, I-I’ve been in a car crash. A-and my friend needs help. W-we need help.”

Okay, ma’am, we’ll send an ambulance and help over as soon as we can. Will you stay on the line with us?

“Yes,” Sheila said. “H-hurry, there’s a tornado coming for us right now.”

Don’t worry ma’am, we’ll make it there as fast as we can. Just hold on a bit longer.

Sheila bit her lip. Then she temporarily put the phone down and very, very carefully set Tommy into her lap. She put him on his side to try to cut down his chances of being injured further all while anxiously awaiting the arrival of the ambulance while dreading the arrival of the twister…