Black clouds smear across the horizon, swallowing the blue sky and the sun. It's Tina who first notices, with a sharp, sudden, "What is that?"
Artie frowns upwards suspiciously, rolling to a stop right there in the middle of the enormous parking lot to eye the unnatural phenomena. He opens his mouth, eyes narrowed behind his glasses.
Lightning snaps across the cloud-swollen atmosphere, startling flashes of electric white against the dark. The storm skitters along the sky like ten thousand roaches, carapaces throwing off sparks. Mr. Schuester says slowly, with an uncomfortable look up, "Guys, I'm gonna need all of you to get moving, I don't think we want to be out here when this one hits."
But quickly, too quickly, the hail starts, and Quinn shrieks as a ball of ice the size of Artie's wheelchair slams onto the roof of a nearby car. Puck's there instantly, covering her as she cringes back, and Mike and Brittany and Santana are already peeling ahead, and the parking lot fills with the sounds of alarms as enormous balls of ice slam into car after car. Finn is pulling Rachel along; she loses a shoe, and Finn nearly yanks her arm off to keep her from going back for it. Santana and Brittany are a blur of movement linked by their hands, Brittany throwing tortured looks over her shoulder. Santana never looks back.
There's a shout as Kurt falls behind, staggered by a glancing impact from a smaller ball of hail. Mercedes hauls him up, reeling, to his feet, drags him with her, and then she screams as Matt is knocked to the asphalt in front of her, bloody fragments of ice round his head like a splintered halo. Mr. Schuester runs back to where Matt lies still, shouting, "Keep moving, keep moving!" Tina is pushing Artie's wheelchair so fast he has to hold on to the arm of it with one hand to keep from pitching out of his seat, holding his other arm above his head protectively.
And then the lightning snaps again, and each fork finds a target. Time lingers, slows, stills. Electricity shoots through blood. All of them feel it, the twisting tendrils of energy corkscrewing through their bodies, stabbing through their veins. Muscles clench, hearts squeeze and swell and skip beats, and lightning ricochets through the hollows in their bones, arcs through their brains, sparks through their neurons. They're knocked to the ground like dolls flung to the floor in a tantrum.
Time strolls on, walks by. Leaves them behind.
Mr. Schuester sits up, reaches out, lifts a bloody hand in horror from the back of Matt's head. Mercedes looks like she's about to be sick, the hem of her dress fraying and torn, lower lip trembling as she stares mutely between Mr. Schuester and Matt's unmoving body. Kurt is curled in a small ball nearby, though he pushes himself up, wincing, bringing a hand up to his shoulder.
Quinn is gasping harsh breaths, her arms around the swollen mound of her stomach. Puck is holding her hard, his broad back like a shield, as though they were thrown to the ground that way. Rachel's legs are scraped raw below the gold-and-black of her Regionals dress, but she staggers to her feet, frantically pulling Finn up. Finn stumbles as he rises, shaking his head as though dazed. Mike, Santana and Brittany, who have made it the farthest, jog back.
"We've got to get Matt to the hospital," Mercedes sobs, and Mike's face drains when he gets close enough to see. The skies are as blue as they have ever been, the clouds as fluffy white.
Puck shouts with a hard stare over at the rest of them, "Quinn, too!" as Mr. Schuester gets out his phone. Quinn is gritting her teeth, tears in her eyes, doubling over.
Regionals will have to wait.