Thanks to lilymoonlight and Aly for reviewing!

Chapter Fourteen: Aftermath

Basement of Mac and Stella Taylor's Apartment Building

Stella opened her eyes to the dark, clouded room. She breathed in the dusty air and then coughed. The tornado had hit their apartment, and now they were buried under debris. She was still holding on to Mac's hand, and when she turned to look at him, he squeezed her hand. "Stella," he whispered. "Are you okay?"

"I think so," she replied. She pushed some of the debris away from her. "We need to get out of here. We need to find the door that leads to the stairwell."

Mac slowly nodded. "First we need to remove this debris out of the way."

They thrust away pieces of wood, furniture, and even tree branches out of their way. When they were able to stand, Stella looked at Mac with concern in her eyes. "Mac, we can't just leave the others behind. We have to help clear the debris off the other people here."

Mac nodded. "Okay," he said.

As they walked through the basement, they cleared away debris. Not many people were trapped under the debris, but they were thankful to Mac and Stella. Stella was glad to help, especially since these were the people who lived in the same apartment building as her. She felt like she had to help, or she would be betraying them. She knew Mac would do anything to help; he would feel like it was his duty to help his friends too.

When they had helped the people from the debris, Stella looked around the room to find the door that had leaded them to the basement. She soon found it and signaled for Mac and the others to come over to her. They crowed over to the door, waiting for her to open it. As soon as she opened it, she gasped.

What had lay left of their apartment building was one of the staircases and the basement they had huddled in. She looked out at the expanse of the city. There were some buildings and skyscrapers still standing, like the Chicago Tribune Building and the Sears Tower, but others were destroyed or completely gone. The city of Chicago was now a field of a tornado wreck, and she knew that it would take many months or even years to rebuild the city completely. She thought about what Lindsay had told her, about the weather pattern being messed up. She didn't think this would happen, yet then again she hadn't thought that the city of New York would be underwater.

She turned to the others. "Our apartment building is gone," she announced, "along with the city of Chicago."

There were cries of shock from the crowd. People began to yell and protest about what Stella had said.

"That's impossible, nothing like that could have happened!" a woman yelled.

"You're lying!" another person yelled.

"Well, you wanted to get out of the basement," said Stella. "Why don't you take a look for yourself?"

She moved away from the door, allowing people to get out of the basement. She walked over to Mac, and she hugged him, beginning to cry. "Lindsay was right," cried Stella. "The weather pattern is messed up. We should have evacuated yesterday."

This time, Mac didn't say anything. She began to think that even Mac had begun to believe Lindsay was right and that they should have trusted her. She wondered how Lindsay was doing now, if she had survived the wreck of the tornado or not.

It was a short chapter, but I hope you liked it! Next chapter will also be short; it'll be about Cameron and Chase. And don't worry, a long chapter is soon to come!