Oakley Harding was everything her parents had dreamt of her being. Having parents that designed a famous project "Dorothy", wasn't always what it was cracked up to be. Most of her childhood was spent watching her parents come and go from the house. Whether it was going storm chasing or it was going to the lab to analyze all the data. Oakley saw her fair share of storms that rolled past their Oklahoma home. Somehow they had been lucky to not have their home taken, but she, along with her parents, would always help the people in her community that were actually affected.
Oakley was a lot like her mother Jo though. She had a weird infatuation with storms. She was constantly watching the videos that her parents took on their adventures. In high school, she thrived in her science classes and always made her mother proud. Her mother and father refused to allow her to storm chase with them. Not until she graduated high school. You can imagine how much she jumped at the opportunity to ride with her parents the summer after she graduated.
Her parents taught her everything she knows. How to read the storms and when they were going to shift. To pay attention to everything around the storm to be able to see that shift, if it was to come. She spent her entire summer with her parents but they still wanted more for Oakley, so they convinced her to apply to Muskogee State. During her off time though, she was chasing with her parents. Getting whatever data they needed to be able to help make the alarms better and better.
While she was in college, she made friends with quite a few people. One of them being a girl by the name of Kate Carter that was from Oklahoma and was also a storm chaser. Oakley and Kate always shared their summer stories with each other. There were several times that both Kate's team and her family team would meet up and share stories and make food. It was a time that Oakley missed.
It was any typical day for storms. She was helping her parents load up the truck with the gear that they needed. Oakley's blonde hair whipped behind her as the wind slowly started to pick up. She had on a pair of her mother's coveralls with the arms tied around her thick waist and her black tank top. Her blue eyes looked over at her father as he placed a hand on her back "Got everything loaded?"
She nodded her head softly at her dad as he kissed her cheek, "You know it dad! This is going to be a great storm day! I can feel it!"
Her father nodded in agreement as her mother came sprinting out of the house with the keys tucked in between her teeth. She watched as her father plucked them out of her mouth and smirked "Thanks! I'll drive!"
Oakley couldn't help but giggle as her mother glared at him. They all loaded up into the truck and started to head out towards the storm. She could hear the voices of her parents' team blaring through the radio. It always brought a strange comfort to hear their voices. Especially Dustin's antics.
As they got closer, a feeling of dread sent into Oakley. It caused her stomach to churn and knot as she watched her father continue down the road. Her bright blue eyes watch as the twister swirls in front of them until it finally touches the fields. She listened as her parents started to yell out commands over the radio, making sure everyone was set up to get the data they needed. It was a small twister, but as the twister continued to eat everything around it, it grew bigger and bigger. "Dad, maybe we should let this one go."
Her dad shook his head and looked over his shoulder at Oakley. "Oh honey, we'll be fine! Your mother and I know what we are doing." His voice of confidence did nothing to stop the churning in her gut.
The next few hours went by like a blur for Oakley. Before she knew it, the twister had grown to an EF5 and her parents were doing everything they could to get away. Debris being slammed around the highway and eventually slamming into the truck, forced the truck into a stall. It was then that her parents ripped open their doors and grabbed Oakley by the wrist pulling her with them. There was no real good place to hide and hunker down, but they kept running.
They finally managed to find a barn. The memories of the stories her parents told her started to flash in her mind as she ran. Her heart was beating heavily under her skin. She felt the bile slowly trying to come up her throat, but she forced it down. There was no time for that. As they ripped the door to the barn open, they realized that it was a makeshift auto shop. Which meant there was a small area that would sit under the cars that were underground. Her father and mother immediately helped Oakley into the small area, then her father, to help her mother. Oakley could hear the tornado now. The wood rattling was just another indication of the fact that it was right outside. "JO! HURRY!" She heard her dad yelling, but as she was about to jump down with them, the barn walls exploded around them. The wood being ripped into the tornado.
Oakley watched as her mother was getting pulled away. Her hands tried grabbing onto one of the pillars of the lift that would normally hold onto the cars. Her father reached to grab her hand, but it was too late. "MOM!" It only took a matter of seconds before her mother disappeared into the tornado. Her father immediately wrapped his arms around her and pulled them down. Oakley's sobs wracked her body as the tornado continued to ravage its destruction on the small barn until it just stopped. Her father held onto her even after the tornado was long gone. The sobs continued to roll through her body. The rest of their team quickly ran up to the barn to make sure they were okay. When they realized who was missing, their gazes fell and helped her father and her out of the hole in the ground.
The rest of the summer was spent mourning her mother and jumping at every single sound of a storm. Her father slowly started to slip into the darkness. Oakley continued to focus on her schooling until she managed to get her Bachelor's degree. It only took a few years before her father had passed as well. Oakley still believes that he died from a broken heart. Now she is here in this big empty house. Trying to fight every single urge to not run away from Oklahoma.