Sins In Twisters

by Blonkess

When Lincoln was destined to never have success like his family, after surviving the Royal Woods' Tornado, his future takes him on the path of becoming a renowned storm chaser. But as years pass since that day, his family tries to hold together after freak disasters put a halt to the sisters' lives when Lisa discovers a past family secret that tells Lincoln's time is running out.

37. This Wind's Got A Hold On Me

Sins In Twisters

Chapter 37: This Wind's Got A Hold On Me

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At the time of this chapter being published; over 100 years ago to the day, the Tri-State Tornado would touch the Earth. Leaving a 200-plus mile long scar, injurying over 2000, and taking away almost 700 lives with it.

It remains known as the second deadliest tornado in history.

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Log Entry Date: March 16th, 2026

The following is a roughly 66 percent recap of all recent events in the last 36 hours; the given timeline addresses specific events as there are many large time gaps of little activity. This will be filled under its own sub-branch to investigation 201-47.7, labeled as Unit 1 under the code name Yellow Brick.

It is currently 12:46 am, and I'm sitting alone inside Vanzilla 2. It is not close to the ideal place for me to make a report like this, as a set of tarps was in place of the windshields and are poor insulators. Still, after events that will soon be explained, I feel it's the only place I can calmly gather all my thoughts with something familiar and connected to them… And for the last 36 hours, I can safely say that so many earlier thoughts, theories, and worries have been changed and realized all at once.

Unfortunately, our initial preparation period was cut short due to the storm setup in the midwest, forcing us to leave some elements behind and unfinished to get on the road sooner. On the morning of the 14th, we were running slightly late, but with the foresight to pre-pack all luggage into Vanzilla the night before and depart as the entire family to the construction site of the new house.

I won't go into any details of the house here, as its structural completion is irrelevant aside from the garage used for the construction and housing of Vanzilla 2. With a sense of practice, we could completely switch the load to Vanzilla 2 with few issues, bid farewell to our parents and hometown, and begin our 16-hour, thousand-mile trip. With warmer weather conditions, the risk of snowfall delaying us was out of the question, and should we have maintained speed, we would have been able to drive through the night and reach Kansas.

That was until our breakdown, and I was reminded of an essential rule about heavily modifying old vehicles for extensive modern use: don't use an old vehicle.

When purchased, Vanzilla 2 had shown its age but was deemed adequate for the task. It performed exceptionally well with previous use, including being pushed at speed on major highways. Its components had been physically tested and accepted as deemed safe. However, it has been realized that the 'inspection' we got was for the sake of it being road-safe, not road-worthy for the long term. The near destruction of the rear axle and loss of one of the wheels at the speed we were traveling could have ended fatally for us, but unfortunately, it delayed us further.

When taken to a repair facility outside of Great Lakes City, we had bribed the shop to overnight the repairs. I will discuss my thoughts on Lana's commitment later in this document. Another is Lori's decision to contact Bobby as a possible breach in the secrecy of our journey. I have yet to discover the degree of relationship Bobby has with Lincoln, but he obviously knows more than we do about events and topics for the last three years.

As much as I had hoped to avoid drawing attention to our motives, I fully suspect Ronnie Anne was able to deduce what we were doing and, to my confusion, did not protest the idea nor offer anything to motivate going forward with it. There is a lack of both positive and negative feedback to cancel out, but her words about how if Kingman couldn't stop him and he's being more aggressive this year, what hope do we have of stopping him before the next big one?

While the day before had given false hope to the distance we could cover, and yesterday was the matter of pushing to make up for lost time. A straight shot from Great Lakes City to St Louis in under five hours, a good chunk of time and distance, but not enough. Once storms began firing, it took us on a route that would have usually taken three and a half hours, almost another six, between all the stops and slowdowns. Had it been accomplished, the original plan to be in this area yesterday would have put us in the same area of Springfield and storm activity. Lincoln did not travel far from the city in attempting to catch the Waynesville storm and doubled back to be far enough west that he'd technically be stuck behind the forming Fair Grove tornado. Had we arrived late that day and gotten moving again in the morning, we'd have had several hours to find him before storms formed. At worst, he'd attempt to go after something else after missing Waynesville but push to get Fair Grove even harder.

In a short description of yesterday's events, only 14 tornado reports have been confirmed, with another eight currently under investigation. For the two we encountered, Waynesville has been given an estimated preliminary of EF1 with its status of being only 200 feet at its widest in a 1.07 mile long path for six minutes. Its slow speed and tight rotation are what's being considered the leading cause of the focused damage, as the broader spread event we were stuck in was more from a combination of straight-line winds ahead of the circulation and the downdraft overcoming the balance. Had it not been overwhelmed by the cold air, we most likely would have seen the twister or felt its effects closer to our location.

The Fair Grove has reached EF3 status so far, though this is expected to change in the coming days. With a max width of over 1.3 miles and a path length of 33.42 miles, a starting point from 1.76 miles southwest of the community of Alsup, it'd travel eastward until arching northeast after Fair Grove and missing several other communities until lifting 1.42 miles northeast of Cedar Ridge. The storm would recycle twice and put down two more EF1s, but with the number of satellite tornadoes recorded during its approach to Fair Grove, the storm would be responsible for six of the day's total count. The northern side of Fair Grove itself has been declared a disaster area, but so far, all reports coming through have pointed to only 25 injuries and zero deaths. Many called on the foresight of such early warnings, a very clear view of the storm itself, and the number of storm chasers gathering by the town, which made the vast majority choose to evacuate south to Springfield.

Returning to our journey, progressing and stopping just before St Louis for a brief moment, I evaluated the current situation as several supercells began rising across the state. One storm further to our west that would produce the Waynesville EF1 looked promising, and later confirmation would point to Lincoln, and elements of Vortex 3's scouting fleet were on the cell early. In a failed attempt to bypass a traffic jam by cutting through town, we were almost hit by the leading edge of the circulation. Sustaining minimal damage but a badly cracked windshield.

Reentering the highway to go after the stronger storm to the southwest, we caught up, slotted ourselves in the scouting fleet, and traveled to Conway as the storm began producing the EF3. We proceeded on lesser side roads to cut ahead of the storm, heading toward Elkland as the tornado and its satellites matured.

In hindsight… had we not turned off to head toward Elkland and stay on the main road, we would have gone straight to the same intersection Lincoln was heading for minutes later. We could have just sat there and waited for him or gone across to the otherside and first run into him on the 215.

But I didn't expect that, given there was no word yet on why his beacon wasn't working later in the day. We could get north and close in using his radio's frequency but it was hard to pinpoint with so many others operating on the same channels. We turned around and followed, eventually being passed by other armored chasers until we were side by side with Storm Shrieker. Any attempts to get his attention were ineffective, so we risked the plan of catching up and reaching him before he intercepted.

This… was a moment of critical error in thinking about what could be done ahead of us. We failed to remember the situation at large. I won't, or should I say, can't, directly correlate to what happened in that absence of rational thinking. Only when we stopped and registered the situation did we act seconds too late…

…

..

.

Now to the current situation and results:

I'm possibly a step or two away from deeming Vanzilla 2 a total loss after its maiden voyage yesterday. Mechanically, its brakes need to be changed again, new tires on all corners need to be installed, a realignment must be performed, and the repairs from the day before must be thoroughly inspected, but it's still operational. Physically, it looks exactly like it went through a twister.

There is little on the body that has not been damaged; the extensive number of hail dents, 103 from Lana's count when she inspected the vehicle for the details above, has made the top portion resemble the dimples on a golf ball. The roll cage is slightly dented in some locations but remains intact. Though heavily surface damaged due to hail, the roof rack and cargo box were unbreached, and our essentials were still on hand. The use of the bullet-resistant windows on the sides had proven their worth in the test they would have needed to go through to deem such. The forward and rear windshields, however, had taken extensive damage over the distance from St Louis to Fair Grove and were completely destroyed when we were in the wind field of the tornado.

Right now, it is a question of whether we had the time to finish the hail guards, whether the resulting impacts would not have weakened the structure so much upon its eventual shattering, or whether, even with the guards, the standard glass would have eventually given in regardless of the amount of debris impacts it had taken. The same could be said partially for the body itself, as extensive patching and panel replacements will be needed to avoid rust eating it further away or tearing it apart.

The current plan is to find any shop that isn't flooded with jobs to repair hail damage and could swiftly perform these repairs in the morning. The time estimate is between 6 am to Noon as the available time frame we have to work with before falling back further on time to reach El Reno by mid or late tomorrow.

As for us, the 'damage' varies wildly on emotional, mental, and physical.

The latter can be explained by using one similar word to encompass itself: exhausted, tired, drained, and beaten.

The nearly constant eleven-hour drive and its points of interest had taken their toll. Being in the van for such a period undoubtedly makes many feel restless. Despite being 11 hours from what was then shortened to an eight-hour trip, we are still over five hours away from reaching Oklahoma City. Effectively, it is a round trip from Royal Woods to Great Lakes City, but one way. Hopefully, we'll be in Oklahoma sooner to give some comfort.

As for mentally…

…

…

I… I can't accept that in my determination to chase after Lincoln to keep him safe, I failed to keep us safe. Every step since after St Louis was in the name of reaching him before he reached that next twister was putting us one step closer to being the ones taken out.

Lori did well trying to keep us calm, but I put on the collision course due to death itself. The twins, Luna, experienced the hell some had gone through before and forced those that had suffered before to be put into the same position, if not a hundred-no, a thousand times worse. It's one thing to hide in a giant brick building or a basement; you have so many more layers between you and that monster tearing at them, but yesterday, they all looked at it in the eye, and we all felt its ire. My guidance and Lynn's butting driving made me realize my earlier thoughts about all of us suddenly coming to one conclusion…

We are just ten sisters in a gloried van… trying to reach their brother, who drives a tornado proof- tornado 'resistant' tank. He's more protected than ever by his own hand and has the years to back up his decisions. He survived that hellspawn and came out still standing, advancing further into the world without knowing what it tried to do.

We're just a bunch of girls in a van who acted impulsively and didn't know what we were truly getting into, like all those times before that led us to this very point…

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. If that's the case, then what road are we on?

...

...

I should get back inside. The temperature is beginning to drop, and I feel that tomorrow will hold a different view of things.

...

...

...

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Tuesday, March 17th, Springfield, MO, 8:38 am…

Situated near the city's northern suburbs, the Red Roof Inn stood quietly in the morning light as the surrounding residents started or went about their Tuesday morning. Kids and parents heading for the city for school and work, the interstate a little busier than usual, and the sound of ten phone alarms going off in one room for the last eight minutes finally being silenced one after another heralded the relatively slow start for the family.

With the repair bills piling up fast, they had to start getting creative with how they spent their decreasing cash pool. While the hotel offered double queen rooms that connected to one another, they made another protested but non-negotiable decision to share a single room. With limited options, they pulled straws in who would take the beds or floor. The odds favored Lily, Lynn, and Lola in one bed, Luan and Lucy in the other, and everyone else tried to make do with blankets and clothes for makeshift sleeping bags.

Lisa, lying in the gap between the window and bed that held Lucy and her partner, was, unfortunately, the one in the perfect position that, despite the blinds being closed to keep the room as dark as possible, allowed the sun to send a beam of light directly over her face. Having silenced her watch alarm twice now, the third time worked with the light to undermine her efforts to stay away from reality, but one brief blink was enough to realize her efforts couldn't go on. Rolling to her side to block out the light from her vision, she reached under the bed where her laptop case sat in the darkness and dust. Sluggishly reaching for the handle to pull it a little closer, she clicked open the locks enough to come through the gap and fished out her glasses.

With a flick to open their arms and a little wipe of the lens off her shirt, the world became a bit more organized in her vision, but her mind was still three miles behind, trying to catch up. Rolling onto her back, the stiffness the floor brought felt like she was willingly tied to a slab of concrete that would only require the tiniest amount of effort to break them.

But as she heard the others groan and mutter about how their makeshift 'beds' did little to stop the pain in their sides, she lay there nearly motionless to death still. Breathing so shallow, her covers didn't move a centimeter, even with her hands crossed over the top. She just stared at the ceiling. Trying to wait for that part of her mind to catch back up…

"Dibs on the shower first!" Lori exclaimed, much to the protest and groans as they tried to get themselves untangled, avoiding bumping into each other to change or swarm the small defenseless coffee maker to await their turn.

Coffee… coffee sounded nice right about now… Something to unfreeze the gears and get moving… That's their biggest problem now. They were effectively stuck in Springfield unless they could get the van fixed in time, and the more the gears turned, the less hope she had…

"A week!? " Lori's shout echoed throughout the shop, making her shake her head to understand what had just happened.

Taking a quick look around, they were standing in the middle of an auto shop with Vanzilla 2 once again on a lift with the whole of some six mechanics, and the shop owner gathered around. Some tried to see where the damage started and stopped and how deep it went. Poking and pounding around and watching as bits of rocks and clumps of grass and mud fell out.

When did they… right... they found some fortune was on their side when the shop was just two minutes across the street after Luan pointed it out when they were walking out the hotel's front door. They had to limp Vanzilla through traffic to get it here, and it refused to start again. The handful of holes in the front that went into the radiator and they got the grand reveal of seeing how much mud wind could force into tiny spaces. It hadn't taken them five minutes from opening the hood to examine the results for the owner/head mechanic to drop his reply about how fast they could get it done, if at all.

Turns out, it was 'mostly' possible. The downside…

"We don't have that kind of time!" Lori pleaded.

"That's the minimum we can do for the major items." the owner flatly stated with his arms crossed, "It could take a day to clean out and see what else is wrong. Short or longer if we have to order parts. The windows would be easy, but it'll be another week on top of that to do the metal work. And if we do have to order parts, it might take longer."

Lori's face dropped, "Two weeks?! But that's-"

"Lori," Lisa said firmly. Lori looked down to see her shaking her head, knowing it wasn't worth arguing about the time. "What would be the estimated price range?" She asked the man. The last repair had put a significant dent in funds; this could punch a hole straight through what they had left to keep going. They'd have to wait until April for another chance, and that was too long for her. If they had to cut corners, so be it.

The man looked to the floor in thought, drumming his fingers on his arm before muttering, 'Be right back,' and headed for the office with another of his workers.

"Great…. Just literally, freaking great!" Lori shouted. Wandering outside, trying to keep herself together. Finding a lone pebble to be the unfortunate target of her ire, she swiftly allowed it to achieve momentary flight across the lot until skipping into the street and having a fraction of rest before a passing truck crushed it to dust.

"Every time we get somewhere in life, it just bites us in the ass, doesn't it!?" To fate, possibly answering her question about whether she wanted to or not, the owner came back out holding a slip of paper.

Stopping just in front of her and silently handing her the slip, Lori felt she was a second away from signing her soul away when she took it and read over the long list of estimated work, labor hours, and time to completion. Each was like an old cartoon with a character hanging on a literal wire as someone plucked each finger off. Towards the bottom, where a blank line marked for the vehicle owner to confirm the work to be performed, a time estimate of early-mid April stood under the five-digit price tag.

Feeling her stomach drop so hard she had to look away in fear of vomiting, she quickly handed it over to Lisa. The genius promptly scanned over the details, mentally finding where they could speed things up or hold off on fixing them. Still, she knew they couldn't afford to let Vanzilla 2 fall into the state the original was in. There was no telling what could happen if they broke down and got caught-

'No… not again.'

"Pen?" She asked, confusing the owner.

"Lisa, that'll cost-"

"I know the math, Lori." She said, handing the slip back, "We'll have to cross that bridge when we get there..."

Feeling it pointless to argue, Lori took the pen the man was offering and signed her name and their phone numbers. Knowing it'd be Lisa who'd want the constant updates on progress as she handed the slip back. "We'll call when we can get a solid estimate on work. Right now, we have a backlog of stuff to get through before we can take a thorough look." The owner gestured to the mess of vehicles sitting around them with shattered or missing windows covered in impact dents.

Understanding as much as she wanted to cry out, the two parties nodded and turned to go their separate ways. Standing out in the lot, surrounded by broken vehicles that felt they were purposefully positioned to look at them in pity, Lori ran a hand through her frizzled hair. Not caring about looks today, all she wore were shorts and a dark blue sweatshirt that made her look like some introvert dragged out of their room.

"Just great…" she repeated, feeling that the 'bridge' would be sooner. So, what's the plan for getting us there?" she asked, waiting for any semblance of an answer.

When she didn't get one, she turned to see Lisa with a blank but distracted look. Staring off to somewhere in the direction of the hotel. "You feeling okay?" She asked, shaking her shoulder lightly but getting no reply. Only briefly, her eyes flickered to hers, and she could see the stress festering behind those glasses. "*sigh* Listen, I know things were said last night, but-"

"This is the risk we take…" she said without her voice, almost like Lucy would say when trying to invoke her grim mood. Hearing this from Lisa was either a sign that she was losing her mind or a bad omen.

"Lisa?" Lori crouched down to her eye level.

"Every step we get closer is just us risking either our lives on the path or triggering something he can't escape from…"

"Lisa." She asked with a more vigorous shake, but she kept mumbling.

"If we keep this up, it'll come to an end we can't turn back from…." her words continued but faded into silence. Bringing a hand to her head, she felt like a force had just passed through her head. Her eyes were trying to refocus, and her heart was suddenly racing in her chest so quickly she could hear it in her skull.

"Lisa?"

"Right now… I'm questioning if that was bad coffee from the day before…" she muttered, and Lori couldn't hold back a soft laugh at the sudden turn in the direction she went.

"Where did that idea come from?"

"When the coffee back in the room only took six minutes to make and was clearer than it should have been." She answered, remembering she was among the last to get her morning caffeine. Nothing compared to the super hot black blood she used to drink back home. "I'll be fine. I… require some alone time to think…" Lisa trailed off again. Stepping away to look around for someplace that would work as a distraction.

"Lisa, I don't think this is the best place for it," Lori said in her big sister voice. Understanding that she needed somewhere to sit and let herself be, but they were in an unknown place. A wandering 13-year-old dressed like a woman in her late 50s was bound to draw some attention or make others not look twice.

But common sense on her part told Lori that after yesterday and the past years, Lisa was fully capable of handling herself (mostly…), and none of them really had a moment of peace aside from the brief time in the shower…

"Just.. . make sure to call if something happens, okay? The last thing we need is you disappearing on us." With a firm nod, Lori's fast but tight embrace took Lisa aback. The warmth shared between them in the split second of contact was an odd trigger to her mind when it whined about it being broken just as fast. "You've gotten us this far. I know you can do it."

As comforting as it was to feel that fire of sibling love they all had did help lighten some thoughts in her mind… Lisa could feel something was very off.

She could see that her oldest sister realized the same thing—that shared realization that something strange had finally clicked. She could see the sudden conflict in her eyes as if one thought had suddenly cut in line, and both were now two trains forced onto a single track. Lisa could still feel that comfort in her words, but there was an odd sense of worry that she couldn't pinpoint.

Even when Lori stood back and started to make her way to the street, that feeling only briefly started fading but still lingered. She looked back once to check Lisa, and for a moment, that feeling suddenly spiked again. Lisa could feel it; she knew Lori could feel it cause the second their eyes met, she quickly looked away. That feeling fell again, but the remains were somehow even more substantial.

Waiting for a gap in traffic to form, she made a B-line across the five lanes to the Conoco station on the other side. She made it to the grass patch and looked back to see Lisa still standing there, nodding once she was okay before turning back to wait momentarily to dash across to a Waffle House between the hotel and the shop.

Once Lori was out of sight, Lisa waited a few moments before walking north and up Glenstone Avenue, where she or anyone else had no idea. She knew what lay before her was less and less urban and thinning suburbia. A half mile more, she'd be out of the Springfield city limits, two miles further in with the forests and farms, and just three miles from that where a mile-wide gap of destruction had carved its name in history yesterday. A few yards further, the sidewalk ended in soggy grass.

Pausing at the feeling of her feet suddenly getting soaked, it didn't stop her progress, but it made Lisa stop to rub her eyes again and look at how far she had gone. Standing in the odd part of the street with a field to her right and a big blue church across the road, the place felt so… quiet. Very few cars came up and down, the noise from back by the shop had faded, and now the only thing she could say that was by her side was the warm, moist wind blowing in from the east.

Looking toward the sky, there wasn't a cloud in sight. Some white puffs barely made their presence known in the distance, but it was a blank blue slate. A perfect spring day for anyone in her position to go for a morning walk and enjoy the weather after the storms. Any sane, regular, free thinker would look up, wave to the sun, smell the early bloom, and take in a breath with a reassuring feeling.

She tried, and it felt more taunting than assuring.

Today was when someone like Lincoln would be hundreds of miles away. He had no purpose in sticking around even if he had taken part in search and rescue. With the whole city of Springfield descending on the area minutes after it cut through, she didn't find it unusual for him to turn away from the rubble and keep going. What more success he had after that first intercept hasn't been told, but with what that storm put down he was probably celebrating last night.

"And thus the cycle repeats with the odds in his favor…" she mumbled. Mentally noting she had been doing that a lot recently. There was so much going on in her technically still developing brain, and she was reaching the point where her thoughts were spilling out of her mouth without notice.

Looking away briefly made her notice how much further she had gotten in that little thought process. She recalled that it was almost to the intersection, a starting point for State Highway H. The church far behind and a shopping stripe quickly passing by, she came to a slow halt at threshold dividing the shops and another gas station that was devoid of any signs of life.

Lisa gave it no further attention, but a rumble in her stomach made her thankful that no one saw the tiny hint of red on her cheeks. Skipping breakfast wasn't the most wise choice after a stressful day. On the bright side, there could be good coffee in there to make her wake up properly.

Making the no-brainer choice, it was like the place was calling to her, pulling her into its domain that suckered in countless thousands for its place of convenience. She was inside before she could even open the door and was greeted with the same empty feeling the lot had given her. But it felt… tighter. Almost like-

"Focus, Lisa. Wake up first before deep diving further," she said to herself.

Walking towards the back to find the strongest brew they had. Joy washes over like she has discovered the fountain of youth. Pouring a small cup the second the dark life giver went past her lips, it… tasted strange. Not in lack of flavor or bad coffee; it was an upgrade from the hotel, but upon a second taste, it was like she wasn't tasting anything. She could feel the warm flow but not reach its destination… She shook her head. Chalking it up as just being too out of it still. It'd take some time for something low-grade to kick in when she was so used to drinking literal fire.

'Like she wasn't even human anymore…' a voice commented… that wasn't her inner voice. It sounded something more like Lynn or Lola would say. She could hear it exactly in both their voices, speaking together close by- "Focus… don't let yourself go crazy this time." She told herself, but it felt like those words were falling to the ground faster than they could reach herself.

'It's just the stress. It's just the stress…' Repeated as she took another sip.

"I thought it was about Lincoln?"

"No, Leni, that's not-" She stopped herself. Snapping around to where she knew for a fact she had just heard Leni speak. What stood there in the reflection of the cooler door was… wasn't her. It wasn't her eyes... Her hair, clothes. Some patterns she recognized immediately, but the order or combination didn't make sense. It… didn't make sense…

"I… I need to get back…"

Fishing out a ten from her pocket, she smacked it onto the counter and made haste for the door, but it became off. Every step she took felt more twisted. She wasn't moving forward quickly, waddling side to side like a drunk penguin that couldn't escape impending doom.

'He's still coming…'

'He won't come for us…'

"He won't, but we can still get to him…" she said, looking around, trying to correct no one. The closer she got to the door, the voices felt even closer.

'We're running out of time…'

'We'll never reach him…'

"Yes, but there is still a chance…"

'He's coming…'

'He's coming.'

"HE'S HERE!"

*PFFF-* Coffee went flying everywhere when Lisa heard the collective scream in her ears bring her to the floor. The cup slipped from her hands, rolling away in a puddle, the windows ahead splattered, her on her knees trying to hold her flaring chest. Coughing violently as what couldn't decide to stay down went back up. It was a tug of war to what hurt the most: her burning throat or the ringing in her ears. One hurt to physically move, the other mentally. Through each thought trying to understand what the hell just happened a violent cough answered.

"What in the-" She pounded on her chest. Trying to force a stuck air bubble trapped within that sent another burning flare up that she could only groan and spit out. "is happening…" From the edge of her vision, she could see movement outside. The top of a blue truck had pulled in. Stopping by the pumps as another came up right behind it. The voices she heard didn't ring in her ears anymore, but she could pick up a half dozen voices growing louder in the red.

Struggling to her feet as one step nearly made her slip back down, she grabbed at the edge of the window seal for support. Just in time to see the sunlight blocked out by… a Dow truck. In all its shiny blue glory, rolling between her and others. Another almost identical rig pulled right behind and vanished somewhere into the lot.

Barely making it into a standing position with her shoulder to the glass, Lisa was more surprised when more vehicles came pouring into the station. The blue trucks; they were probe units. Never mind the name itself on the front fender but the mass of a steel roll cage and mesonet on the top. Blue paint splattered with mud and grass that one person kicked off and made another laugh.

Two became four, four became ten, and ten became… it was practically endless. Each car was similar to another yet different, all sharing the same door logo as they drove by.

'Impossible' was silently spoken to herself. Lisa knew that these were some elements- no, the core fleet of Vortex 3. You don't get this many research vehicles in one parking lot and cannot see what they were. But to her, it was impossible. Joplin was the closest any elements of the fleet to Springfield, and that was a generous estimate. There was no functional or rational purpose for them to still… be…

The ground shook beneath her feet. The walls groaned, and the windows rattled. All talking ceased as one more vehicle rolled in behind the line. Moving behind the Probe trucks to the opposite side, it stood out like a gray monster reflecting in the sun when she could see a turret and instrument tower standing as tall as the radar trucks, pulling ahead just far enough to let her see that blue and orange twister on a shield when the door popped up and was pushed open. Twisting around in the driver's seat, a man slid out to the ground. Stretching himself as the others began to resume their chatter in double time.

Lisa tried rubbing her eyes to clear her vision but only succeeded in making them have sunspots blink in and out. The sunlight was becoming even brighter, and she couldn't see faces anymore unless they had a hat or sunglasses for contrast. Moving across the window like some lost puppy in a pet store display, she tried to follow the crowd. Seeing the white hair glowing in the sun like a beacon when it moved out from behind.

"Lincoln…" she said in disbelief. She saw him talking to someone, and then the whole crowd erupted in laughter.

"Lincoln!" She shouted. Pounding on the glass like a maniac to get his attention, he disappeared around the tank's other side. Growing frantic, she rushed for the door, but it could've been just part of the windows when no amount of force made it wobble.

"Grrrr-AH! Come on!" She screamed. Bashing with her shoulder, she might have just been a ghost in the wind when no one outside even turned towards the commotion she was causing. Putting everything she had into each hit was another battle of trying to scrape up every ounce of dormant adrenaline in her system to fight.

It yielded nothing to get her free, but with each shove and pull, she looked up to see where Lincoln had… he was looking right at her. She could make out the confusion on his face before he turned away to speak to someone.

But he had seen her. He had looked her dead in the eyes, and that was enough motivation for her.

"Lincoln!" She cried out again. Efforts become borderline animalistic in trying to rip the only obstacle away from running into her brother.

Lisa could feel her efforts beginning to be rewarded. The door became looser by the second with each push and pull. She didn't have time to think of bracing herself in which way she'd fall. Her eyes never left Lincoln's face as he moved around doing some task to his tank, but he kept looking in her direction while the confusion grew.

She could have sworn she saw his mouth silently move like he was saying her name. He completely stopped, stepping around the Probe truck through the crowd. Moving around the back like he was making a beeline straight for the door just as she felt the hinges and handle were moments away from breaking part.

"LINCOLN!"

"LISA!"

"GAH!" She flew backward at the power her name was spoken. But she didn't expect for her fall to be halted by the backrest of a chair nearly tipping over from her motion. Several hands reached back to stop her from finishing the plunge and slowly brought her back forward and stable.

"Jeez, what's gotten into you?" She heard Luna ask next to her. This time, when Lisa looked for the source of the voice, Luna was sitting there right next to her, confused and staring back.

"Probably that coffee we had. Sure as hell didn't taste like coffee…" Lana commented before stuffing a forkful of syrupy waffles like a wood chipper into her maw.

Adjusting in her seat, Lisa threw her glasses off to rub her eyes again. Wishing she had mental sandpaper to get rid of the roughness in her vision when she put them back on, she was confused when looking where they were now wasn't what she remembered. —sitting in the lobby of the Waffle House. Aside from the cooks, maybe three other people were scattered about having coffee or a slow breakfast.

For the ten of them, they had three tables pushed together with enough food to qualify as a buffet. A line of five on each side with her in the middle flanked by Luna and Luan to the right, Lucy and Lily to the left. Straight across sat Lynn with a crossed look. She was trying to look angry, slowly stirring her coffee while staring at Lisa like she was one word away from launching into a famous pastime for the establishment. But with Lori and Lana flanking her, she could see the hesitation keeping her at bay and the exhaustion that tempered her anger. She remembered the purer form of that from last night, why they were sitting separate, but for her life, Lisa couldn't remember how she got here…

"What… what happened?" She asked dryly. She pushed away what she saw as her coffee and snatched someone's ice water. Their protest was drowned out when she tipped it back and nearly downed the entire cup in two gulps but still felt the dryness.

"Talk about total blackout..." Luan quipped, munching on toast. "You and Lori left like an hour ago to drop the van off. The second you sat down and ordered, you just fell asleep randomly at one of Lola's tea parties."

"What…." Lisa muttered, trying to think of how the events lined up. "But that's… that's not… if that's true then-" she checked her watch. Seeing it switch over to 10 Am. They were gone for an hour… that was from when they left the hotel. It took more time just walking from the van to the shop. Lori had crossed the street in less than four minutes, and her own walk, an hour, would have put her to where she was next to the field and church. Unless she had mastered teleportation without remembering, there was no physical way she could have gotten back from that spot to here within an hour.

"Bloody hallucinations…" she groaned. Downing the last of the water before switching to her cold coffee.

Though across the table, Lucy's attention perked up, "Hallucinations?"

"Yes... I blame the mental stress finally catching up to me…" she answered, pouring in some sugar.

"It affects us all…" Lucy agreed, "But how was it that in 11 minutes, you passed out and started banging on the table like you were being attacked?"

Thnk* The entire sugar cup fell into the coffee, but Lisa's gaze slowly shifted her gaze towards the goth with a hardened look.

"It was about him, wasn't it?" Lucy said more in answer to her own question.

Lisa sighed, leaning back into her chair to gather her thoughts. At the mention of the combination and curiosity, the others eating slowly came to a stop. Knowing that Lisa discussing dreams was not even on the tier of strange things she'd talk about, they all paused and silently waited. "I… had broken off from Lori to clear my head. I walked some distance before coming to a station and got off to try to wake up. But I heard… talking…" Lisa wondered if it was insane of her to say that she heard their voices, but part of her said to edit that part of the script possibly.

"I looked outside and… Lincoln's team, practically the whole Vortex fleet, was arriving. Storm Shrieker was the last to pull in, and he jumped out. Mingled with the others like it was just another day. I tried getting his attention, but the door wouldn't budge. I was trying to break it down Lynn style, and for a brief moment… It was like he didn't recognize me, but the more I progressed, the more he began to see me… But for whatever reason, he appeared, or the door was not open… I should have been reasoning to know what was reality or not…" Ending her explanation with a taste test of her drink, the 70% sugar beverage made her wince at the overwhelming negative strength and taste.

"And when ago was this?" Lola asked, and Lisa rechecked her watch.

"From this exact minute? In the next twenty." She answered without a care in the world while everyone stared at her like she hadn't dropped a bomb.

"..." was the unspoken question some had in their eyes. Shifting uneasily in their seats like a fire was growing underneath.

"No," Lisa stated, hand held over her closed eyes. It didn't take any genius to know what they were thinking.

"But maybe-"

"It's not." She cut off the question, "It's a dream. A figment of my imagination. We might be dealing with some supernatural force in our blood, but that doesn't mean some stress-induced fantasy is predicting the future."

The hard silence returned, and Lisa welcomed it. Her head was still pounding, and the desire to find any pinch of aspirin was the new fantasy taking place. It might have been a bad idea to explain that. A nod and brief wave off would have staved off any desperate thoughts it triggered.

Just peeking through her fingers when the sound of eating resumed gave her the first moment in two days to 'properly' assess their conditions during the first three days.

For her, it was simple: she's been here before when trying to heal them and again trying to locate him. The cycle of stress followed by a gradual peace, only to be hit with disaster to start it all over again. Unless she could extend human life, she grew more positive in her years on this planet, which had shrunk faster in the last two alone.

But last night had changed a lot of what she saw in them.

They were exhausted, probably on par with the days shortly after November 10th, but she was happy they were finally getting the message. This trip wasn't just some rescue mission; it was civilians trying to wander through a war. The two opposing commanders of Lincoln and Nature were puppeted by fate in their show, and they were trying to cut the strings.

Nature didn't give a damn about anyone or anything. Regardless of whether they had escaped or not, Lincoln would have been celebrating in the eye while the better part of some 1500 people were losing their homes. If he intercepted or sat ten miles in the distance, it wouldn't change that town's outcome. If Waynesville had gotten stronger, what was the chance their day ended there and the storm failed to die and…

There are so many possibilities for total disaster for a single point of success. Forgot fashion or sports or some personal pastime; out here, a professional group could get one or two marginal successes while some redneck manages to get in the path of ten 'once in a lifetime' events. What they achieved in one afternoon could have been someone's whole year that could've ended in them going home in plastic bags.

This was the game they were in now. Not as players but as pawns trying to be. Yesterday… Lisa wanted to consider it their trial by fire, but that was only the second of three perspectives she saw. The 10th was the introduction, yesterday was the tasting, next time… if and when they catch up to Lincoln, she knew that it'd be with him they'd experience the third main course…

But even with all that added sugar, her coffee tasted bland when she took another sip.

"We have to wait for now… It's the only thing we can do now until the van is sufficiently repaired for long-term travel again. A week is our minimum timetable, and the hope is it could be repaired to last until El Reno."

"So that's it then," Lynn spoke up, surprising others in a way Lisa guessed she had been quiet all morning or was too out to realize it. "We just sit and wait. Because that's all we can do anymore, isn't it…." She stabbed at her stack of waffles. Gathering as much on the fork until shoving it down in such haste, you'd be excused for thinking she wasn't human.

Her glare meant to invoke the challenge for her opponent to become heated, was already faltering. Lisa gave her no more ammunition than simply staring back and taking another unsavory sip.

She knew the next week would be rough on all of them. Weather-wise, it was questionable, but the signs pointed to the quiet rest of the week so Lincoln would be back home where they knew. It'd be cutting it close, but getting the windows and engine fixed up to be road-legal was another small sacrifice they'll have to make to keep chasing dreams…

And what the hell was wrong with this coffee? After the fifth taste, you'd suck it up and either be used to it, but each sip only got progressively worse.

*Pfft* "Like eww! that's totes the worst pancake ever!" Leni spat out a blob of chewed cake onto her plate. Earning looks of utter disgust at a grown woman acting like she was 5.

Yet when Lana went for a piece of bacon on her plate, the second her taste buds made contact, her cheeks flushed with green as the stripe dropped from her grasp, and she dived for her water. Lori, Luna, and Lily all went for their coffee or orange juice, barely getting a sip before their eyes bugged out and tried, and failed, to have some dignity when letting what they had flowed back into the cup.

"What the hell is this!?" Lola exclaimed, holding a forkful of blueberry waffles half bitten with the rest in a crumpled napkin, "It's like all the flavor just got sucked out of it!"

Though feeling ironic, Lisa watched with confused curiosity at their reactions. Lucy was the next unfortunate victim; drinking water made her cough and look for a napkin to wipe her tongue off. Searching for something to test with, Lisa snatched a hash brown off Lori's plate, giving it a test sniff. Wonderful, if not a little cold to the touch. One bite and-

*PFFT* The flying piece disappeared into the coffee. Forget lousy food; it tasted like she had just bitten into sludge.

It didn't make any possible sense. In minutes, it went from them vigorously eating a good meal to being trash in disguise.

Lynn groaned, trying to handle a bite of her toast, but she lifted her plate mid-chew and spat it out. "So much for a good breakfast…" she said, pushing her plate away as the others followed.

"This doesn't make any logical sense…" Lisa murmured. Holding the remaining hash brown like it was a foreign element.

"What makes sense is I want my money back!" Lynn pounded on the table, jumping from her seat with red growing again, "Hey! What the hell do you… where did they go?"

The sudden change made them all look over to where the kitchen was—for a moment, still bustling with activity, completely dead silent. Not even a machine running or a sizzling grill with food on it. Just like the whole staff had up and quit in the last 30 seconds, the sound of them shuffling their chairs barely made a dent in the silence that hung over the place.

"Okay… totally not creepy at all now…" Luna said nervously, suddenly missing the warm feeling the place had.

Feeling her own nerves on high alert with adrenaline increasing, Lisa turned away to see the restaurant completely void of anyone else she had seen earlier. Everything was neat and organized like the place hadn't had anyone in for a while…

She ran towards the windows. Climbing over the booth like a dog to nearly press her glasses into her face. Focusing on the Conoco station across the street, she knew it was the only place she could physically take on a fleet of that size. They'd roll straight down the southbound lanes of the avenue and fan out to whatever fuel pump or parking spot they needed. She held her breath in fear of fogging up the window too much.

And she waited….

Checking her watch seconds later, between the time she 'woke up' to now was when she-

"What are you doing?" Lori asked.

"Waiting."

"For…?"

"For me to know if I've truly gone insane."

"I thought it was about Lincoln?"

"*sigh* No, Leni. It's not—" Her breath caught as she whirled around to the fashionista. "What did you say?!" she asked frantically.

"What?" Leni asked, frightened by the unraveled look her little sister was giving her.

"What did you just say!?" Lisa repeated, crawling back over to be closer as Leni backed into a table.

"I… I said I thought it was about Lincoln?" Leni repeated as told.

"Why did you say it!?" Lisa shouted to her. Making Leni flinch back as tears began to form.

"I-I-"

"Leave her alone, Lisa!" Lynn shouted, pulling Leni away like she was too close to a fire. "It was just a simple question!"

"Simple?!" Lisa repeated like she was hearing heresy. "Do any of you not realize what-"

Her words died when a new sound overtook her ranting. Slowly sliding off the seat to stand, she looked around to see her sisters gathered around her. Some were angry at her yelling at Leni, others frightened at her outbursts, but above all, they were quiet. Even Leni's suppressed hicks were silenced by the new sound. They looked for the source, but it felt like the whole building was rumbling now.

Her words died when a new sound overtook her ranting. Slowly sliding off the seat to stand, she looked around to see her sisters gathered around her. Some were angry at her yelling at Leni, others frightened at her outbursts, but above all, they were quiet. Even Leni's suppressed hicks were silenced by the new sound. They looked for the source, but it felt like the whole building was rumbling now.

Lisa dashed back to the window, but outside, no convoy of cars or trucks was pulling in. Not a semi-rolling by, not even traffic that would divide them. What they saw wasn't the same sunny world but one covered in a grayscale that hung like fog.

But it wasn't still like the silence. She could see it moving…

"Something's not right… Something's not right." She repeated. Turning away from the window and making a break for the door. The shouts of her name and the following footsteps didn't stop or dissuade her when she pushed through the inner door and rammed into the second. She heard something break, unsure if it was cracking glass or her arm. No pain told her it was acceptable to keep going, and even Lynn was taken aback by the scientist's brutality when all she had to do was grab the handle and pull.

Like someone who didn't know what year it was, Lisa ran and stumbled into the parking lot. Realizing it wasn't fog, but a light rain coming down. The wind it accompanied was strong enough to make the trees gradually sway back and forth, fluttering her clothes as she looked up to the sky to see nothing but a single, dark gray cloud that felt impossible with the amount of light surrounding them.

She had to shield her eyes, blinded as if carelessly staring directly into the sun. She latched onto the nearest object to support herself, trying not to trip down the stairs... 'Stairs?'

There wasn't even a curb to step down from. It was just… She could feel the 'stairs' groan under the weight of her body, pressing down the center from the little step forward, moving down like she was going down. Her grip tightened on the object in hand, feeling it… flex under her fingers. She could feel the direction of grain and bits of wood poking into her palm.

Where… was there even a wooden pole or stairs this close to the…. house?

Bracing against whatever she was holding, her other hand pinched her eyes. She gently slapped herself like a glitching TV that needed something knocked back into place, asking herself why she would hit herself. The fog gave her an answer instead. The light wasn't as intense as moments ago, either because she was under the shade of something above her or the clouds were doing something useful. However, stepping further down the steps, her eyes finally adjusted to see green.

Nearly endless rolling fields of green grass and browns from flowing wheat as far as the eye could see and the hills allowed. A road crossing her view was just within throwing range with trash cans and mailboxes sitting under a power pole that stood aside a gravel driveway leading up and disappearing to their left flanked by a line of trees. Following where it went, it disappeared around the corner of the house past…

The house… they were at the farm now. How was… They drove through the night. They swapped drivers three times to get to El Reno. Lynn was put off driving duty for reasons, and Luna took the first part. Once they reached Joplin, she switched with Lori until they were halfway into Oklahoma, and Lucy took over. She had stayed in the front seat while everyone else slept or couldn't sleep.

It had been… a week? No, it had been longer. Vanzilla 2 was still a bit of a mess, but after being rebuilt again, it was rolling better than before. They cleaned it up as much as possible, left Springfield the minute it was out of the shop, and just kept going…

They got here at night, but… what happened? She didn't remember waking up and coming out the front door in panic. Lisa panicked like a disaster was about to be missed, and they followed her out to the front yard to find… nothing. Just the morning mist faded in the light as a gentle wind blew it over the hill, making the grass glimmer in dew. It was warm for early morning, but the view was beautiful. Leni agreed it felt like something from a country fantasy, and Lana wanted to find a chair to sit on and enjoy a coffee out here.

But then that feeling of what was missing hit them all. Where was…

'THERE!' One of them shouted, pointing to a figure coming up the gravel in an orange sweatshirt and jeans, flipping through a handful of mail.

They didn't hesitate. They nearly tripped over themselves, stormed down the steps, dug their heel into the gravel sidewalk, and sprinted across the wet grass straight toward him.

'LINCOLN!' They shouted as one. Charging full speed, he barely had time to look up from reading a letter until their bodies collided.

"*OMPFFF* Easy!" Lincoln shouted, stumbling to keep the force of ten bodies from sending him to the ground and wrapping around him so tight his breath was taken away. "Ha! Easy! It's only 10; I'd like to be able to do some work later." he laughs, trying to adjust himself.

Hearing his voice... his laugh... there could have been an angel's choir singing a few feet away the most extraordinary melody ever heard by humankind, and they'd tell them to shut up so they could listen to him only. Feeling his chest bellow with each little laugh or chuckle he let out, she buried her head as close to his heart as she could. Focusing on hearing that beating song…

"You okay? You seem a bit… panicky this morning." He asked, drawing her attention away but giving her a new opportunity…

Mentally protesting, she looked… Up? Down? Straight ahead?... it was like being on a different plain. Sure, they were on a bit of a hill, but looking directly into his eyes, it felt like she was trying to stand upright, yet he was kneeling simultaneously. The sunlight coming from behind him didn't help, but it made him practically glow like a star, and the gentle wind only added to his mysticism with the edges of his silvery-white hair. He looked so much younger but older than she could have believed. There wasn't a single scar or blemish; his blue eyes were so full of life that you could sail forever in them like a ship on the ocean.

And that smile… That damn smile... she had only seen in photos and videos for the past few years wasn't something as pixels on a screen. She could feel him, hear his breathing, and…

She could stand here and get lost forever in his eyes and arms. There was something in them that she remembered from years ago, something so innocent. But now it was as if the last ten years had been spent refining its form. Even as the warm wind picked up a little more, fluttering her hair into a mess and face, he reached up, combing his fingers and pushing it free of her vision. Just feeling the warmth against her cheek, it was too much not to reach up and grab his wrist. Stopping him just to let herself rest in it.

This… this touched validated the hell spent in the last three weeks. Everyone else begged to have that feeling and crowded around, wanting to feel that same sensation without caring for whoever was around to see and think what they were doing. Just here with him and-

"Run." she heard his voice. Quiet like a whisper but flat and empty.

'Huh?' She opened her eyes, feeling like they had been closed longer than she thought as the warmth from his hand disappeared…

'Lincoln, what are-' she tried speaking but felt no words in her voice. She heard the others try to ask what was wrong and why they couldn't say anything, and she felt panic quickly bubbling in. She could hear exactly what she was trying to say, what it meant to question. Her lips moved to each letter she spelled out or cleared her throat to see if that would work, a little tongue dab to wet the lips or a deep breath to get her mind cleared, nothing.

She stepped back, looking over herself as if it was something else on her causing this, but all she saw was her regular clothes being blown around.

Lincoln stayed quiet, only taking a step back himself.

'Why?' She thought of using facial expression to convey the message, looking back to him for an answer. But she staggered back further, eyes widened in shock at her brother.

But it wasn't him anymore. It was, but… it didn't resemble what the shining young man she had seen a second ago was. His eyes looked like a soldier on the battlefield for so long; sleep was as rare as divine intervention. His hair was even longer, down to his shoulders, with much more gray that connected in his beard, making him jump from 20 to 50.

Scars by the dozens littered his face and exposed arms. All from little discolored nicks you get from scrapes to long, ugly dark marks like stab wounds carved and filled in with dirt. She only saw his arms from how his sweatshirt looked more like a torn gray windbreaker with an orange undershirt soaked to the skin with splots of blood and mud all over the place, flapping wildly now.

They had seen some of what he looked like in November, but nothing like this. It looked like he had just walked in and out of a twister. She could hear him heaving with each breath like he couldn't get enough if the wind had stolen his breath.

And the wind… it was getting stronger. Dust and dew were becoming airborne now. The trees beside them groaned under the sudden bombardment, the cans down the road disappeared, and the power lines swayed precariously back and forth. The light gave the land such a warm, welcoming feeling; it felt as if the clouds had finally broken apart, but the warmth it gave wasn't comforting. It felt numbing, like standing next to a furnace where only the glowing iron divided you from the flames, even when standing so far away.

She raised an arm to shield the dust from her eyes, but Lincoln stood there unbothered. Not even his clothes moved an inch when another strong gust sent a wall of dust flying across the field. Sandblasting through the trees, ripping branches apart and objects from unknown flying overhead.

She ducked down, trying to make herself as small of a target as possible with her knees pressed into the gravel. Arms wrapped around to protect her head and stay low, but she heard Lincoln scream in a voice louder than whatever the wind could hope to achieve.

In reflex, she looked up, half expecting him still standing there, the other him trying to fight through the wind, but there wasn't her brother or fields beyond that point. Replaced by the wide street and concrete lots, whatever overwhelming roar in her ears was replaced by the endless wailing scream of sirens coming from every direction.

"LISA! GET UP!" Lynn's voice screamed right beside her, and she suddenly pulled back onto her feet as Lynn tried to block the wind with her body. "COME ON! WE GOTTA GO!"

"WHERE THE HELL-" Luna shouted before being forced down again, hearing numerous glass and exterior panels from the restaurant exploding and ripping into fragments, flying in every direction.

"WE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE!" Lori screamed, trying to keep standing as she shielded Lily and Luna.

"WHAT ABOUT THE HOTEL?!" Luan yelled, turning to face the way they had come before. The others, feeling it was better than staying out in the open, turned to follow.

"BETTER THERE THAN HERE!" Lynn yells back, swapping around to lead her back.

The rush of adrenaline earlier felt like it had left a pit inside, and with a headache pounding in her skull like a jackhammer factory, Lisa tried to find her voice. Reaching up to hold onto her glasses, she felt another hand reach around; through the blur, she could see Luna holding onto Lucy, linking together so they stood as one big object more challenging to knock down. No matter the utter dust storm blasting into their sides, the shifting winds didn't-

'SHIFTING WINDS?!' screamed in her mind, silencing everything she was trying to process at once as dread coursed into her veins. Fighting against the pull and push of six bodies, she dug her heels into the pavement by the time they reached the street in front of the hotel.

She tried to speak, finding the word still failing to reach her lips. She put more effort into her block. Squirming in the other's hold, trying to break free or to slow them down. For a 13-year-old running in two different gears on the same transmission, it was its battle to keep herself standing when the others were trying to keep moving.

It was mainly in making Lynn frustrated again, "Dammit, Lisa! Come on! Now is not the-"

"HOLY SHIT" Lola's voice broke through to them as she staggered backward, dragging some down with her.

It didn't take a second to realize why: the dust and dirt exploded behind the hotel, with trees and roofs flying into the air. The dust swirled around and grew higher and higher as the hotel lights flickered and faded. Straight down the middle, the building disintegrated. The second floor was ripped away in seconds, with the sign next to it folding backward and crashing onto any car that hadn't been tossed away.

They broke apart, laying as flat as possible or on top of one another as the backside south winds sent anything close by flying overhead. Lisa nearly felt her glasses fall off when she looked up, seeing the circling cloud no bigger than the parking lot itself tear into the Conoco station. A parked tractor-trailer by the fuel pumps was instantly obliterated; the semi didn't have time to hit the ground when flung into the building. The backside, the CAT scale sign, vanished as what made part of a second floor erupted like a volcano blowing its lid. The front side folded inwards, sucked into itself before it was ripped out the backside adding to the maelstrom.

It surged across the street; cars stuck at the light, trying to get around each other, were given no mercy when headlights went skyward. Smashing into each other, tossed back, and flipping in the air into the tree line or buildings. Power poles exploding brought live lines down onto any vehicle trapped, sending more massive bursts flying through the air, sucked away as the storm moved around the backside of the auto shop Vanzilla 2 had been placed in. The shop faired even worse than the station; windows exploded inwards, and seconds later, the entire roof peeled away like a tin can.

Lisa watched as the debris cloud raced away. She tried looking up to see where the funnel cloud itself was, but all she saw was a literal hole in the clouds as if staring into the eye of a hurricane from space—a literal inverted tornado that led somewhere no person had truly been.

Somewhere she didn't want to see as she got back to her feet. The circulation was moving away, but the winds were only slightly decreasing. Even if they were in the trailing backwinds, the utter size of the rotation didn't make her second-guess that one invisible twister was the only thing it could drop. They needed shelter. Anything close was already destroyed or too exposed to survive whatever power that vortex had. Hotels and gas stations weren't even functional options. They needed to get low-

"Lisa?! Where the hell are you going?!" Lynn yelled as the scientist bolted.

"We can't outrun these things!" Lola screamed,

"We don't have a choice!" Luna countered. Not giving her a second more to give a different option, she ran back towards the restaurant after her sister.

Hurrying to avoid the dumpster from being caught and taking them out, Lisa hugged the building as best she could. Trying to use it as a block from the wind to come at their side, it worked a little until they returned to the windows, and the entire lobby where they were eating minutes ago was utterly gutted. She paid little heed except for where she stepped. With the wind channeling through the building, it was hard to resist grabbing onto the window frames for support and risking getting shards in her hands. She made it to the small brick divide that formed the front corner, taking in a deep breath to brace herself to later curse herself for not looking into better self-fitness, and ran a quick mental map to where there was someplace they could-

'Oh… My… God….'

Coming out from the corner to stand just below the destroyed sign, her eyes widened into saucers. She stumbled back, not from the wind but from how far she had to crane her head back to attempt to see where the top of the funnel connected to the storm. All she could see was the entire sky twisting.

Complete darkness stood where Springfield was, just beyond the hill and buildings—only broken by the brief sparkle of hundreds of power flashes illuminating the very bottom and lightning deep inside where no thunder could escape. It didn't even look like a tornado. It's not even one of those rare mega wedges you could see where one side gave the idea of its true size. The left side was charging east, but so many tendrils of horizontal or suction voices belched out of the funnel as if the claws of a demon were reaching out to devour anything it touched.

She couldn't see where a wall cloud big enough to give birth to this monster started or ended. Where all the funnels they saw beyond it spun down for the endless streams of tails feeding into the storm, they stood within the fringes of a clear slot separating the storm and the mesocyclone itself. Tens of thousands of feet into the stratosphere with no end except into a void as dark as a starless night.

'So why the hell was she running towards it?!'

Good question… Ask her why would any rational person be running straight toward a physical embodiment of death itself later when she could without running for her life…

"Where are we even going?!" Lori asked, stuping down to get Lily to carry her as she ran to follow.

"Overpass?!" Lynn suggests.

"No! Bad idea! We need to get lower! There has to be a drainage ditch somewhere!" Lana explained,

'There should be.' She could see the entire highway was becoming gridlocked. The shoulders filled bumper-to-bumper vehicles with a massive blob of cars and semis huddled around the bridge, extending as far as the ramps. People were running towards the bridge; she could faintly see some trying to crawl up the hill to maybe get beneath the-

"THERE'S ANOTHER ONE!" Leni shrieked.

"HIT THE GRASS!" Lynn screamed. Leaping over the guard rail and collapsing into the field next to them.

They all dove for the dirt, but Lisa hesitated a second longer. Watching a second/third tornado form from nothing and a swath of buildings instantly allowed the funnel to take on a dark brownish-gray. It started tiny but grew fast, from the size of the avenue width to the entire highway interchange. Power flashes only appeared for a brief moment when it surged onto the highway itself. The roar grew louder, but the sheer volume that followed from dozens of vehicles smashing together, dozens, maybe hundreds of voices crying out and being drowned or silenced.

She didn't go all the way down, sticking close to the concrete support for the highway sign. It gave her body enough cover to shield herself, but she couldn't look away. Holding a hand up to block the wind from her eyes, she could only guestimate it was quickly blowing 100-plus from her spot. The tornado passed directly over the overpass, barreling directly in front of them into more of the already-hit residential area.

And the winds only grew stronger…

That funnel was moving further away, but the monster ahead of them was still there. She could barely make out the top of the former, and the funnel had to reach almost a mile away from the higher sections of the rotation. It wasn't alone. She could see funnel after funnel, literal dozens circling what had to be the outer edge of the top base. Many quickly formed and were swallowed, trying to form out and arch across the sky. Some bending into themselves like pretzels, touching the ground for barely a full second before the half was ripped into the void, the other being split and merging to form new funnels.

Just a colossus spawning an endless spew of- "Behind us!" Luna shouted, but not in the frantic terror one would hear from the possibilities another voice was about to get them…

When everyone looked to see the direction she was pointing, they all turned back the way they came. Seeing a swarm of amber and headlights gathering around the intersection. Pushing over debris and weaving through cars, the same probe trucks, the same scouts, and the same pair of radar trucks rolled down either side. The latter turned like it was about to go down the wrong direction of the ramps, but it screamed to a stop. Keeping its dish locked in place, it pointed towards the more enormous moBetweenbetween them all, a mix of amber and green grew brighter, and a siren's wail came closer and louder.

Storm Shrieker was utterly flying towards the bridge like it was in a Formula One race. Debris sparked and crumbled underneath its wheels and chassis when it roughly jumped over the median to get around a larger debris chunk; in a blast of roaring diesel, the tank showed no sign of stopping, regardless of who or whatever was in front of it.

All of them froze like a herd of deer on the side of the road, watching in slow motion as it completely ignored their presence going straight for the-

'No, no, nonono!' Her inner voice screamed. Scrambling out from her cover, she tried to run after the tank. 'Nonono- Abort Lincoln! Abort!' she tried to yell out, but her frustration at the lack of vocal cords cooperating was replaced by the dreaded pit in her stomach, feeling like it had suddenly gotten even more resounding. It made her pause, grabbing her stomach like she could feel it forming within, but she pressed on. Running down the middle of the avenue as fast as her tired body and the wind would let her.

'Don't intercept!' repeated over and over. Focused through the small back windows of the tank, she could directly make out the back of Lincoln's head with a helmet and headset back on.

He got halfway across the bridge, and another vortice formed. Tearing apart anything the last twister didn't.

Shrieker picked up speed, and the funnel condensed.

He made it to the otherside of the bridge, into the space between itself and the next set of traffic lights.

It surged onto the avenue; the debris cloud couldn't keep up as the pure white funnel wiped out the intersection. What intercepted what was impossible to tell.

But in the second it took to blink fully, she saw Shrieker's brake lights flash, and the rear fishtailed. Ten tires failed to stop 9 tons of steel from sliding across wet roads. The vortex briefly lifted off the ground, hovering above the tops of the trees as the debris cloud regenerated. Storm Shrieker turned broadside, and the driver's side began to lift. All ten wheels left the Earth. In slow motion before her eyes, she watched it complete a full revolution. The instrument mast barely misses the ground enough to smack the antennas before it was 'upright' again.

It collided with the center traffic lights. The force was beyond enough to sheer the pole in half and catch the tank. It dropped back to earth, spearing its under chassis onto what remained and wedged onto its support column. It jostled in place, debris from everything bouncing off or spearing itself into the outer passenger armor. Something significant she couldn't identify smashed into its rear side, demolishing the mast and caving in part of the turret. The driver-side outriggers, the closest to the ground, were swinging outwards. But one was too high, and the other refused to extend. When the rods fired in their feeble attempt to anchor in place, one barely went into the road, and the other hung uselessly in the air.

And through the cracked windshield, she could see him.

Almost like her eyes had some special zoom-in function that allowed her to look just outside the windows and see the wider world, she saw him slouched over the steering wheel—slowly lifting his head away as he ripped off his goggles and headset. Undoing his chin strap, blood trickled down the left side of his face between his eye and ear, staining his hair. Tossing it to the floor, he leaned back as best the angle would let him; she could see his blue eyes looking around—confusion from the utter whiplash he had experienced.

He looked down, trying to grab the lock with a trembling hand. She didn't know how she could see it; she did know that his movement was sluggish. The angle the tank sat in meant he'd have trouble fully opening the door, but he could slip out through just enough. You could bear the mechanism engaging, but it refused to budge when he tried to put his shoulder to it. His focus hardened, but his panic increased. Trying to put everything he could to force it open, he tried to bang and kick it, but he only slipped further from his harness.

In a moment of his struggle, he looked up out the windshield. Even if there was glass and metal, and her mind told her there was a 1,663-foot gap from where she stood to his front bumper, they couldn't have stood no more than ten or fifteen feet away. He stared her dead in the eyes, shaking his head like he knew what she was thinking.

What she didn't think about before doing it was running. But the panic in his eyes only grew when every step she took brought her closer. She was in no way like Lynn, let alone in shape, but the hope her young body had that hidden reservoir of built-up energy ready to combine with her spiking adrenaline was driven only by her desperation. Every ten feet covered only turned into a hundred more. She reached the bridge, mentally checking off the halfway point, and Shrieker sat still. Lincoln was trying to say something, pleading with her to turn around, when she didn't stop.

She was 500 feet or less when the wind shifted. In an instant, she was staggering to a stop. A new force slammed into her back, putting her belly down on the pavement. A burst of pain flared to life on her cheek, and her hands flew to cover it. Wiping away bits of rock and dirt to feel loose shredded skin and the growing wetness seeping into her hand.

Bracing herself up, her gaze was taken away by the storm itself. The twister, whatever it truly was, was becoming deformed, with the 'center' of the funnel wall spinning out endless horizontal vortices. Some merged and formed coils that wrapped around the funnel itself, adding to the fog bank of debris. Others reached outward beyond, tangled into the funnels and forming literal loops of tornadoes. Several merged to form entire wind tunnels, trying to rip one portion of the storm away from the other.

Some struggled before being absorbed, but those who could keep themselves together pulled the same sections apart. In some moments, ten vortices were ripping a hole that didn't move with the rotation. If the twister was a void, the glimpses inside were a gateway to another world. More vortices riding the bottom edge feed it countless amounts of infrastructure tried to fill in the gap, but it was just forming the monster's lower maw. Endless rows upon rows of 'teeth' tearing the very earth just beyond the end of the road.

It was getting closer. Dozens or hundreds of cars were becoming airborne, disappearing before they could make a complete revolution before debris smashed into them. Sending it and whoever was inside deeper into the core. Whatever the first tornadoes had hit was being picked off; anything that still stood was being ground down, with entire sections of floors being ripped away one after another. It became so loud she knew that if she could speak, her voice wouldn't be heard by anyone anymore.

Her gaze snapped back to Lincoln, and she knew he could see the horror in her eyes staring back. For a brief moment, he stopped his struggle. Looking away from the door, it was like the glass and metal surrounding him didn't exist.

In every heartbeat, she felt its beating pulse in their head with every burning breath taken; he blinked once, looking her in the eyes. She didn't see the fearless brother she had seen so many times in the media, but someone far younger realized what was coming next and prayed that it wasn't true. Against her wishes, he looked up from the edge of his window. Watching the top portion of the storm hang over them like a wave ready to crash down and consume them next.

The winds grew, and she felt her breath becoming ripped away with every chance she tried to form his name.

She picked herself up and used what little she could get to run that final stretch. Lincoln frantically tried to get the door to move, but neither felt like they were close enough. She tried to use the wind to aid her, pulling everything toward that massive void and pulling her straight toward the tank. She kept low, trying to balance letting the wind give her that boost and not sweeping her away-

'GET DOWN!' screamed into her ears. Immediately, she turned and dropped. Feeling something huge cast a shadow and whirl over her.

She heard the sounds of metal on metal, glass shattering. She looked up to see Storm Shrieker take it head-on. The front guard crumpled into the radiator, destroying half the headlights. It rolled over the top, caving the windshield before ripping the turret off. The entire tank was forced backward, snapping off the remains pinned on for the back end and deforming the flaps underneath. A red splotch adorned his door window, blocking her view, but the glimmering red cascaded down where he was hit before dripping onto a torn orange shirt. His eyes shut tight, teeth-gritting, trying to stop it the best he could.

She needed to hurry. The tank was knocked further away, closer to the twister. What chance that hit dislodged the door, she didn't know except that he was too dazed even to try to move.

She edged forward. So very close…

Despite feeling like she could touch the metal, the land between them felt stretched and broader with each wobbled step they took. Hands inches away from latching onto the roll cage, but every step closer wasn't enough. She instantly pulled herself to the cold metal when her fingers touched it. Holding onto a road sign just a hundred feet away, it was barely considered a relief when the wind threatened to rip it from the concrete.

'Just-just hold on! I'm almost there!' she didn't know if that was for Lincoln or herself.

Trying to reach out like it wasn't so far away, she could barely see from her hair and rain blowing into her eyes anymore. Twisting her body sideways gave her a few more inches, but exposing herself more to anything smacking into her backside. She had to pull her hand back.

Tried to wipe away the dirt in her eyes and turn back. She could feel herself lifted up and see where the base touched the road and devoured the asphalt. Every building was swept clean; every tree, pole, and loose stone, anything anchored ten feet deep, was ripped out of the ground as if straw stuck in the mud. The grass all around her was disintegrating to the bare soil. Debris left on the highway, and whatever was still standing on the other side was being sucked in. Staying close to the ground before reaching the outer edge of the funnel and becoming launched by the updraft.

Despite its condition, Shrieker started rolling backward and almost showed full broadside until the brakes were applied. She jolted to a stop but was exposed to the raw inflow winds. What she was getting pelted by didn't matter as a tiny target, but shards of metal speared themselves into and through the armor. A pipe or sign found its way through the side window behind Lincoln and didn't stop until it was out the other side.

She saw him duck forward, covering his head, as glasses flew through the cabin. Some splattered over his shoulders as he slowly leaned back up. Looking over at her in a moment of stunned silence, he said her name.

She didn't get the chance to mentally generate the words before the wind became unbearable to keep her head up. She held onto the pole until she felt her fingers aching. Knowing that it was the only lifeline she had left from becoming airborne. But the sound of metal grinding caught her ears. Through eyes becoming teary, Shrieker's wheels no longer touched the earth. Slowly tilting forward with its lights shining down upon her. Flipping end over end twice, bouncing off the ground once, sending parts flying before turning broadside. Going nose-first into the void as the mass of funnels recondensed, sealing the hole as the wind began to die.

Going nose-first into the void as the mass of funnels recondensed, sealing the hole as the wind began to die.

The giant vortex became… disheveled. More gaps formed, and the far right edge was slowly becoming visible. The center was being pulled into itself, creating a kind of hourglass shape, tightening closer until it broke itself. The center slowly vanished, the top receding as the storm broke apart, and debris still spun around where the low pressure had been.

No longer feeling the wind trying to take her, she fought to let go of the pole enough to pull herself up. She braced herself on it as her wobbling legs threatened to take her back down. She was too focused on watching the storm disappear like a ghost in the sunlight.

She stood there frozen. Unbelieving of what she had just seen before her own eyes…

Lincoln… That storm… what… how…

Her aching ears picked up on something. Coming from behind, getting closer and louder.

She turned around, unsure if it was the others or a vehicle coming to-

In the last second she could turn around, twisted remains of something green and white bouncing off the bridge. Rolling right at her-

"AAAHHHH!" she screamed in terror, launching herself forward.

"AAHHH! WHAT!?" Another voice screamed in fright, dropping something that thunked against the floor.

"WHAT?!" Lisa shouted, unbelieving, whose voice she just heard. She surprised herself more when she held her throat and realized she could speak again.

"WHAT HAPPENED?!" Lori, she recognized, asked in panic, rushing to her side. Sitting beside her, Lisa felt the floor- the bed shift. How, why was she in bed? Was she in the hospital or… no. This wasn't a hospital room of any kind. It was still the hotel that had awakened that morning…

How… why was…

"Water…" she asked with a dry, hoarse voice that hurt to take a deep breath. She felt Lori jump from the bed, grab something, and run to the bathroom. The sound of running what felt like its own music, and when Lori returned holding the most oversized cup she could find, Lisa snatched it and downed it like she was on the verge of running out of life.

Before she knew it, the cup was already empty.

"More…" she asked, feeling the burning tamed but flaring when she spoke. Lori did it again, bringing back a slightly colder cup, but went a little slower the second time. Tipping it as far back as to get every drop, part of her was tempted to throw the cup away when taking deep breaths to catch up.

She handed Lori the cup, placing it on the nightstand between the beds, and sat facing Lisa with a worried look. She let her sister take a moment to get her bearings and rubbed her eyes to clear the dirt and dust from them.

"What… what happened…" she asked, her voice better but thinking she'd really need some more water later.

"That's what I want to know…" Lori admitted. Unsure how to ask about what had just transpired given this was Lisa she was having to talk to about what she had gone through. "What do you remember?"

"..." Lisa looked down, closing her eyes to think for a second before they sprung open, and she launched herself out of bed. Tripping over the second bed as she crawled over it, clawing at the curtains to rip them open to see an… untouched world as it was when she woke up this morning.

"I… recall us dropping off the van, and I went for a walk to-"

"No," Lori said, shaking her head.

"No?" Lisa repeated, looking back at her confused.

"Keep going…"

"..." Lisa stared at her blankly, wondering what she meant by that. "Then… I… woke up at the restaurant. We were eating breakfast." Lori nodded, urging her to continue. It was fine before the food became horrid unexplainably… and the fog outside formed…" Lori's nodding turned to shaking.

"Anything else?"

'Yes, but how does a rational intellectual like myself explain what the hell I just witnessed?'

"..." She shook her head. It must have been the signal Lori was waiting for before adjusting to face Lisa directly.

"Lisa…" she started but paused, giving herself a moment to straighten all her cards, "You… I'm pretty sure you just had a panic attack."

"...what."

"I know I'm not qualified in any way to say what it was. That's really your department, but from how you were acting and screaming until you passed out, we weren't sure if we had to call an ambulance or not."

Slowly, Lisa walked back around to sit herself across from Lori, "...elaborate."

Lori took a deep breath. "Okay… you said you went for a walk. Where?"

"Up the street to Kum and Go gas station," she answered, but Lori shook her head again.

"We went to the restaurant for food, and you fell asleep in your chair. Remember we had to keep you and Lynn separate after your fight last night?"

Last night… yes. She remembers that very vividly…

"Then you started whispering Lincoln's name over and over like you were having some kind of a twitch. You woke up and banged your head against the floor before we could catch you. You started saying things about Lincoln's fleet and the fog. Yelling at Leni and crawling over the table before you ran outside."

Yes… she remembers that… It was right before she-

"You collapsed in the middle of the parking lot. Keep lying down and covering your head until you try running to the street, screaming No! No! Just hand On! as loud as possible. We had to chase you from running into the road, but once you hit the grass, you… just… dropped." She held her fists up and dropped them towards the floor like dropping something heavy.

"We didn't know what to do. We brought you back inside. The staff tried to help, and one said that you might have been overwhelmed or something. Me and Luan took you back to the hotel, and… we've been here since then. One of the cooks said you might have needed rest, and from how out of it you were, it seemed they were right to some degree."

Sitting quietly, Lisa eyes the empty cup, wishing she could have another drink as her throat and lips become dry again. Processing the details, she saw how events would line up to lead her to being in that bed.

"How long have I been out…?"

Lori pulled out her phone, checking the time, "About three hours so far. Everyone else is still back at the restaurant, trying to stay occupied. So what happened? You kept tossing and turning like you were trying to run from something…" she asked, seeing the deep thoughts turning the gears in her mind.

She was, but from what exactly, she had no solid idea. It wasn't running from; she was running after it, and it was her brother trying to stop him from- She suddenly held the back of her head, feeling a headache that suddenly flared up from behind her skull. Questioning why that part instead of the other, she remembered Lori had said she banged her head on the floor from falling…

Was it… was it really all just her mind… Seeing so much in her short life so far, the after-effects of yesterday's form of adrenaline, all the stress… "It's… it's very possible I may have experienced an… 'event', but I believe it was more to mental exhaustion…"

"You're overworking yourself again." Lori clarified. A sad look made itself visible as her memories from last year painted a gray picture before her. Before Lynn, she was sure Lisa was on the verge of giving out. She believed it was the pure chance that the time between Lynn's accident and Lincoln sending that letter was the real reason Lisa hadn't worked herself to death yet…

"I know…" Lisa admitted, recalling past conversations she's had with everyone in the family not to let herself be dragged down to their level. That encouragement helped, but it can become overwhelming and overshadowed when there's so much to be done.

"I know…" she rubbed her eyes, feeling her body aching. "But this trip… Yesterday…"

"I know, Lisa. I know…" she reached over. Gently squeezing her shoulder, knowing what yesterday had done.

A knock at the door startled them for a second. Then, the door opened to reveal their goth sister, in a black long-sleeve shirt and white pants, with her hair tied back, stepping in.

"Lucy?"

"Luan is asking for you."

"She is?" Lucy nodded once. "Why didn't she call?" Lori asked, checking her phone. Seeing no missed calls or messages, Lucy just shrugged her shoulders.

Sighing, Lori stood up. "Watch over her for me?" Lucy nodded again, and Lori headed off to find her sister. She closed the door behind her and left the two younger siblings alone. Both mentally counted to eleven as Lucy walked around to occupy Lori's previous spot.

"Details."

"We were in an outbreak. One had taken out the hotel and surrounding intersection. We were running to the highway to seek shelter in a storm drain before Lincoln passed us, heading for a larger circulation inside the town."

"And Lincoln? Did he…?"

Lisa remained quiet, and it was enough of an answer for Lucy to understand.

"Whatever that… thing was, it wasn't a normal tornado. In no meteorological functions was it something that could be possible even if all favorable conditions were met, turned over to 11, and twisted over a second time…"

Lucy sighed, slowly nodding her head. "Then the hope of removing him from tornado alley is not a viable option anymore…"

"I'm afraid that moment has come and gone…. Even if we put him in cryosleep in the center of the moon, I doubt the curse won't send something either way, regardless if it involves the weather…" Lisa sighed. Looking over her shoulder to peer out the window to the bright and sunny world.

"The season has just begun, and we're already running out of time…"

---

(Note: These AN notes are written before, during, and afterhand to convey my thinking. Not based on what's changed, reviews, etc., and is borderline me ranting out loud my way of thinking.)

Hello everybody, my name is Blonk Ess, but you may call me Blonkess. If you're reading this then that means we both have survived the transition of time around the sun once more, it's halfway through the decade, and from now have seen what the first three months of this year have given and realize we have nine more to go.

(God have mercy on us all… Hell I can't tell if he had any for me.)

So two things:

First: I'm a little early with publishing this chapter. At the time of this section being written its almost 8pm on March 10th while I'm at work, a full 21 days before the story's third anniversary and planned release day. The reason for this is because while searching for some background noise, I found a video about the Tri State upload the day before and how its been exactly 100 years since the event.

Naturally, I do tend to publish chapters out of sequence when close to a major past or ongoing event (like the 2023 December Nashville Outbreak), and what is more major than what people think of as the Grandfather of all tornadoes?

With that said, its debatable if I will keep to my little tradition of posting on the 31st, start my 20 day period from now, or start after the 31st do publish as planned.

And Second: After the near total burn out of writing Chapter 36 up until 7 in the morning, I told myself I'd take a break once it goes live. Turns out that was a lie as I immediately started working on this chapter and preparing the next two during work on New Year's day just to burn time until I published it. So you're reading something that's now about 3 months old already. In a surprising but welcoming turn this chapter only took a passive 15 days to make, and with some number crunching it made me rethink my numbers for how many I can do back to back this year.

But in any case, this chapter made me really rethink things as I was hoping to get it finished within 15 days as it seemed to be on track to, but come Jan 14th I'm on the last 5k words to what would be more of the last section of the 'dream', I had originally written a rough outline from years ago like other parts of this story, but because of how I started this chapter in Lisa's POV it gradually evolved into something so different I just used it as part of a template. It became a bit of a mind-numbing, so I started about halfway through, got about 1.4k words, then realized, 'No, this is bad,' and spent the bulk of the 17th and 18th writing out a completely new outline that itself became a thousand words and didn't even get used 1 for 1.

Eventually, I started looking at it more as to what some kind of 'dream' a person would get from past experiences. Slowly, it came to the idea that the mind was stuck walking in reality so much, dreaming of what they desired to put to rest, that they forgot the strength of what something so traumatizing and so recent would put the emotional spectrum into chaos. You'd think it was normal and you still had control, but the more you try to stay in control the more chaotic the situation becomes. Hell, the whole 'food becoming tasteless' was just a passive idea until I looked it up and found out it actually is a symptom of what nightmares cause to people.

Eventually, I looked back into what Chapter 26 was built as, and at first thought to keep it as Lisa only, but when you have a family this close share the same ideas and experiences, it could feel like many were just one person. (thus why 'She' is used a lot and why every sister is named like there's an 11th person present.)

I gradually thought back to Chapters 26 to 30 and more of my previous statement about the sisters experiencing the tornado like that and how it'd affect them. Lisa's part in the beginning was to serve as a kind of recap for everything that's happened since Chapter 31 for those wanting a somewhat pov to the last 100k words. The 'nightmare' being a cross idea of 26 and the 'lake vision' from 30. As such, this whole thing is built more wonky as its the mind of a intelligent child utterly losing a grip on reality.

The sequence itself was interesting in that I originally had it started with the cut 3k section from the last chapter that technically would have bridged directly into Lisa's Lodge, but as I developed the idea further, I felt I could retool it for two separate parts. The whole situation going from normal and emotionally charged to absolute chaos was part of me thinking about how bonkers Lincoln's dream went and put that in the collective mind of 10 people.

At one part, it would have completely skipped the morning and had them somehow in El Reno, and then hell gets unleashed. Of course that'd break the sense of build up, so it started more grounded before running away like in dreams you start out with 'normal' control on life but then every action you try to do becomes harder and harder to change what is happening. Another is having a solid opportunity to look into the psychological aspects of chasing and what people experience when witnessing and experiencing a tornado up close and personal.

Though truth be told, I do feel this is one chapter that if I ever get a solid idea in the future would probably go back and rewrite the later third and add in a secondary piece that was to follow straight afterwards. For now, the time is drawing near when both sides will finally come face to face after all these years and turmoil.

But will it be what the sisters hope for, or will it be them taking two steps closer to hell?

(Note: These AN notes are written before, during, and afterhand to convey my thinking. Not based on what's changed, reviews, etc., and is borderline me ranting out loud my way of thinking.)