Broken

Note: This story is something I wrote for my English class. Hope you like it!
It was a late night as I sat down in the family room and flipped on the television to watch my favorite show, Shark Tank. However, as soon as the black screen flickered to life, I noticed my show wasn’t on. It had been replaced with a Severe Weather Warning, with the meteorologist shown describing a high risk of storms and tornadoes for my area that same night. At that moment, my mom walked into the kitchen and I told her about the risk, saying she should get the flashlights ready in case the power went out.
“Who do you think you’re fooling?” She said. “These things always miss us, we’ll be fine.” She then turned and walked out, bringing an abrupt end to our brief conversation.
Well, later on, that statement verified as false. Within five minutes of her exit, I saw a bright flash outside that lit up the whole house, followed by thunder that caused the pictures on the wall to rattle. I ran over to the window and peered out the closed blinds, seeing the trees waving wildly in the growing gale. Looking back at the TV, the weatherman was now saying we were under a Tornado Watch - meaning conditions in our area favored tornadic development. Inside I began to panic, my thoughts racing a mile a minute.
Could it really happen here? Will we actually get a tornado? I thought to myself.
Then came the rain, which was sudden and stentorian. I stepped back from the window as the raindrops hammered my house, slamming against the siding with the force of what sounded like small bullets. My eyes were lured back to the hypnotic glow of the television, which now depicted my TOWN was under a Tornado Warning - meaning a tornado was on the ground and on its way to my house. I screamed to the rest of my family upstairs to get to the basement. As they came thundering down the stairs, we heard a loud crashing noise, observing a sizeable tree limb come through the plate-glass window in the dining room. My younger siblings panicked and we all hurried to the basement together….just as the lights went out.
In the basement, we huddled together in total and complete darkness. Upstairs, the wind obtained a frantic quality, growing to a deafening roar that made my ears pop. The sounds of things blowing apart lasted for only a few minutes, but felt like hours. My siblings were screaming their heads off, thinking we were under attack. In a sense, we were. Our house was under siege by a tornado. I just tried to close my eyes, cover my ears, and blot out all the ensuing chaos.
At some point during the night, I fell asleep. I awoke to find the rest of my family relatively unharmed and asleep, so I quietly snuck away and walked up the basement stairs. The door at the landing was missing, exposing what sat beyond.
The structure of the house was still standing, but it was badly damaged. The walls had been blown off the building, allowing the winds to rip through the edifice and toss everything inside around. All our furniture was upside down. Decorations were smashed, pieces covering what remained of the floor. Wires hung out of the ceiling. The flatscreen from the family room had been carried off the entertainment center and driven through an interior wall in the same room. Externally, I was speechless and motionless. I just stood in awe of the destruction. Internally, I felt overwhelmed. Mad. Dejected. Confused.
Why did it have to be us!? Why!? I screamed in my head, not realizing I had just escaped this mess with my life.
At that moment, I broke down. I fell to my knees and just cried as every emotion hit me at once. This was all just too much for a person my age to take. That moment, the flashbacks to the night before hit me like a train. Seeing the TV. Listening to the roar of the wind. Feeling like I was going to die. I then got up and ran to the bathroom, which was still intact and relatively unharmed, and buried my face in my hands and cried.
Approximately a year subsequent to the incident, we are still trying to recover. While our house and belongings were repaired and replaced, the memories did not go away. Every time a storm comes I worry that what happened a year ago will occur again, and I just want to live in peace. These memories have become my demons; they haunt my dreams, my thoughts at any given time. While my mom takes us to counseling and therapy to alleviate these problems, I don’t think they’ll ever go away. They are here to stay, for the rest of my life. However, I try not to let this emotional baggage impede my lifestyle, regardless of how hefty it is - as I still attempt to get out as much as possible and tell people of my experience in a tornado, and more often than not they’re amazed, which is actually quite relieving for me - just having someone to talk to, to lean on.
Category:Hypothetical Stories
Category:Stories