Author’s Note: The beginning where we meet our players. See you next week!
The expanse of green and dark grey haunts my vision as I look out the bay window in the library. I run down the hall nearly falling as I yell, “Everyone in the shelter!” There is next to no hope that we’ll actually survive this there are four twisters outside that window. And they are all heading our way.
“Rita, what’s going on?” my youngest sister, Rain, now running beside me. “Why do we need to go to the shelter?”
“Twisters, all heading our way.” she brushes her long, currently bright blue, hair out of her face and nods.
“What about the animals? The cats? The dog?” I heave a heavy sigh.
“Alright,” a sharp whistle emits from my mouth. “Puppy! Here boy!” we had let our baby brother, Robert, name the dog. Our seventy-pound German shepherd comes bounding down the hall. “Good boy.”
“I’ve got the cats!” Allison, our neighbor, and my best friend, is running down the hall arms full of our three wiggly cats.
“Thanks, Al.” She winks at me as I struggle to open the shelter door. A musty smell reaches my nose as the air that has been trapped in our shelter basement escapes “Where are Robert and Randy?” naming my older brother and the baby of the family.”
“Randy is hauling it to get back here before those twisters reach us. Robert and Danny are with him.” Allison places the cats into the special crate I had built for them in the shelter. Luckily it had enough room for them to play, eat, and enough room for a litter box.
“I hope mom, dad, and sis are alright.” I look at Rain. I have not had the heart to tell her the rest of our family are not on an extended vacation.
“I’m sure they’re fine.” I try to keep the bitterness I feel for the parents who had been, by all appearances, loving towards us. “We’ll try to get a call through to them after the storm.” Randy and I had made the executive decision to not let the younger ones know that our parents took our sister Annabelle, obviously their favorite, and left us on our own. They left a note they aren’t coming back; simply because we have powers. Annabelle has successfully hidden her powers. Nobody of our generation had avoided the curse.
“There are our boys,” said Allison pointing. “Randy hurry up we’ve got to close the shelter.”
Randy comes panting in shoving Robert into my arms and working with Danny shuts the door. Twister number one is getting close. I hear the wind picking up speed and ripping noises that could possibly be… Randy interrupts my thoughts. “Rita, we’re going to lose the crops!”
“We’ll figure it out we’ve got whatever is down here with us, the seeds, the harvest, and I have the savings I can use.” I try to hide my worry from our younger siblings. Luckily for us, Al and Danny have been helping us feed them. I have been getting a little bit of my savings out to pay the bills. Thank goodness our grandparents sensed the evil in my parents and left their money and the farm to myself and Randy respectively.
“Gram wanted you to use that for college not keeping us alive.” Randy is never good at hiding his emotions.
“I know but what is the point of having college if I don’t have you guys? You three are all the family I have left.”
“What about mom, dad, and Annabelle?”
“Yeah?” I cringe as I realized that Rain and Robert have been listening to us, “and why are you using your savings?”
“A few days ago,” I begin and I can’t finish. Al grabs my hand and her strength pours through my body. “Thanks, Al. A few days ago a letter addressed to me came in the mail.”
“Yeah so?” Rain is obviously furious, her blue hair is changing to red, “What’s that have to do with Mom and Dad.”
A tear slips down my cheek and I can’t finish. “Mom and Dad aren’t coming back.” Randy finishes for me. “They are convinced that Annabelle can live a normal life because she has hidden her powers from them.”
“How could she do that Annabelle doesn’t have powers.” Rain asks.
But I know what her power is and how she is able to hide it. Her power is mind manipulation and she is the same as mom and dad because they have spent the most time with her. They are all evil.
“But I thought they were getting better.” Robert starts crying, the youngest of us all, he still believes that evil can be good again.
“I thought so too,” I lie and the electricity goes out and I can hear the twisters above us. We huddle together in our basement shelter, hoping that we’ll be ok.