The Cyclones

It all started in a small town. I lived on the edge of town with my grandparents. My house was a lovely two story house, with a badge siding. The shutters around the windows were a rusted red color. The house was rectangular in shape and wider horizontally than vertically. The bottom porch was a finished red wood which was painted the rusted red color to match the shutters and wrapped around the bottom part of the house. The living room had clear, double glass doors that led out to the porch. Additionally, the porch was screened in with a glass storm door that was outside of the front door.

In my narrow kitchen, I was sitting down to eat with my grandparents, my friend Paul, my friend David, and David's pug. My sister joined us along with my brother. My youngest sister was at work. I was arguing with my brother about a Futurama themed Adventure Time when we looked to the left of the wall. The wall used some kind of video game logic. when there was a threat of some sort, the wall would become see through, so that we could prepare for the threat. I looked up and the wall was gone, revealing a very wide and scary tornado.

The tornado was about five miles in width, darkish brown in color, and very, very terrifying. What was even more terrifying was the realization that we did not have a basement. My grandfather rushed outside to the porch, where the tornado's wind was already picking up and secured the storm door that was opening and closing with the wind. He inserted a key to the door which brought up a computer program, using the door and a screen. He input some numbers and his code. A voice thanked him and he ran back inside, securing the second door. He yelled at all of us to get down under the table and to hold on.

I grabbed David's pug with one arm and grabbed the table leg with the other. Then, the tornado hit and everything seemed to slow down and happen in slow motion. All of us were anchored down by grabbing onto the table but there was still enough force to lift all of our bodies off of the ground. My grandfather shouted at us not to let go for anything. The fact that my body was suspended in the air while holding a pug was quite difficult.

David glanced over at me holding the small, scared dog. The computer program was working as designed though, the house was still in tact. Finally, we were being lowered back down and the tornado made its way back into the clouds. My grandfather asked if everyone was all right. I nodded and told him that I was going to take a walk to check on our neighbors. He agreed with me and proceeded to help my grandmother back into her chair. I entered a code on the storm door and it released, leaving me free and out of the house.

I walked about a quarter of a mile, looking at all of the damage done to the houses whose families did not pay extra to the federation for the storm door. When you were living on a planet like this one, the storm door was well worth the investment. I had almost made it to the railroad bridge before I saw them. As I turned around and looked, there were three water cyclones that had formed in the lake a little further down the street from me but they were heading my way and quickly. There wasn't enough time to get to the bridge for cover. The cyclones were getting closer, passing over cars in the road, sucking up up, and spitting them out like candies.

Three cyclones, I thought, I'm not going to get to say goodbye to my family because of three cyclones. Then, it's as if they passed through me. The cyclones left everything in black and white that they destroyed. I died. It was quick.

As I lay there dead, my body started flashing red, in contrast to the black and white environment. The next thing I know, I'm sitting at the long dinner table with my family, playing cards. I see that both of my wrists have these weird black metallic cuffs that have wires hooked up to some sort of battery. My brother noticed the light (or life)in my eyes and explained that the three cyclones had killed me and most of the town. He was able to bring me back but told me that my life came with a price. I had such severe brain trauma and damage from the cyclones since I faced them head on and without any kind of shelter or shield, that I would never again be able to make my own decisions again.

He demonstrated this by pressing one of the many buttons on the battery and I played a card. He told me that the fashion cuffs were the receivers for the commands. Finally, he looked me in the eyes and apologized for doing this to me but he just couldn't let me go. I pressed a button on the battery that let me hug him and I said, "let's play some cards."

The End of the World

I dreamed that I was a little girl whose father was a doctor/scientist. He was working to develop this vaccination for people, but somehow it went wrong.

My mother was a very loving person, but somehow, she was the one the vaccination was tested on. She ended up getting very sick, almost with SARS like symptoms. She was very pale.

I wished that I could help her, but I didn't have a cure, and neither did my father. It was VERY contagious. Somehow, almost everyone ended up with the virus...then my father found a cure.

If you had these three rings together (and NO, I had not watched Captain Planet) then it would get rid of all of these mutated versions of the virus. I had a friend who went with me to help me find these pieces of jewelry.

Every town we went to looked wrecked. There were cars piled up and wrecked in the street...trains that had been stopped suddenly with the windows blown out...and NO ONE in sight.

My friend ended up dying of the virus and I was the only person left alive...or so I thought...I didn't know how I had escaped this blood bath my father had created...even he had died at the hands of his own creation...but I lived.

I found a guy by this pond that had lived through it all also. We sat down and started talking to each other. I cried. He had the last ring... but it was too late. We were alone.

The Spaceship and the Budget Committee

I was on an abandoned space station. How did I get here? Where was the meeting? I had a crew of six - and we were all out searching this abandoned facility. We were told to meet here by the federation of the planets to go over some budget changes that would affect our missions.

I motioned to my crew to spread out. I went into this room and saw there was no one there. I was hesitant to turn on the lights, should that attract unwanted attention.

Before I could leave, I heard soft crying. I followed the sound and found a little girl. The girl was smallish in size and couldn't be more than eight. She was huddled in a corner of the small room, hidden behind some linens. I grabbed her hand and put one finger over my mouth to tell her to be quiet. There were monsters orbiting around this station and the last thing that we needed was to attract attention.

I crept down the hall, still holding the girl's hand. I found the hatch where our spaceship was docked. I was about to sneak the girl onto the ship when a monitor flickered. Then, a hologram popped up. It showed a space ship, shaped like a shark. The biggish shark shaped ship was surround by smaller, shark shaped ships. They were approaching rapidly. My crew must have set off a silent alarm. We were going to have to fight our way out of this. I would have to hide the girl somewhere else because the first target would be my ship.

I maneuvered the little girl into a closet nearest to the ship. There was no point in being quiet anymore. I tapped the communicator button on my shirt and spoke to the other crew members.

"Hold on guys, we've got company!"

Then, we heard an explosion on the lower levels of the station. I made sure that my gun was loaded and motioned to the others to double check their guns. Then, they sprung the fight on us. There were gun blasts, death cries, and blood everywhere. I managed to lose one crew member already.

"What do I do now?" I asked myself while still firing my gun.

Just then, one of my crew members Justin, came out of the ship on his motorcycle. He started riding in circles and blasting the enemy with the missiles on the side of his motorcycle (which turned out to be shark shaped aliens with water helmets that allowed them to walk on dry land).

This was our chance. I grabbed the little girl's hand and picked her up. I would hand her off to Justin so that he could get her to the ship. It all happened in slow motion. When I handed her off to Justin, while both of us had her in our arms, she was shot in the stomach twice by one of the enemies. Louise, part of my crew, saw this and shot the alien in the face, rupturing his helmet which made him suffocate.

The little girl started gurgling blood.

"No! No! NO! Stay with me! You hear me? STAY WITH ME!"

I shouted at the girl. I put her on the ground and I started CPR. Justin came up behind me and put his blood stained hands on my shoulders.

"She's gone. There's nothing you can do. Let's go."

I looked at the girl. She was turning a pale blue. Her eyes were open, staring at me, empty.

The Forensic Pathologist

It was a dark, cold, rainy night. I was working alone that night. I had just finished an autopsy and was finishing closing the Y incision when I received the call that I had two more patients on the way. I sighed. This was going to be a tough case. The officer told me that there was a family in a car crash. The wife was driving with the husband in the passenger seat and the newborn baby in the car seat in the back seat of the car. The wife had hit a tree and then the car burst into flames. The husband and daughter burned to death but the woman escaped with third degree burns. She was being air lifted to this hospital. However, I had to stay and preform the autopsies on the rest of her family. The doctors had put the woman in a medicine induced coma. The bodies arrived from the ambulance and were transferred to the slab that I worked on. The small burned body was so tiny. There was barely anything left. The man, if you could call him that, was burned beyond recognition. There was hardly anything left of him either. There was a stale, burnt pork smell. I started my job. I decided to start with the baby first. As it turned out, the baby died of smoke inhalation so she had a bit of a merciful death. The husband suffered more. He burned for a long time before he finally died. I recorded my findings in the official report and scrubbed up. I went downstairs to deliver the report to my supervisor. He looked miserable and then informed me that the wife was awake. He told me that I would have to be the one to explain about her family. She didn't know. My mouth dropped. How do you tell someone that their whole life had changed? She lost everything ... her husband and her newborn daughter, and I had to tell her. I walked into her hospital room with my file. I tried to smile and ask how she was doing. She wasn't interested in small talk, just how her family was. I told her as gently as I could that her family was dead. I told her that they didn't suffer and died quickly. I knew it was a lie but she deserved some kind of peace. She told me that a dog had run out in front of her car and she tried not to hit it. She lost her entire family while trying to avoid a dog. She started sobbing. All I could do was just go up to her and give her a hug. What else could I do?