I spent twelve months falling in love with the letters Arthur wrote to me while I was in recovery, rebuilding my life after addiction and bankruptcy.
The world outside Prairie View Regional Health screamed. A sound like a freight train, impossibly loud, ripped through the air. Then, an impact. A sickening, grinding crunch that vibrated through my bones.
A catastrophic F3 tornado microburst had struck.
The lights in the hospital flickered wildly, then died, plunging the entire facility into absolute, suffocating darkness. Emergency generators sputtered, coughed, and failed instantly. One moment, chaos. The next, a void, punctuated by the terrified screams of patients and the sickening sound of tearing metal and collapsing stone.
I stumbled, groping for a wall, the air thick with dust and the acrid smell of ozone. Debris flew through the corridors. Glass shattered, sounding like a thousand tiny explosions. Somewhere above, the roof of the outpatient clinic tore off with a shriek of tortured steel, disgorging rain and wind into the exposed interiors.
The administrative wing groaned, a structural column giving way with a deafening crack. Walls collapsed inwards, creating instant, impassable barriers of rubble and twisted rebar. I heard shouts, frantic cries for help, but the din of the storm was overwhelming.
The lower levels, already prone to flooding, began to fill with water. Pipes burst, sending torrents cascading through the fractured concrete. I was trapped. Everyone was trapped. Arthur, somewhere trying to find Toby. Silas, still in the basement with his accelerant. Toby and Chloe, hidden in the abandoned ward.
The storm’s fury had sealed us all inside, a desperate fight for survival beginning in the sudden, terrifying darkness of a collapsing hospital. The only sound now was the roaring wind, the crushing weight of the building, and the frantic pounding of my own heart.
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