Chap 1 “Wake up Addie!” I hear my mom yell from downstairs. “No!” I yell back like any 16 year old

As my fifteen-year-old roommate falls to pieces, panic rises in my chest like a leaping flame. She lets out muffled screams and chilling sobs as she buries her face against the pillow. I kneel beside her and whisper reassurances. “You’ll be okay.” “No one will hurt you.” I pray she hears me but I know she doesn’t. She is trapped somewhere else - somewhere she revisits every day, like a bad song stuck in her head for life.

It’s the day I have to move to the army's campsite. I grab my bag and swing them on my shoulder, it weighs a ton it feels like my shoulder’s gonna break. Sophie was peeking through my room door, as I was about to stand up she ran to the living room curled up into a ball making loud thud and sobbing noises. Outside of the house, I hug my mom as tight as I could, I don’t want to move any single inch of my bone. I want to stay like this forever. I felt a drop of water behind my shoulder and I know that it was her tears. I don’t want to leave them but I have to. It was time to let go but she didn’t want to, I grab her arm and slightly push them back.

As I looked up, the sky was dark the sidewalk illuminated by the streetlights. The sound of crickets and cars echoing through my ears. I walked home that night, tears in my eyes. I was leaving, I couldn’t handle it anymore. The meds, doctors, psychiatrists nothing was working, our lives were in constant danger. By the time I got home the car was gone. By the time, I finished packing it was dawn. The sun creeping in through the shutters. For the next couple of days, I crashed at Jason’s before I headed South. I heard my cell ringing, it was mom… I let it go to voicemail.

Everything was dark, black and quiet. Nothing felt right and when the flickering light at the end of the hall stopped and stayed lit I wanted to run. Slowly shadows grew on the floor and on the wall, people I knew appearing from the darkness. Zack the cheater, My hate filled mother, abusive father, my brother. Every person that causes me pain appeared even my once best friend Nikki who left me for the cheerleaders. I felt uncomfortable and was slowly suffocating from the blank looks and the little light that shined in the hall.

By this time we had pulled up to the school. Then we exited the bus and dragged ourselves through the prison gates of the prison that were disguise as doors of a school. As I went through the day I could tell something was going just from the vibe of my class and the atmosphere in the halls in between classes. Especially when we had lunch the teachers looked like teens girls who were gossiping out the latest secret but by the look on their face it was clear that something worried them and it was serious. For the rest of my lunch period I tried to think of what could accrue such a situation at the teacher table like nothing was coming to mind. When our lunch period was over our class went back to the classroom. 15min into the class the tornado drill bell started ringing and our teacher hastily escorted us to the hall and had us sitting down with our back against the wall so close to the person next to us we could read each other’s minds. Even with all that’s happening I still wasn’t worried because we had many tornado drill since we lived on Tornado Valley, but never were there tornados. I felt like they were just a waste of time, excepted when they got me out of an energy draining class or a test that

The low ceiling cowered above and the black plastic chairs formed a restless crowd around me. From my seat, I could smell the acute scent of cleaning fluid, whiteboard markers, and the nauseating perfume of the girl sitting next to me. Like so many other students, she exuded concentration. Her brows were drawn as her hand moved rapidly over the testing booklet, only pausing to reposition herself or cast an almost imperceptible sidelong glance. The effortlessness of her actions furthered my anxiety as I began tapping my foot uneasily against the speckled linoleum floor. Through the dusty shades that hung precariously in front the only window in the room, I could see the outline of a solitary building shadowed by the dense gray fog that clung to the courtyard outside. At that moment, I would have given anything to be able to run and scream at the top of my lungs. I had an inexplicable urge to break free from the confinement of that room and what it

I was upstairs in this bamboo dorm that was on top of a steep hill next to another village of refugees separated by a long wood fence. Downstairs was a large room with wooden benches and tables. I could hear my mother teaching a class full of high school students who were reciting some verses from a textbook. I killed time by daydreaming, drawing, and playing with a rhinoceros beetle. After a few hours, I could hear the students’ footsteps hitting the dirt floor; they’re going back to their dorms, I thought.

“What mum?,” Shocked to hear her mum’s voice she calls out again. “ Mum! Is that you?”

Staring up at the dark ceiling, I lay on my bed, my body aching from yesterday’s fall. I really don’t want to move, my back hurting the most. My mind continues to wander back to the strange book. I was so close to maybe finding a way out of this place and now I’m not. All I had to do was just grab the book, but instead I dropped it.

The bell had just rang, school was out. “Olivia, Mrs. Larsson calls.” Olivia is in 6th grade. Her teacher Mrs. Larsson talks to her every day after school telling her the same thing over and over. “You been misbehaving at lunch today”! But this time it was different. “Olivia it's your turn to stay after school and clean the room”. Olivia hated cleaning the room after school, she always ended up staying too late. “ Now run along and tell your mother, I don’t want her to worry like she did last time!” “Ok Mrs. Larsson.” I reply, I run to call my mom but she didn't answer, and my dad was at work so I couldn't call him. “Yup my mom knows.” I say, but she really didn't. “Ok then, well I am going to go home so behave yourself!” Mrs. Larsson says

My mother was out of town, so I knew it was not her. I grew afraid of the strange woman in my house, the maroon-colored walls in my bedroom was giving me an ominous feeling, making my room look stained with blood. I went quietly out of my door and down the hallway, knowing that they were arguing in the kitchen by the volume of their voices. I paused in the middle of the hall, unsure whether to continue or to go back to my bedroom. I only decided on the former after I heard a muffled shout and the woman’s voice laughing. This decision was the biggest mistake of my life.

She stood there, a tall, thin steal gray fluffy haired figure on the top step for a second. And then looked down at the fair-haired children and smiled widely revealing a large gap between her two front teeth. She laughed cheerfully and declared, "Pay no mind to her. She's not so bad once you get to know her." Anna wondered about that. She seemed as if she were pretty good at being furious. "Come on, follow me." The lady said as she opened the door and allowed them to pass, "My name's Miss Margot. Now come along, there's no time to dawdle." She said in her sing-song voice and led them down a long, dark, narrow hallway that was lined with solid wood paneling. As we walked, she tugged at their arms to quicken their pace. Eventually she stopped and pressed on a spot in one of the boards and a door popped open. She and the children hurried into the cold, damp lopsided little basement storage area that was filled with spider webs and smelt dank. Once inside the room Anna noticed that a single light bulb on a long cord swayed from the ceiling and an old broken folding chair and a chamber pot leaned against one of the walls. And that in the back of the room there was a tiny, grimy window that permitted a sliver of evening moonlight to pass through. "That's yours." Miss Margot said and pointed her

It was an early out day at Central DeWitt High School. All of the teachers had in service, but it was cut short due to a tornado warning and a tornado was headed towards the school. Almost all teachers had made it outside of the school and home safe but Mr. Eberle, Mrs. Delf, Mr. Townsley, Mr. Butler, and Mrs. Paar. All of the teachers went to the hallways in preparation for the tornado to. At 7:30 PM the tornado struck the school destroying almost the entire school. Luckily the south side of the school, where the teachers were located, wasn’t destroyed completely. When the tornado and storm had passes all of the teachers had met up.

As I slowly press my foot down on the brake, my car comes to a rolling stop in front of my best friend Talia’s house. Talia sits silently beside me in the passenger seat. I turn the car off, dreading the upcoming painful goodbye. Slamming our car doors, we walk along her cracked driveway towards her front door. Somehow, it was easy for me to relate to the broken, torn up concrete. I gaze at the jagged stones sadly, knowing I wouldn’t be seeing them for months.

It was just a normal day in Tupelo, MS on April 28, 2014. I slowly woke up for school after hitting the snooze for the tenth time and somehow forced myself to get ready and make it to school on time. As soon I arrived, my friends asked me if I heard anything about the tornados that were supposed to hit in the area. Tupelo has had many tornado scares in my lifetime, but I had never seen one actually hit the city so I simply told them that it probably wouldn’t happen. Throughout the day I heard other students and teachers talking about how the school is going to let us out early to go home before it would hit. This wouldn’t be the first time we got out of school without anything happening so I really didn’t think anything of it. Twelve o’clock came around and everyone was released to go home. When I walked outside everything looked still, the skies were dark, and sprinkles of rain started to hit the ground.