Dance Moms - Lorelei (2) Finding Clara

Chapter 5 : First Contact

Without structural bearings, Chloe could only rely on her tracker. She rode the boat pass houses and trees, a park that was submerged so deep only the basketball hoop was showing, and she couldn't help wondering if any more people were trapped under the flood.

Focus! Chloe!

Above her, the dark clouds were pressing so low she could almost touch it, rolling like giant waves in an upside down ocean, washing over the sky with strong wind.

It's expanding. Chloe remembered the man described.

Riding against the wind, she had to adjust her course from time to time, staying on path based on the tracker. Up ahead she saw a small land, but up close it was a pile of floating wreckage, a house barely in shape, has lost its foundation and floating like a deserted ship.

Despite how much she wanted to look inside for survivors, she kept her course, until the wind shifted.

It was now blowing from the east, pushing her boat towards the floating house, so strong she could hardly keep her eyes open, that was when she saw it.

A narrow tail reached down from the sky, touched the water and raised a misty cloud, she could see debris lifted, circling around the white twisting line, and be thrown far away.

Something popped behind her, she turned and saw a narrow wooden beam, part of a fence or some kind, was stabbing deep into the wall of the floating house.

Before she could make out what was going on, more things struck the wooden wall, a golf club, a branch, a key. Then she realized the danger, that they were carried by the tornado, travelling at speed of bullets, and she found herself in the open water.

Chloe quickly deserted her boat and jumped into the floating house, there were still furniture, a sofa, a cabinet. She dived behind the fallen cabinet, seconds away from a series of flying objects puncturing the structural wall, like a powerful machine gun chewing the house apart.

It was her first time encountering a tornado, and it was far more terrifying than what she saw on the news. It was like a merciless army destroying everything in its path.

But she soon learned it was only the beginning. The floor shifted under her, the world began to rotate, then she remembered the house was just a floating raft, and they were sailing in the middle of a powerful storm.

She grabbed hold of anything that could keep her in place, but the whole house began to spin, faster and faster, like a merry-go-round gone mad.

A horrifying crack ripped from above, she saw the roof lifted far up the sky, tumbling like a loose kite around a white twisting column that was reaching the sky. The world was spinning faster, and she was about to lose her grip.

"HELP!" she has never been more terrified in her life. "PLEASE! SOMEBODY HELP!!"

The floor suddenly raised, she lost her grip and got thrown to a wall, falling through it and into water. She heard a splash but did not sink, the wind was carrying her so fast that she was skipping on the surface like a stone.

She lost all sense of directions, with water and objects slamming her around like a pinball, until she hit something hard and blacked out.