Visionaries

fifteen

// FIFTEEN //

There's this feeling. An unadulterated, irrevocable type of fear that settles itself deep into your core. It takes over, it quells the tornado in your heart but turns everything else on.

All your receptors, your nerves, your senses, your thoughts, they all start rolling on overdrive. You feel, hear and see everything and that, to a higher degree than ever before. Every single thing around you is tangible. You can almost touch the tension in the air, you radiate of terror and can almost see the rays of fright around you.

It's funny how this feeling, so alert and quick, can keep your two feet frozen in place. Hilarious, how this mechanism that tells you everything that is wrong around you does not give you the means of escape. Insane, how your mind can fail your body so badly.

That was me in that moment. When I locked eyes with that tornado, I stopped moving and my brain went running on a marathon.

I feel a tug on my left arm. It's Jakub.

He looks at me with his pleading, light hazel brown eyes.  His blonde hair is out of my place and his suit is covered in dust. The wind sends my hair into my face, keeping me from seeing everything on his.

"MAY, PLEASE. YOU NEED TO MOVE."

I swallow hard and nod. I take his hand, which is when I realize that he had uncuffed me from Vanessa while I was in my daze.

I look around us and see that we are the only two left on this floor. Jakub stayed behind for me. I couldn't move. I was frozen and paralyzed and almost endangered everyone.

We run down the spiral staircase to the first floor and then down into the basement. The dark, wooden basement is large and open and leads to a small door at the far end. Its door is wide open and I can see everyone waiting inside the metallic bunker.

As we run to them, I see Pete yelling at the top of his lungs for us to run faster. He must be terrified.

We jump in the bunker and one of his men locks the bunker door behind us only a split second later. All the sounds around me stop except for the buzzing of adrenaline in my ears.

I look around us. Pete is in absolute shock sitting in a corner. Jakub slips to the ground beside me not saying a word. Aside from Jakub, there are only two men in suits in the bunker alongside Vanessa. We're missing one.

I sit down next to her. I don't want to ask, but I make it evident that I'm counting the people in the bunker so she can tell me herself.

"The wind took him away," she whispers in a broken voice. "Another window shattered on the way down and he was pulled out."

She takes a long pause. I see one tear fall from her eye. "We are all so lucky we made it in this bunker, May."

"I've never been so close to a tornado before."

After a few minutes, Vanessa regains her cool and quickly jumps to her feet. She starts going around the room comforting everyone starting with Pete whom seems to be the most shaken. I'm blown away by her strength and courage. Not a minute before she was terrified. She was instantly able to put everyone else before herself.

Jakub, being the closest to me, seems like someone I could try to comfort, maybe even thank.

"Hey," I mumble as I scoot over closer to him. "Thank you, for eum, pulling me out of there. I'm sure it must have been stressful and frustrating trying to get me out without my cooperation."

He looks straight ahead at the steel door. We're surrounded by steel walls and we try to be as comfortable as we can on the concrete floor. All there is a aside from the people in the room is a book shelf behind Pete with provisions, the stool Pete is sitting on and a small table a little to my right, in the corner I used to be sitting in.