Twelve Years Ago…

It was a bright and sunny summer day, but that quickly diminished. She and her family were on vacation in Kansas. They were shopping at the largest mall in the state when it happened.

A tornado touched down not even a mile away. Everyone at the mall on that busy day was stuffed into their storm cellar.

“Go, faster,” she can remember her father yelling to her.

When she reached the cellar, she was shoved in with all of the other families trying to do the same. She was scared, separated from her family, and small. Her head was barely to the adults near her’s midbacks. With all of the other people entering, everyone got closer and closer.

Then, she couldn’t breathe.

The people around her were suffocating her. The closer everyone got, the harder it was for her to even catch a single breath.

She could hear her father trying to find her, but she could not call out to him. She could feel her head begin to spin and her lungs burn.

Next thing she knew, she was waking up in a hospital