“Oh my…god!!!” Devin was filled with immense fear as he stared out into the corn field. Jake stood there in complete silence, he couldn’t get himself to speak, just standing there, staring, in awe.

“We gotta get out of here now!” Devin cried, grabbing Jake and pulling him to the car.

“Oh man, oh man! I was not expecting this for our first chase!” Jake fumbled running to the car.

Devin and Jake had always dreamed of chasing storms, they lived in the suburbs of Chicago, which never seemed to get anything too crazy, so they decided to go down to southwest Illinois hoping to get more action. More action is indeed, what they got.

Both there iPhones alert systems went off at the same time, “SEEK COVER, DANGEROUS TORNADO HEADING NORTHEAST FROM BELLEVILLE.” The boys were about 5 - 10 miles east of Belleville.

Jake pulled up the news as fast as he could to see if there was any mention of how big and destructive this tornado was. “… Dude.. they’re claiming they tornado is already half a mile wide.. possibly over 200 mph winds.. what do we do!? I don’t think we can out drive it!”

Devin steps on the gas and drives as fast as he can away from this monster. It starts hailing, the lightning looks insane, the wind is pelting rain against the side of their car. “We can’t be in the car, we need to find a neighborhood or something, find someone to let us in their home so we can get into a basement, we won’t survive this otherwise!”

Devin was now going about 30 mph over the speed limit , praying for a subdivision to show up that they could turn into. They both look back briefly and see the most ginormous, extremely evil looking thing they’ve both ever seen in their life. Gaining on them, but they still had time.

Finally, a neighborhood comes up. They immediately turn in and to their surprise, the first house on the right, they see a man, probably in his 30s, no shirt on, standing on the front porch. They pull into his driveway frantically and immediately get out.

“Do you have a basement!? Please! Let us in. We have to get inside now! They’re claiming mass destruction and the storm is only getting bigger!” Jake begs impatiently to this random stranger.

“Guys, relax. We never get tornadoes out here. It’ll disappear before it reaches us. Look, it’s not even moving.” The man states confidently.

“Listen, we’re amauter storm chasers, if a tornado looks like it’s not moving, that means it’s coming right for you!” Devin tries to inform and get some sense into this guy. “We have to go inside, now! Better to be safe than sorry!”

The man listens, then agrees to go inside. They all head inside down to an unfinished, mess of a basement. Tools, saws, empty bottles of alcohol, concrete floors, and nothing to use to cover them for safety.

“I don’t know if we’ll be safe down here, I don’t know if we have time, but do you have any mattresses we can bring down here to cover ourselves with?” Jake asks the man, growing more and more with unrelenting anxiety.

“Ya, I do. Hurry, let’s go grab one.” They all run upstairs, the tornado is much closer now and the winds are blowing like they’ve never seen before. They all start moving way faster to get the mattress off the bed. The trees outside are blowing sideways, the hail is the size of a golf ball, the house sounds like it’s creaking in agony, a sound the boys have never heard a house do before. “Hurry!! Push it downstairs!” Jake grunts, trying to move the mattress as fast as possible down into the basement. They make it down, out of breath and let the mattress plop to the ground. As soon as they let the mattress fall, they hear what sounds like every glass in the house shattering above them. “GET UNDER THE MATTRESS!!” The owner of the house screams in fear. The next few minutes felt like an eternity for them all. The most eerie howling sound the guys have ever heard was just above them, with a mix of a freight train passing over. The pressure was so intense, they felt an intense pop in the ears and they screamed in agony. Was this the end for them, they wondered? With all the rattling and shaking, they new the house above them was about to crash down on top of them. When would this end, they all pleaded for this to be over.

Finally, the floor above crashed down into the basement, furniture was being whipped around, rain, trees and who even knows what else. It was getting harder and hard to hold onto the mattress and each other. The mattress wasn’t enough to protect them, and debris started pelting all of their bodies. Jake, holding on for dear life, “I don’t know if I can hold on any longer!!” “Don’t give up, Jake!” Even though he also was feeling his grip weakening. The man kept quiet throughout all of the chaos.

After what felt like hours, it had finally passed. All of them covered in blood from being repeatedly hit by unknown objects.

Devin and Jake lie there under the mattress for a moment before moving, physically and mentally exhausted from the destruction of this demon.

Both of them finally get up, but the man who essentially saved them, didn’t move and stayed under the mattress. The boys both move the mattress off of him, “Sir?” Jake shakes the man’s back a bit but gets no response. He walks over to the top of him, and notices he’s bleeding from his head. Jake looks closer and sees his head is cracked open with pieces of glass inside. He slowly backs away with tears running down his face and shakes his head. Devin reaches for his carotid pulse, but there’s no pulse.

“… we have to go ..” Jake says to Devin with immense guilt. They climb over all the debris and rubble to get above ground, they look out into the distance, everything is gone.