I woke up to a loud cracking sound, Almost like a gunshot going off so loud it was. The wind screeched at the cedar branches around my tent, skeletal fingers scratching the outside.

In the distance, I could hear the sound of large trees falling and a thunderclap as they landed on the ground.

Not thinking the wind could get any stronger, it did. 

The Cedar boughs chattered around my tent and began to crack, moan, bend and screech.

I needed to make a hasty exit and now! I reached for the zipper of my tent just as I did, branches crashed down on the entrance, and a large bough whipped through the side roaring its thunderclaps.

 

As the cedar tree around me fell apart my world got smaller. Soon I was almost underneath it.

 

I crawled to the back of the tent that was closest to the trunk of the tree and stayed there.

My existence was crashing around me. The small little bubble that I created for myself burst.  

The front of the tent was completely squashed and buried. Branches and boughs tangled together, flattening the front of the tent down. Holes torn with multi-armed wooden, almost discernable, daggers in every direction I'm sure all were pointing at me. Minutes dragged like centuries, the wind continued to howl. The trees continued to fall and the branches ever-shifting around me. Until I could see, I wasn't moving. My fear wouldn't allow me to anyway.

So the vigil began for the endless night to quit fighting the day's light. I waited hand-in-hand with terror.

We knew each other so very well...

The roar around me deafened with every howl. Wind-swept screeches duelled with my right to hear until there was nothing but the constant attempt to crush me beneath bleeding pine arms and the roar of laughing chaos.

I could hear the flight of the branches and debris, scattering all over knocking and crashing, and the shelter of my tree quickly disintegrating around me.

Fear was a five-year-old playing with firecrackers compared to the bomb going off around me. 

I was paralyzed. I couldn't move if I wanted to. The violence of nature surrounds and glues me to my spot. Tent walls, random branches, and debris all scratching me as it flew around, out and back in again.

Hours and hours it seemed while the wind bitched and moaned. I was sure I wouldn't get out of this, that I was doomed to die was a given for all the things I couldn't do.

Slowly ever so slowly, the wind began to slow. And the crashes became fewer and far between. Still dark it had slowed to a strong breeze but at least I could see my pants under some debris but no jacket.  A shredded sleeping bag looked like it was playing twister. I forced myself to wait a little bit longer till I could see better and the wind calmed down some more. The breeze finally died and the light was coming through. I looked for the brightest spot and that would be my exit point.

There was no way to know if my exit strategy wasn't the way of getting trapped even further or ready to collapse at any time. I knew I had to try. 

 

Staying was not an option. I expanded on a rift that was already there close to my exit point. Pulled it open wide enough to get through. 

Looking out, I could see that there were a ton of branches, dirt, pine needles, and a mixture of mayhem. I began to push, pull snap and drag my way through following the light as best as I could. 

 

Scratches, pokes, stabs and scrapes are my constant companions.  Dirt began to fall on my head so I froze.  This was the last move I could make to break free.  I got ready for pain, had bunched up my leg muscles to force them under me.

 

Gradually getting my knees ahead and my feet down.  I gathered as much strength as I could and I sprung. I pushed up as hard and as fast as I could while the debris, dirt and branches fell around me. 

 

Finally, my head burst through a pile of evergreen. Cut on my head blood dripping down my cheek.  But I was out.

Pulled myself out the rest of the way getting a few more gouges as I did.

Finally, I was able to pull my legs out and let myself roll down to the bottom of the pile. And there I lay for a few minutes trying to catch my breath. Trying to slow my heart down and rein in the terror within.

Finally, I sat up and looked around at the world changed.  Everywhere, broken branches snapped trees, bent bushes squished up against each other.

All of these things are in seemingly organized piles like the wind had arranged them just so.

But that wasn't the horror of it. The horror was that I could recognize nothing around me. Nothing was the same, the whole world changed overnight.

I didn't even know what direction I was pointed in.  Panic threatened again...I forced myself to sit and breathe to try and gather my wits around me, to remember the skills I learned so I could get myself out.

 

To what though...to where...and how.  These were questions I could not answer. 

 

There was one option...a black and dangerous one...my heart skipped several beats. 

 

It wasn't the unknown I was afraid of.... it was the known...

 

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