The Twirl: Chapter Two

Here is chapter two of my novel. Please feel free to circle back and read chapter one if you want. Hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading.

Chapter 2 

Time down here seems endless, each minute feels longer than the last. No twirl has hit yet—no wind howling, no power outages. It’s just Dad and me, sitting in this brutal silence after he once again shut down any questions I had about Mom. Mom, who feels like a ghost to me, a shadow of someone I never got the chance to truly know. Doesn’t he understand? The more he pushes me away from her, the more desperate I become to know her.

The silence eventually becomes unbearable. Finally, I break it. “How much longer until we can go back upstairs, Dad?” 

“Hard to tell. It should’ve hit by now, but the only tell we have is the lights still flicker every once in a while.” He goes quiet and gets this look. It’s a look where he’s lost in concentration. His head angles ever so slightly—like pushing out his ear will give him a superpower to hear the wind from above. 

Afraid to move, to somehow break his concentration, I sit still. His posture remains unchanged in that strange, intent pose. It feels like minutes pass, but in reality, it’s only a few seconds.

When he shifts, finally satisfied with whatever he’s determined, he says, “I’d say give it thirty more minutes, and then we’ll go up and see the damage.”

What? I haven’t heard any winds, or even felt the house shake recently. The steel must be holding up so well that this twirl went right over us. 

Dammit, I think to myself. I have thirty more awkward minutes in this basement trying to make small talk with Dad? This sucks.

Thankfully, we didn’t lose power, so the TV plays softly in the background. But of course, it’s just The Weather Channel, as if we don’t already know everything they’re saying.

TV is entertainment for me, but Dad feels the complete opposite. I can hear his voice in my head: It rots your brain … Go outside more … Read more books. But it’s just so entertaining to me. It’s a break from reality, a way to escape. If he wasn’t so set in his ways, I’d ask him to put something that would actually interest me on the set. But I don’t feel like hearing the sermonette that will follow my request.

Did my mother find TV interesting? Did she settle in with snacks and get comfy on the sofa? Did she binge-watch shows like I do? Those are the questions I really want to ask. But I don’t. I already know how that conversation would end, and it wouldn’t ease the tension between Dad and me.

Instead, I stick to a safer topic. “How did the girls’ flight go?”

“It was good. They said they had some turbulence, but they made it okay to your aunt and uncle. Hopefully they don’t have to stay for too long.”

I nod, feeling a small wave of relief. At least someone’s had a successful day.

I glance over at Dad, catching his eyes on me. It’s like he’s trying to muster the courage to speak, but he doesn’t have the right words to say. I quickly look away, not wanting to make it any more uncomfortable than it already is. 

“Axel, I know how many questions you must have, and I just wanted to tell you—" 

The lights suddenly flicker and then go completely out. He stops mid-sentence, his voice trailing off. I hear him mumble something under his breath. Then the generator kicks in, and dim lights flicker to life. 

What was he going to tell me? Was he going to finally talk about Mom? I try to hold onto that fleeting moment of vulnerability, but it already slipped away, replaced by the motor of the generator.

“Well, that’s weird,” Dad says. “The storm should have just about passed, so why are we losing power now?”

I shrug, not entirely sure myself. “I don’t know, maybe it was a couple of the delayed twirls. You know how we get those aftershocks—"

But my words are cut short by a sound—an unexplainable noise. It’s not like anything we’ve ever heard before, and it sends an uncomfortable shiver through me. It seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Dad’s eyes widen. His focus is somewhere just beyond the dim light, trying to pinpoint where the sound is coming from, like he’s waiting for it to reveal itself. Neither of us moves. We just listen, tensely. 

The sound, almost like it was machine-generated, lingers in my mind long after it's gone. Dad and I exchange a glance, both of us processing what we just heard. It only lasted for a second, but we both know what we heard.

The lights flicker again. I think they might go out completely, but instead, they blaze back on, even brighter than before.

“You heard that, right?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper for some reason. I know he heard it. He wouldn’t be acting like this if he hadn’t.

Dad doesn't answer right away. He just looks around, scanning the room like something might jump out from the corners. Finally, he exhales. “I don’t know what that was, Axel. But I don’t like it.”

We don’t talk for a couple of minutes. The sound was quick and has vanished. Nothing has replaced it. No sounds of wind, no rain, just stillness. Dad decides it’s time to go check and see the damages, so we do. 

Dad walks up the stairs slowly and I follow behind him—neither of us saying a word, maybe in anticipation of what we might see after this twirl hit. He walks into the living room, ready to examine the damage. But the living room looks … fine. Not a single window shattered. Not a door blown off its hinges.

I watch Dad, waiting for something to happen, but everything seems perfect—no damage or mess to be seen. “Maybe it just missed us,” I suggest, but Dad doesn’t seem convinced. He checks the stove, runs his hand over the counter, then looks toward the back door.

“It didn’t miss us,” he croaks. “Not entirely.” Dad peers out the window. “We’re not in the clear yet, Axel. Something feels off.”

“You think there’s another one coming?” I ask.

Dad turns slowly, his eyes narrow. “No. I think this one’s done. But something’s changed. We need to be ready for whatever happens next.”

Dad hustles up the stairs while I pull out my cell phone to call Ellie to tell her we’re all right, but no answer. It went straight to voicemail. I dial Laney next, also no answer. I try again, dialing Ellie once more, but still no answer. I shoot a quick text to both of them, letting them know we're okay, hoping they’ll get it soon. By this time Dad has made his way back and is standing at the foot of the stairs. He gives me a thumbs up to let me know upstairs made it through just fine. 

I assume my sisters are having tons of fun with Aunt Lisa and Uncle Rich; they always do. “I called Ellie and Laney, but they didn’t answer,” I say, updating Dad.

“Not surprising. Lisa is probably feeding them all the ice cream they can fit in their stomachs before they explode,” he jokes with a smile. 

It feels good to see him laugh a little since things have been so tense since this twirl. It lightens the mood just a little. But still, something feels off.

I let it pass.

Next, we start removing the protection—no easy task. The plywood alone used to be tough enough, but now we have to wrestle with the steel too. It’s a two-man job, each of us needs to work in sync, carefully prying bolts loose. One wrong move and the glass could shatter, or the door could split in half. 

We start with the door. Dad grabs one drill, I take the other. We work in unison, loosening the screws that hold the plywood in place. Once it's loose, we both grip the edges, lifting it carefully off without scraping the frame or the door itself. Step one complete. 

We then move onto the hard part: the steel. Once again, first we have to loosen the screws before taking off the metal. The weight of it feels like it’s doubling with each turn of the screw, the metal cold and unforgiving against my fingers. We wrestle with the bolts, the sound of the drill screeching in the still air. Once they’re loose, we both grab the edges, grimacing as we lift the bars. Heavy is an understatement. Sweat stings my eyes, dripping down my forehead and chin, and I can feel every muscle shrieking as we slowly lower the steel to the ground. The blood rushes and beats to my face; Dad’s too, so we decide to step outside to cool off and to start taking down the other side of the door. It’s always cooler outside after a twirl hits and the humidity disappears.

I’m anxious to step outside, knowing we haven’t yet seen the damage to our yard. On a typical One, the mess would be manageable—a few days of picking up branches and debris, nothing too overwhelming. Maybe a broken gutter or a battered screen door, small stuff to patch up. 

On a Two, the damage is much worse. The mailbox is usually gone, ripped clean off its post. The roof or siding often takes a hit too, torn and shredded by the winds. I still remember the last Two—our Honda Pilot was tossed three blocks down the street. When we finally found it, the windows were smashed, and the battery was dead. It was a mess. 

Since we’ve never experienced a Three before, we don’t know exactly what to expect. I just know it’ll take most of my summer cleaning and fixing all the damages.

We undo the bolt locks and slowly open the door. I take a single step outside, squinting against the harsh bright outdoors I’m not accustomed to yet, and stop dead in my tracks. What I see is almost unreal.

I would have never imagined this is what I’d step out to. Dad and I stand still for a moment, both of us exchanging a look before slowly turning our heads to face the scene ahead. We stare at something we can’t fully process, can’t fully comprehend yet. It isn’t damage, destruction, or debris everywhere. It’s something so much worse.

Nothing. Complete nothingness.

There is nothing out there. Our yard—gone. Our cars—gone. Our street—gone. Our neighbors’ houses—gone. There is nothing. As far as the eye can see, nothing. No telephone poles, no people, no movement, no sound. Just emptiness.

I don’t expect an answer, but I ask anyway. “Dad, what the hell did that twirl do?” 

He stands there for a long moment before answering, his voice strained more than ever. “Destruction,” he responds. “Total destruction.” 

Our world has been wiped clean.