It was a cold December night, everything was quiet. Marie was re-thinking everything that happened in Kindergarten 5 years ago. Today was just one of those days that she remembered everything, or so it seemed. She was a kind of weirdo, and didn’t have many friends. She remembered stuff very easily. Everything she saw stuck with her. She has a kind of photographic memory.

It was March 16, 1983. Marie was sitting out on the balcony in her cold concrete school. Marie wanted to be just like everyone else, to forget everything that she saw 3 days later, but she would never forget this day. She heard someone call her name to go back inside of her classroom, so she did. Someone had just called the school to talk to her.

Her mom had been in Kansas for a week so far. Never did she think that her mom might not ever come home.

As she entered the room her teacher just looked at Marie, the way people do when they feel sorry for someone.

“Marie,” Mrs. Jennings said.

“Yes?” Mary replied.

“We just got a call from the police in Kansas.”

“Okay?” She asked kind of anxious.

“Your mom she……she,” Mrs. Jennings couldn’t finish her sentence.

“My mom what…?” Marie replied kind of scared.

“She was just shot and killed. The police said she attempted to rob a corner store or something like that…” Mrs. Jennings said slowly. As if she could take the pain away a bit more if she said it word by word.

Marie didn’t reply, instead she just fell to the floor. In an emotional rage, she screamed out as loud as she could. Thinking this was all just a dream; Marie slowly got up, then ran to the balcony and jumped off of the ledge.

Marie doesn’t remember anything after that.

As the police lifted Marie’s body on to the stretcher, everyone was trying to revive her.
The doctors told her dad that there wasn’t a chance that she would live, but he had hope. To the surprise of the doctors, three days later she woke up.
“Where is mom?” Marie asked as soon as she woke up.
“You don’t remember, do you?”
“No? I don’t remember what? Wait, I’m confused,”
“Mom got shot and killed. She was ‘robbing’ a corner store.”
MOVE! Marie heard off somewhere in the distance.
She immediately snapped out of her thoughts. Her grandpa had come home from work, and he was in one of his moods again.
“Hi grandpa, nice to see you too,” Muttered Marie.
Now it was back to reality again, Marie hated reality. She just wanted to live in her memories of her and her mother again. She hated how they were slowly drifting away from her.
A few hours later she heard the sirens coming from those weird looking speaker things down the street. She had always wondered what they were for. Now she got her answer. Her grandpa stood up, thinking it was just a routine check. The streets soon became a mad house as everyone finally realized what was going on. It sounded like a freight train was moving through her house. Then everything just went black…

The next day, the newsletter that came out read;


Urgent News!
Twister tore a town apart in Ferguson County, 10 killed; no survivors. The surrounding counties weren’t even touched by this mystery tornado. Warning sirens ran for 35 minutes. The victims were supposedly totally unprepared. New safety laws are now being enforced to prevent this from ever happening again.
Article written by senior editor Joe Williamson of the Manson News and Post.