I am in a house with two girls; I know they are my cousins but I don’t recognize them. We are all in our twenties. The house is an old fashioned 70s house with one wall of windows –a north facing or south facing wall and the wall to my immediate right is solid without windows. We are looking out the windows at a gathering storm with strong winds and a low deep black ceiling of thunderclouds. The horizon is dimly felt as white and eerie; the sky is turbulent with tails dipping out of the clouds. I am speaking primarily to just one of the girls, the other is in the background but I know they are both nervous of the storm and ignorant of tornadoes. I explain the skies to them, pointing out the tails that dip down and back up and tell them that those could be the bottom tails of tornadoes in the clouds. As I am explaining we are hit from the side of the house without windows, with a huge roaring sound of wind. At first we don’t know what’s happening and then I look out the windows and see that we are airborne. I turn to the girl I’d been speaking to and said “we’re in a tornado – we’ve been picked up.” I don’t have the sensation of spinning but of being carried and as I think the thought “boy, it’s going to be a bitch hitting the ground” I realize that I could die this time and I get a sense of calmness settling over me. I have never called it fatalism but an acceptance of the inevitable—maybe that’s the same thing. I see that both girls are terrified and beginning to cry so I reach out my hands to take theirs and say “we’ll say a prayer now.” They both try to pray but begin to cry too hard, so I tell them that I’ll go first. And I say a prayer out loud asking that each girl will remain safe and be taken care of and I mention each by name, but I don’t pray for myself. They begin to really cry and say “no, we have to pray for ALL of us.” And then boom, it’s black.