Empty by Suzanne Weyn

spinning out into the air.
    The disconnected treetop twisted twice, and then changed course, hurtling toward her.
    Gwen stood, stuck to her spot, frozen in terror as it headed for her.
    She sprang away at the last second, just as the heavy mass of wood hit the ground where she’d been standing. It then bounced, spraying wood chips and pine into the air, and finally hit the forest floor a second and last time, shaking everything around it.
    Lying on the muddy ground just a foot away, Gwen allowed a frightened shudder to travel through her body. Tears sprang from the colliding emotions of terror and relief, and she let them fall freely, mixing with the rain pelting her face.
    Gwen pulled herself to a sitting position after a few more minutes and searched around for the rough, irregular opening in the rocks that would lead to the mine shaft. As kids, she and Luke had played in these woods with friends. He’d been the one who’d pulled off the plywood boards that nailed shut the old coal mine opening so they could use it as their secret clubhouse. Companies didn’t mine coal anymore in Sage Valley, and no one, as far as Gwen knew, had ever nailed the mine opening shut again. She hoped no park ranger had come by since her last visit.
    There it was! Just beyond an outcropping of rock Gwen spied a black hole. Not covered!
    From the ever-intensifying growl and toss of the wind, Gwen knew she’d found the opening just in time. But where was her bag of food? She’d lost it when the tree had fallen. She had to go back to find it.
    As she scanned the area with her eyes, a second crack, this one louder than the last, told her another tree was coming down. She raced into the mine shaft opening just as a branch came crashing past her.
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    Gwen slumped against the inside of the crooked doorway of the mine shaft, built into the side of a hill deep in the Sage Valley woods. Rain poured in a sheet. The wavering image filtering through the waterfall in front of her was nothing but a blur of brown, gold, and red, with a few spots of remaining green.
    A terrible howl filled the black, open space behind her, bouncing off the walls and rattling the loose, decaying stone. Gwen flattened herself against the wall, terrified. “It’s just the wind. Just the wind,” she told herself in a hoarse, frightened whisper.
    Pushing back her soaked hair, Gwen shivered. Her hand came up bloody when she wiped it across her face. The branch that fell before she could get inside had cut her cheek. It stung like crazy.
    Lowering herself to the dirt floor, Gwen let out a low chortle of grim laughter that began in her belly and traveled upward. Could things be any worse? Her situation was so bad that it was almost funny.
    Almost.
    â€œThis will end,” Gwen told herself aloud. “Storms end. Gas shortages end. Wars end.” But she couldn’t see an end to any of it.Maybe this was the start of something new, a world of misery without end.
    Outside, ancient trees fell, one after the other, smashing to the ground and shaking it, crashing into one another and shattering with the force of bombs. Rain pelted the leaves in a rhythmic tattoo that made Gwen imagine knives being thrown from the heavens.
    She hung her head, shivering, letting the cold water from her hair and body soak the dirt floor until a mud puddle surrounded her.
    How had this happened to her? Why did no one love her enough to come out to find her?
    Pressing her forehead against her knees, she once again let her tears fall freely. She cried for the loss of the selfish woman who had been the only mother she’d ever had. She cried for the father she’d never known. She cried because Tom would never be interested in her, and she couldn’t even figure out why she wanted him to care. She cried for the terrible condition of her life right then and there. She sobbed until she exhausted herself, and then she fell into a sleep that was just as sad as the