He raced toward the bathroom. The men’s room was closer, and he opened the door and dashed inside, slamming the door just as a huge wrenching noise filled the room. The floor shifted underneath him, his stomach lurching. He stumbled, falling into the metal side of a stall, then felt himself falling as if in slow motion to the floor. The sticky, cleaned gods knew how long ago floor, rose to met him and he landed hard on his right hip. His phone flew from his grasp, flying across the room. It hit the floor, the screen shattering.
Tye rolled over and stared at the ceiling tiles being sucked up toward the roof by the change in air pressure as the storm moved over the little building not far off the interstate. One tile, then another, began to suck upwards, popping from the roof and being tossed into the sky. Not caring that he was on the floor, Tye rolled into a ball, shielded his head with his hands and scooted as close to the back wall as he could. That, he knew, went up against the utility room with the heating and cooling system, so not an outside wall.
Squeezing his eyes closed, he knew the roar of the wind going overhead would haunt his dreams for a long time. He swore he kept his eyes closed, but a multi-color swirling began behind them. The wind sounded as if it were behind him now, almost completely finished with the building, and he opened his eyes, but the swirls of color remained. Like a liquid pool he could drown in and never emerge, and really, would it matter if he did? He was single, didn’t even have a dog to wait for him when he got home. He worked too many long hours. Then, he didn’t have time to think because he was falling, falling, until he landed with a thud on what felt like soft pillows and cushions.
Pillows? Cushions? This wasn’t the men’s bathroom at Equine Equality Genetics. He opened his eyes for real, taking in a large gold frame with those same colorful swirls he’d seen. He started to sit when strong hands on his shoulders kept him from moving.
“Lay still for a moment,” a deep voice with musical overtones said. “You might be hurt.”
“Where am I?” He asked, turning his head and catching a view of long, male legs wearing form fitting white breeches with tall, polished brown boots. His head throbbed and he closed his eyes with a groan before he could see to whom the legs belonged, though he suspected it was whoever had spoken. “What happened?”
“What do you remember?” A woman asked nearby.
“The storm. Tornado.”
“Ah, Terran weather. So violet at times,” the man said.
“Terran weather?” Tye parroted. “Is this Oz?” He struggled to sit, thinking it’d be his luck to be dragged somewhere in a tornado. His head throbbed and every muscle in his body ached as if he really had been tossed by a tornado. His phone? The samples? He had to see if everything had survived, because all he had was this job. He’d devoted himself to it since Blu’s death. If he didn’t have his job, or his horse, then what did he have? His life? Someone would tell him it was worth something, but it had felt pretty damn lonely for a long time.
The hand touched his shoulder. “Easy. You took a nasty blow to the head as you came through the portal.”
The words meant nothing to him. Portal? He managed to sit up and the instant his feet, one of them still covered with a flimsy shoe protector that had ripped across the toe, he regretted it because he realized he was tracking mud on pristine white carpet? Who the hell carpeted in white, and where was he?
COLLAPSE 
