It was cloudy dreary day, as it usually is, when Harriet went to work. She got called into her boss’s office and was told she was being transferred to another station. Her job, as a meteorologist, made her constantly move. In the past three years she had been placed in Charleston, Seattle, Los Angeles and now Chicago. But this time, she wasn't content to just go where they sent her. She had begun to think of this place as home.
When Harriet was six, her parents got in a car accident. She had always thought it was because of her, but it really wasn’t. Harriet had been crying about the storm and the road was a mess, which made driving difficult for her parents. The car crashed into the side of the road into some trees and rocks. Harriet never actually remembered what happened after the accident, but when the police discovered their car, a tree had fallen on the back of the car.

Going from foster home to foster home made making friends hard, but she never gave up because of her positive nature. After settling in a foster home for her last year of high school, she found people who cared. Her adoptive parents, Edna and George, helped pay for college and they would visit her every now and then. Now that she was moving to Chicago it was too far for their old rinky-dink Nissan to travel from Nashville. She thought about looking into airplane tickets to bring them out for a holiday, or going to visit them but did not make enough money to do so.

Harriet was always interested in weather and how storms were formed. After a week of staying in a motel and working at NBC Chicago, Harriet found a home 10 minutes away from work. The two story house was a murky brown with mold growing on the siding. It looked as though it wouldn’t pass any inspections, and it barely did.
The first time she stepped into her new home there was a creak in the grimy wood flooring. When Harriet first toured the home, she took a step and fell right through the flooring. Now a nice patch of wood covered the hole and connected the brittle pieces together. Knowing that something this small could be fixed in very little time, gave her a great feeling about her new adventure. Harriet carried her mattress through the foyer and unpacked her suitcase. Harriet placed the mattress on the ground and a puff of dust followed, causing her asthma to act up. Harriet pulled her fuzzy blanket out of her airplane carryon and plopped on the mattress; it had been a long day.

A couple weeks later Harriet was on her way home from work to hang out with her best friend Diana, who was visiting from Colorado. They had met on the first day of college and were glued together ever since. Harriet had not made enough money to buy a bicycle yet, so she walked with excitement to meet her friend. On her way, it started to pour, hard. She had expected this, but didn’t have time to find her umbrella in all of the boxes earlier that morning. Now running, Harriet quickly made her way home to find her door ajar. Approaching the door slowly she scrambled to find pepper spray out of her bag. As she walked in she saw that everything was in its place. Confused but content that nothing was taken, Harriet looked around the rest of her house to check for anything suspicious. Nothing was unusual, so she continued on with her day by making dinner for her and Diana.

Harriet was a couple boxes away from getting all of her belongings unpacked, and wanted to finish before Diana arrived. She prepared spaghetti and meatballs and danced around singing while doing so. The last box she needed to put away was full of all her old yearbooks. She liked to reminisce on who her friends could have been had she not moved so many times, but wanted to stop and live more in the moment.

Harriet walked to the corner of the dining room and pulled down the ladder to the attic. She had not been in the attic since the day she viewed the home before moving in. Harriet stepped up on the ladder and began to ascend, struggling to hold the box. She finally made it up and turned on the lights.

Unexpectedly she found a obelisk in the center of the room, that wasn't there before. Approaching the rock cautiously, she was unsure how it got there and who put it there. Harriet tried moving the obelisk, but it would not budge. She pushed harder and harder until she fell backwards, and then there was a sudden boom. It had started to pour even harder than it already was and there was thunder and lightning. Ignoring the thunder she continued to push on the obelisk; now the thunder had gone away and it had began to snow.

At the same time, Diana was approaching in a taxi. She tripped getting out of the taxi, dropped her belongings on the icy grass and ran yelling and screaming for Harriet.

“Hey Harriet, I’m here, and something weird is going on.”

“I’m up here Diana,” Harriet called out.

Diana rushed up the ladder screaming “What is going on?! Harriet, it is just snowing around your house!”
“What are you talking about?” Harriet questioned.

“Look at it!” Diana beckoned towards the window.

“That is strange. How could this happen? I mean, I just moved in. What is wrong with this house? Is it my fault? I was only standing up here with the mysterious rock. It showed up out of nowhere. I have been pushing and it doesn’t move. Look at it...” Harriet pushed and heaved which made it foggy around her small property. Five feet above the grass stood a cloud so foggy that a person would be able to see anything more than five feet.

“I think you did that.” said Diana. “Try doing it again.”

Again she pushed and now it was windy—breaking trees and collapsing bushes.
Once again she rammed into the obelisk with all her might, and this time there was a hail storm.
The two looked at each other with a confused look. Anyone except for this pair would be scared for their lives, but they were excited for what would come next. After playing with the mysterious obelisk for at least six hours straight, the friends got tired and fell into a deep sleep.

Harriet woke up walking slowly to the obelisk. She was sleepwalking, like she has all of her life. This time when she pushed nothing happened. She pushed with all her might, got tired quickly, then fell back asleep.

Harriet woke to hear talking in the background. She looked down and noticed she was wearing a white gown with blue speckles, looking up she noticed the room was all white. In the corner stood her birth parents with a concerned look on their faces. They walked over and asked “How are you feeling sweetie? You were asleep for a long time.”

“What happened?” Harriet responded. “I thought you guys were dead.”

“No, you were in a coma, and you were just recovering from the accident. The tree fell on you, and you were the one who was dead.” they responded.