<span style="font-style: italic">This is what I need,</span>Nicola told herself for the umpteenth time, looking over her newly bare apartment with sad eyes. As it stood, her display had garnered far too much attention and she needed to leave the area. Causing such a storm, a hail storm that had taken out her town...all except her...was a bit hard to explain. Headlines in the paper had her fingered as some sort of witch, an alien, a horseman of the apocalypse. How did you explain to someone that you just happen to be able to control that particular element?<br/><br/>...You just...don't.<br/><br/>Having hired a car to drive her, she left hers in the parking garage, having taken anything of importance out of it...Just in case, precaution and all that. Her light blonde hair gleaming in the light, it was held up and out of her face, a loose ponytail keeping it slightly neat in her haste. Bangs swept over her eyes, she kept brushing them aside, the irises of her eyes fairly disappearing in the brilliant sunlight. Pale skin seemed to glow as the rays beat down on her, skin smooth and unblemished as she ran for the town car. A simple pale blue dress adorned her slender, five-foot, five-inch tall frame, a strapless ensemble with a white shrug over her shoulders. Matching blue flats completed her look.<br/><br/>"Easy to get through airport security with," she'd told herself. "No metal, tight enough to see I'm not hiding anything, and comfortable."<br/><br/>Sliding into the backseat, her bag in the trunk, she closed the door, instructing the driver to bring her to the airport. With a curt nod, he responded, starting the engine and pulling away from the curb. One hand pressed to the window, her gaze stayed on her building until they'd turned a corner, the once comforting sight out of view. Her body slumped against the seat, head lulling back against the cushioned headrest, watching the scenery go by. She wasn't sure when she'd be back, but she prayed it'd be soon.<br/><br/>Feeling a sort of wary tiredness sinking in, her mind began to drift, her eyes drooping the longer the car remained going. Unsure how long they'd been moving, the sudden stop and sound of a car door brought her back around. Blinking her eyes to clear them, she paused.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">W-Where am I?</span>she wondered, looking around in confusion as Nicola realized they'd not ended up nearly where she'd thought. Her eyes went to the front seat...to see her driver gone. The air was heavy with the smell of garbage, her surroundings not that of an airport, but instead abandoned warehouses? Fear gripped her as she looked for her driver, who'd seemingly vanished from sight. Heart rate rising, the seat beneath her grew colder, stiffer, until she fought with the lock, water crystals forming on the window above her hand. Yanking it up, she pushed the door open, bag forgotten in the trunk as she scanned her surroundings.<br/><br/>Abandoned buildings littered the landscape, dumpsters on virtually every wall that she'd a clear shot at. Feeling the fear welling up in her chest, she fought with the car's driver-side door, the surface freezing under her grip the longer she held it, yanking at it until it finally gave way...along with the handle. Throwing it to the side, her body sank back into the seat, slamming the door behind her and starting up the car, a task that took a bit as the gears began to grind under the rapidly cooling temperature. A few phantom snowflakes began to fall as her mind spun with possibilities as to why she'd ended up where she had, none of them making sense.<br/><br/>Turning the car around, driving for what she thought was the correct way to the airport, but continued to grow more confused and frustrated the longer she stayed on the road. What started as a few phantom snowflakes followed her, the numbers becoming far more prevalent, flurries becoming full-blown snowstorms. What used to be puffy white clouds had become dark, heavy cloud coverage, the light far blocked out by the density of their shelving. Her windshield wipers worked overtime, trying to compensate for a storm that continued to follow her.<br/><br/>A phone going off in her purse, she took her eyes off of the road to root around and find it. Figuring that she was on a straight enough road, she would be find for the time being. Yet, with the excessive snow, the diminishing conditions, she'd not accounted for just how slippery the road had become. Just as she found her phone, noted the caller, her eyes glanced back at the road...only to see she was going off it into a building. Phone being thrown from her grasp, she gripped the steering wheel, both feet pressing her break as her eyes squeezed shut and a scream was loosed.<br/><br/>Darkness overtook her.<br/><br/>Just like that, the storm was gone, the sun shining down and the newly fallen snow already beginning to melt. Having hit the bottom floor of some business building, the car sat half-in, half-out, windshield shattered, her body hunched against the steering wheel, unconscious.<br/><br/>A storm that had only just started in this town was suddenly over, her car in the center of it, the line very clearly defined in an even radius around her.<br/><br/>Curious.