'Amy, will you be my Valentine?' the red paper heart sat on Amy's desk, ready for her to read. Jake was having second thoughts, though. What if she didn't like him back? Before he could change his mind, Amy walked in. Her long brown hair swung over her shoulders as she walked to her desk. Her neatly trimmed and painted fingernails picking up the valentine. Her bright, heart-shaped eyes looking it over before searching the classroom for him. She locked eyes with Jake, and walked over to him.

"Was this you?" she asked, her lovely voice questioning him. Looking down at his feet, Jake timidly responded.

"Yeah." Amy stood there for a few seconds, waiting for the follow-up question, "So, uhh, want to go to the Spring Fling together?" he finally asked. Before she could respond, though, a force jolted the classroom, so large, it sent kids flying out the windows, and down the streets that surrounded the school. Jake was flung away too, sharp glass of the window piercing his back. He smacked against a house, and everything went dark.

Jake woke up to the sound of the wind. Looking around, Jake could see the school, but it was about four or five blocks away. Jake had been wedged between a large hedge and the house he had hit. Looking behind him, he saw an indent of his shape in the siding.

'Holy cow!' he thought to himself, What could make the whole earth jolt like that.' He sat against the edge of the house listening to his surroundings. Cop cars sounded, fire hydrants were burst. He could see all the playground equipment had been blown away. Trees were down, and houses were flooded because of burst pipes. That wasn't the least of it, though. The wind sounded all around, and Jake could feel some of it from his area that he was in, but most of it was blocked by the hedge. Struggling to get up, he finally stood, his head extending above the top of the large bush. That was when he was hit with the full force of the three hundred and seventy mile-an-hour winds. His neck was whiplashed, and he was sent sprawling back to the ground.

'What could do all of this?' he thought. Suddenly the answer hit him. His class had learned about it a long time ago, yet he felt as if it had been yesterday. He had been interested in it, but never thought it possible. The class had gone over what would possibly happen to the surroundings, and the world, all of it bad.

"Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy crap!" Jake started panicking. The world had stopped spinning.

Within moments, things went from bad to worse.

Clods of earth tore loose from the ground, flung through the air. Jake clung to the wall of the house, his knuckles white against the windowsill, but it was no use. Roof tiles flew away first, torn off like a flock of angular birds swirling together into the distance. A stone slammed into the window inches away from his fingers, shattering it and sending broken glass into the interior. Inside, voices screamed.

Jake clambered through the broken window and into the house, hoping the walls would be enough to protect him. He saw who had been screaming: another boy about his age, and a girl a few years younger. The boy had lines of blood on his face but looked otherwise unhurt. The girl curled up on the floor, shaking nervously with her arms clasped around her knees.

"Who are you?" the boy asked, stepping protectively in front of the girl. "What's happening?"

"I'm Jake," said Jake, "and I'm not sure, but I think the world stopped spinning."

"If the world stopped moving, but the atmosphere kept moving at the same rate..." The boy's eyes widened. "That would be a force of almost four hundred miles an hour. Like getting hit with every hurricane and tornado in history combined." He reached out his hand. "I'm Theo. This is my sister, Elle. Our mom was out buying groceries, but if the wind really is that bad..." He gulped. "Nice to meet you, Jake. Hope your Valentine's Day was going okay before all this happened."

In the chaos, Jake had totally forgotten it was Valentine's Day. He thought about Amy--her hair, the elegant way she walked, how she had looked so purposefully at him right before this all happened. He'd seen kids blown away by the initial jolt, but he wasn't sure if she was one of them, or if she had survived. Maybe, if he was lucky, she'd found shelter somewhere and he could find her again.

"Hopefully we don't die right now," he said. "I have an idea. I learned about this in school once. The earth spins slower the closer you get to its axis, so if we can somehow make it to the North Pole, we'll escape all this." How they could get to the North Pole when any cars and trains would be blown away in seconds was another question, but he figured he'd think of that part later.

"Sounds like a plan." Theo smiled. Elle stood up, slowly relaxing. Jake could almost believe they would make it after all.

Suddenly, the horrible sound of scraping and cracking stone echoed through all their ears. The foundation beneath them shifted, then tore loose from the ground entirely. Jake fell sideways against the wall as the whole house was sent spinning through the air like something from the Wizard of Oz. He felt himself spinning, tossed around like a bean inside a maraca. His mouth opened up unbidden and he heard the sound of screaming coming from it. The rug from the floor flapped around, cabinets swinging open to spill out plates and bowls that shattered against the walls and floor.

A few seconds later, his head hit a granite countertop. He blacked out before he could even feel the pain.