Storm (An Excerpt from My WIP)

Brittle brown leaves danced in the wind that Kiera created as she escaped through the woods. Towering skeletons filled the space where trees once stood, their bare limbs screeching against one another in the gusts of air. Animals, disturbed from their slumber, scattered off and away from this strange creature recklessly stumbling her way through their home. Birds disappeared themselves from surrounding trees as their flapping wings carried them away from the unknown. The sounds of her own fearful feet pounding the untraveled ground of the forest floor, twigs snapping, leaves crunching, rose to a crescendo. But she could hear none of this. No. Her ears were filled only by the symphony of her heavily drumming heart and sharp, staccato breaths. Her muscles screamed and her lungs cried out in agony, contributing to the tears already tumbling down her cheeks. Yet she pushed on all the more, hoping to out run the demons torturing her. The hurt. The confusion. The anger. And most importantly, the fear. But these things existed within her, clinging to her insides, like leeches, slowly draining away her will and energy. No amount of running would purge her of this.

The wind hurried itself to keep up with the pace of her inner turmoil, producing an eerie whistling sound, like that of a freight train, which carried far and wide on the cold evening air. As the sun sank lower into the sky, the temperature, too, slipped lower in measured response. The chill called forth goose bumps to every inch of her skin before running down her spine and seizing her whole body.

Finally, she broke through the outskirts of the forest and found herself near the shore of the lake. The dock stretched out before her with a small fishing boat tied to the side, rising and falling against it as the water lapped waves onto the shore. She briefly wondered, in the back of her mind, if she had known this was where her legs were leading her all along.

The turmoil that was her emotions rose and grew stronger, threatening to overtake her completely. The clouds began to swirl and gather overhead; the waves on the lake began to swell. Her feet carried her out to the edge of the dock and the waves rose and crashed around her ankles. She was numb to everything going on around her as the eerie voice living inside her head whispered, “Just let go; let me in. I can give you the rest you so desperately crave. I can make it all go away. Let me in.”  

Every bird within a one mile radius fled the area in trepidation, the sounds of their cawing dancing with the now howling wind. Her fists clenched beside her and her body shook, feeling as though she would implode at any moment as she tried to fight for control. Control of her mind. Of her life. Of her soul. The sky, the wind, and the water pulled together and formed two twin funnels over the lake, twisting and spinning together, then apart, then together again.

“Succumb to me,” urged the voice. No, she thought. She decided then and there, that she was going to fight. She wasn’t a quitter, and whatever was going on, she was going to figure it out and put an end to it. She wasn’t going to allow it to swallow her whole. She had a family and friends and a future and nothing, nothing was going to take those things from her. Not if she could help it.

Her hands threaded through her hair and she threw her head back, a blood curdling, feral scream ripped its way out of her lungs and throat, pushing all of her fear and weakness out onto the wind, to be carried far, far away from her. As she did, a bolt of lightning crashed down out of the sky and struck the boat rocking violently on the water beside her. Having expelled almost all of her energy, her vision began to cloud in the corners and she collapsed onto the dock. Slowly, the storm began to subside. The funnels retreated back into their clouds; the water grew calmer across the lake, and, eventually, the birds returned to their nests. As she lay there on the dock, the last thing she saw was several cardinals taking off across the sky, dotting the grey with red. The sky is bleeding, she thought before she completely surrendered to the darkness that now carried with it peace and reprieve instead of terror. She would live to fight another day.