The Omnipotent Storm | Teen Ink

The Omnipotent Storm

December 20, 2015
By Hypatia BRONZE, Naples, Florida
Hypatia BRONZE, Naples, Florida
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Day 1
September 29th, 2079
    Crack. A splitting flame burst, leaving as quickly as it came, illuminating the four walls that were enclosing me inside. My eyelids burst open, scanning the veil of the night. Back against a wall, my legs are tucked under my chin and I am cradling myself, aware of the foreign surroundings. The rain, an incessant boom, pounds against the windows in a steady stream. I try to call out for help, but my throat is so dry I all I can muster is a crow. A metallic taste resided on the tip of my mouth, like I licked an old spoon a few hours back. Metal became blood as I chewed on my cheeks. Closing and shutting its wings, flapping, tempting to escape the chaos, the door shutters from the war outside. If any storm was an example of absolute power, this would be the. 
Crack. Another strike. Closer this time, once again illuminating the room. Leaves and debri cover the dilapidating floor. Well, from what I can observe in the split second of light. I hear a ripping of hinges. The door finally flew away. There are crashes of furniture falling over, but I cannot distinguish the damage. My hands are shaking. I clench them into a fist and my nails bite into my palm, cutting skin. My heart, bending and pulsating blood, keeps my body at maximum adrenaline levels, processing whether  I should fight or flee. Unable to sustain the thrashing of rain, a window shatters above me, splaying glass across the floor. As the lightning ignites the sky, the glass twinkles, creating its own constellations in the woodboards of the dusty floor. I feel an eerie trickling down my face; blood pours into my eyes. I reach up to my forehead to find the source of the bleeding when I feel a gash running perpendicular to my right eyebrow and nearly reaching my eyelid. That almost blinded me. Shards dig into my feet as I attempt to crawl away from the needles rain entering the room. My eyebrow gash leaves a trail of blood to seep into the wooden floor. The night is screaming. Please. Please stop. My hands, shaking, cover my ears from the howling rage. Stop, stop ,stop, stop, st-
Crack. Crack. Crack. A tree is bathed in a blaze. Glittering light entwines in the branches all the way down to the trunk like water trickling down. It is gold, and then it is black. The tree’s bending and twisting fight against the storm, finished by one pierce down the heart, splitting it open. It’s leaves are torn away, only ashes now, to mix with the mud. The glowing embers leap and twirl in a fiery dance, scintillating like stars in the hot swirling air before cascading to earth like gleeful fire fiends, till lastly dying by nature’s extinguisher. Shelter, I need to find shelter...But this is shelter…
Crack. Farther away this time. There is wooden table two paces away, haphazardly thrown in the corner. Whether the intensity of the storm has ripped a leg from its body or its been that way, I don’t know. I don’t care. I maneuver myself onto my stomach so the glass protruded in my feet wouldn’t further dig into my soles. Whimpers escape my lips every time I reach out to drag myself as glass and dirt and wooden splinters stab into the sides of my fists. My hair is whipping so violently I can barely see at all as I shuffle my body towards the table. Rain stabs the back of my legs like microneedles.
I reach the wooden sanctuary, pulling myself back up against the wall, my legs outstretched in front of me. With what strength I had left, I shove the table against the peeling wall, creating a substitute shelter, and crawl under. I cover my head with my arms,curl up into a ball facing the wall, and make sure my feet don’t touch the ground.  My heart is thudding to the adrenaline. Budumbudumbudum . If survive tonight in this makeshift cover,  I can survive anything. Crash Another window broke from under the rain. I don’t know where I remember learning it, but I start humming a melody. A swift, light song with fleeting beats and a mellow tone. A song that is heard once in the world and is never sung again, lost in its ephemeral nature. A song that is sung when the sky is falling and a mother cradling her light and love cannot find a better way to alleviate the noise.  The water from the rain and the dust from the floorboards mix together to make a paste that is palpable. Using my forefinger and my thumb, I shape the clay into a miniature star, grounding me to my current situation. Am I dreaming?  Hopefully it will last through the night. My eyelids droop, but the darkness of night and the asylum of my eyelids are indistinguishable. The incessant rain continues on and on until it is white noise. Eventually, sleep encaptures me in its gentle arms, shielding me from the omnipotent storm, like a mother to her infant.

I did not wake up in darkness, but woken up by a ray of sunlight turning the insides of my eyelids into a sharp orange. The world is whole again.


The author's comments:

I've lived my entire life in a region of the world where lightning, forest fires and bone-rattling thunder are frequent. After an especially traumatic night of a storm, I became inspired to write this story about a person who wakes up amidst catastrophe in a dilapidated shack. Hopefully this piece will create a world in your mind, a world of fear, amazement and Mother Nature.


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