Week 6- Calm Before the Storm

An eerie silence. Nothing stirs around me. My footsteps shout out against the silence as I walk down the sidewalk. I pause for a moment; listening for anything to prove that I'm not simply dreaming, that this is real. Nothing. I look around, and find that even the trees are frozen, listening with me. Suddenly the silence seems oppressive. A thick, humid blanket of air envelops me, blocking any sound from the world around me. I want to fight it- to scream something and shatter the veil of silence around me- but i can't. The same force holding the world in place seems to weigh down on me, forcing me to hold my tongue. I glance up at the dark clouds above me, forcing their way between me and the sun. The silent darkness around me presses in, threatening to crush me. Suddenly, the silence is broken. Far in the distance, the sounds of a storm rumble across the sky, warning everyone to seek shelter. I run. I've been in too many storms to not know what comes next. From behind me comes the rustling of tree leaves, chattering to each other about the fierce wind that blows them. An impenetrable wall of wind slams into my back, nearly throwing me to the ground. A blinding flash of light blocks out everything I see, replacing it with pure white. Immediately after the lightning comes the deep, deafening boom of thunder from directly above me. Rain begins to fall, lightly at first, but soon evolving into mammoth chunks of water that slam against my skin, stinging like a swarm of bees. I see my home in the distance, standing in defiance of the storm, beckoning to me to hurry and come inside. Sensing its prey is escaping, the storm intensifies its furry; lashing me with bullets of rain and hail and mocking me with each massive boom of thunder. I put every ounce of energy into running, and dive across the threshold into the safety of my home. The storm howls in anger and relentlessly pounds my house, but I don't care; I am safe. I am home.