There’s nothing quite like a good jog, is there? The wind rushing by you, the ground slowly passing by beneath your feet, a proper jog is a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. This was not a good jog.

This time, I was charging across the pitch-black fields, my breath ragged. Under my feet, the old corn crop was trampled into the dirt, dead plants flying into the air behind me.

Of course, I wasn’t really going all that fast. The wind was trying so desperately to keep me form my destination that I barely moved with each step.

The wind was just one part of it though. The great, menacing clouds in the sky didn’t help my morale, while the smashing rain made my skin cold and my clothes drag me back. After each bolt of destruction I would have to stop to regain my vision in the almost black nothingness before me. Altogether, it was one hell of a storm.

Me and my sister live alone now, since our folks died. We’ve been working on dividing up the property; but the will was so damn vague, just like our parents I guess. Just last week we were bickering over who got the bigger house, and who was to be given the old barn. After a lot of shouting, my sister ended up not with the barn, and moved in straight away.

My sister. If this storm had happened just a week ago, I wouldn’t be out here, risking life and limb for the bloody fool of a girl who thought living in a rundown barn was a good idea.

The storm already pulled away the new extension on the house that my parents built not long ago, now just the old brick and mortar original remains. I called my sister almost straight after it fell, no matter how weak that extension was, I knew the barn was weaker.

I got through to her, but only for a moment. She told me the barn had already come down, and she was hiding in her old car. I told her to come over to the house, and we could stay in the warm until the storm had passed and help had arrived.  She agreed, got out of the car, and then I heard the beginning of a yell.

Then the reception went.

I jumped out of the house, shoes barely slipping onto my feet before the door swung open, my coat haphazardly slung around my shoulders, to be properly attached as I ran.

And that’s where I was, running across the field, the rain soaking everything in its path to the ground, when the bolt hit. I saw the flash first, a giant, white light burning across my vision, blinding me. Next came the sound, or perhaps, a more apt a choice of words would be the lack of it. There was a sudden nothingness, the air was fizzing silently around me, as my retinas burnt and my ears buzzed, that’s when the pain hit.

A wave of charged nothing passed through me, buckling my knees and forcing my back to arch, a moment later I was sent sprawling onto the ground, a good distance from where I’d been standing only moments ago.

It’s surprising, what you can live through, when your mind is so steadfastly set on something that even a bolt of lightning won’t phase it. I got up, and after a few seconds of patting out the impossible flames on my sodden jacket, I began to run again, significantly slower now, but with the same goal.

The remains of the old barn were now in sight, a few wooden beams, still standing, as if they hadn’t yet realized the roof they were supporting had already crumbled around them.

And there was Sophia, lying by what was probably once her car.

I cannot, and will not, put into words what I saw. Suffice it to say I was too late.

My legs were still pumping, and although they had now slowed down to a walking pace, they refused to stop as I passed the wreckage of the old barn, and on.

And to this day, they’ve refused to stop. I fear they want to escape what I saw, or perhaps they still think they can get there in time to stop it happening…