04Lonewolf's Short Stories

🏷️The Storm🏷️

Inspiration: The poem 'Porphyria's Lover' by Robert Browning.
(Word Count: 965 words)

I was cold and sodden, the rain and wind whipping around me, almost blinding.

The rain set early in-tonight. When I had set out on my hike, the sky had been beautiful and clear, illuminated by strong sunlight. Suddenly, without warning, the storm clouds had rolled in. And then the sullen wind was soon awake. And now, as I could tell by the sounds of many branches breaking and falling, it tore the elm-tops down for spite, and did its worst to vex the lake, whisking the water all around.

As I squinted out from under my coats hood, tightened around my face, I wiped my hand across my eyes, only to be blinded again the moment I took it away. I quietly swore, only to receive a mouthful of the damned water which made me suffer so.

Oh, just damn it all! I thought to myself as I continued to plough through the storm.

My luck this day had been very bad indeed. Well, the day had started well, but then it had scarpered. Yes, it had. I shook my head as I recalled the misfortune that I had encountered, losing my picnic basket, my map, and now my bearings. I shivered as the wind continued to howl past, my skin freezing under the coat and socks which had long since been soaked by the constant torrent.

I need to find shelter. Came the insistent need which had been plaguing me for the past hour. But how? I can hear nothing above this wailing wind, and barely see anything!

I ceased my trudging for a moment, standing still as I considered my precarious situation, and tried to fight off my growing fear. Do I keep walking and risk getting lost? Or do I stay here and freeze to death?

At last, after several moments of debating with myself, I decided to keep moving. At least this way I was doing something, instead of just accepting my fate, but my hopes for any rescue were low. My hands and feet were numb, as was my nose (which had previously been prickling), as I continued slowly stumbling forward, one step at a time, the wind pushing me from all sides.

Seconds, minutes, hours. I could not tell how long I had been battling through the cold storm. My chest spasmed as I gave another deep cough, and my muscles, now weak, trembled. An unusually strong gust of wind pushed me forward and I tumbled to the ground, falling to my knees, numb to the impact of rock against skin. I lay there, my breath coming in ragged, hoarse gasps, my throat swollen. I can't do it.

I buried my face to my chest, protecting the raw, red skin from the unceasing wind and rain. Tears stung my eyes. Oh god... I'm going to die. I am going to die out here, aren't I? I'm going to die!

I lay there, weeping as the storm continued to batter my deadened body. I had no strength left. Nothing else I could do but pray that I somehow survive. After several moments of incoherent, fragmented prayers, I heard a quiet voice.
"Keep going."

"I can't!" I cried out, unable to even lift my head and look at the voice's owner.

Who was I kidding? I was probably just hallucinating...

It was silent for several minutes, and my vision had begun to darken, when the voice spoke again, more insistent,
"Look up."

I had not even strength enough to reply to the imaginary voice, but continued to allow the darkness to slowly envelop me, the welcoming warmth lapping at my limbs.

"Look up!"

I can't. I replied in my mind, unable to even part my frozen lips.

"Philippians 4:13. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." An unbidden echo of my childhood.

The bible verse seemed to fill my limbs with strength, and I lifted my head up.

There! A light in the distance!

Hope spread through me, warming my freezing body, until at last I stood. My back bent double, I slowly, ever so slowly, I began to shuffle towards the light.

As I got closer, the source of the light changed from a shapeless mass to a small, quaint cottage, the warmth seeping out of the tiny windows and reviving me as I stumbled even nearer.

I was at the door. At last!

I rested my pounding, aching head against the worn wood. There was tender murmuring inside. For a moment, I held back, even as I froze to death my long-instilled politeness fearing to interrupt some tender moment. But, at the urging of my numb limbs, tingling nose, and chest filled with sharp pain, I pushed open the door with a creak.

My eyes were immediately drawn to the warmth of the fire, and the couple who sat beside it.

There was a man, a scruffy gardener by the looks of him, crooning in his companion's ear. I faintly heard snatches of "I, it's love, am gained" and "your darling one wish would be heard". But it was not the words that captured my attention so much, but the immense beauty I held before me. She looked perfectly pure and good, with beautiful blue eyes, her yellow hair displaced and, to my mortification as I realised, her smooth white shoulder bare. Her cheeks were flushed, and her lips stretched as though laughing, but my heart sank as I felt that there was something wrong, so wrong, in her stillness. Then, my weary eyes saw the cause. Her white neck was marred with a line. And suddenly I knew her to be dead.

My gasp gave me away, and they man looked up, his eyes taking on a dangerous, dark, gleam at being interrupted.