One Word Prompts 2020

Storm - The Men of Lightning

The storm raged outside the bunker. Roared with all the fury of the heavens. Thunder echoed through the night, its boom intermixed and indistinguishable from the explosions of bombs falling on the city. Each boom momentarily drowning out the cries of children, only to inspire fresh screams of fright.

That was her entire world, that box of panic-stricken civilians. All of them huddled in a mass on the floor. Cold concrete beneath her. The air tasting of iron. The wailing of children. The rush of rain on the metal roof. The boom of thunder and incendiaries.

It was dark. The power had gone out in one of the booms earlier. That was an hour ago now? Maybe longer? An eternity.

It left them with only the dull, yellow glow of the emergency lights. Left them sitting in the haunting half glow, surrounded in shadows and creeping darkness.

Sitting wondering if half the rumors were true. Sitting wondering how much of the city would remain when the bunker doors finally opened. How much of the world?

She wanted to disregard it all. She wanted to believe the stories of portals to other worlds were nonsense. Wanted to believe the government broadcasts, that their attackers were nothing more than foreign militaries. Wanted to believe it was the ordinary kind of apocalypse.

She hugged her knees into her chest, trying not to think about what she'd seen. About what she knew that the average citizen didn't.

But she'd seen the portal open. She'd been there on the street as the first of the strange clouds poured through the swirling purple membrane and glowing arch. She'd watched, unable to believe her eyes as strange beings made of lightning strode out on the clouds, like elven ghost kings, regal and ethereal. She'd watched as lightning arched from their hands and danced through the people standing around her.

She shivered at the memory. Shivered with the knowledge it was no ordinary storm raging beyond the bunker doors. She held her knees tighter, willing warmth back into her body.

To no avail.

A pounding broke the unsteady din of booms and wailing, almost unnoticeable beneath the cacophony that raged around her. For a moment, she convinced herself the deliberate tapping on the doors was her imagination.

But then they rang on the doors again, louder this time. Loud enough to draw the attention of every soul huddled around her.

"What is that?" a woman asked, clutching a child to her chest. The banging continued. Louder. And louder.

Strong enough to leave dents along the seam of the door.

"P-probably just the storm," a man said. He stood, stepping hesitantly toward the door.

That was when the door gave way. They flew off their hinges, flying through the man who'd stood to investigate. Screams of fright exploded around her.

Dark clouds swirled through the breach. They sparked, crackling with primal energy. They rolled out over the concrete floor, through the huddling civilians, cold and oppressive.

She shook her head. No, no, no. They were supposed to be safe here. She was supposed to be safe. This wasn't how this was supposed to go.

It came next. The man of lightning.

It floated into the bunker, tall and dignified. Not a being of flesh and blood, but crackling lightning.

"Wha-what is that?" a woman whispered. She could feel the crowd around her edging away from the man of lightning and the burst bunker doors. They didn't know what it was, but they could sense the danger.

It moved slowly, deliberately. Its head scanned the room with its eyeless, featureless face. Searching. For them? For another source of power?

It was pointless to guess.

It stepped forward over the spilling sea of clouds, approaching the frightened humans. Crackling step after crackling step. Closer and closer.

Around her, they quaked in the fear of the unknown. The uncertainty of what it wanted, what it could do. The ways it could kill them running wild through their imagination.

Her heart pounded in her chest. Pounded no different than the poor unfortunates caught in this bunker with her. Yet, pounding for a whole host of different reasons.

They were scared because they didn't know.

She was scared because she did.

She knew exactly what this man of lightning was. She knew exactly what they were capable of.

And it made the imaginings of those who didn't seem almost pleasant in comparison.

Oh, she wanted to hide. She wanted to run. To do anything but...

But, this bunker had been her hiding place. And she had been found.

But, she'd run so fast and so far to get here, there was nowhere left to run to. And they had caught her.

But, now there were more innocents caught in her fight. Governments bombing their own people to try to slow monsters that shouldn't exist. People dead because she'd hidden and run.

She stood. Stood the way she should have to begin with.

She stood, her heart beating fast enough to tear a hole in her chest.

She stood, her eyes somehow meeting the eyeless gaze of the man of lightning before her.

"I'm here," she said, pulling courage from the depths of her soul. Pulling the power lying dormant there too. It swirled there. It resisted her call. Too long she'd rejected it. But she pulled it. Pulled it to her hands as the man of lightning approached.

"What are you doing?" the woman at her side hissed, pulling her pant leg, all but begging her to sit back down.

But cowering would do nothing.

"I'm here," she repeated louder. "I'm the one you all are looking for."

The man of lightning paused, its head cocking to one side as it eyelessly scanned her from head to toe.

She took her chance at that moment its movement faltered. She stepped forward, one step, two, a leap. She held her hands out, palms forward, as she collided with the man of lightning, willing that power in her soul onto her hands like she had long ago been taught.

As her skin collided with its body of electricity, she could feel its pulsing power. And she willed it gone.

There was an explosion. Heat banished the cold from her body. Wind exploded out and away, pushing the civilians on the floor back. The man of lightning staggered back, an arm missing, its body flickering.

It snarled. With no teeth, no mouth, it snarled. A terrible zapping, hissing sound emanating off its hunched form.

She stood tall before it, between in and the civilians behind her. She could feel her magic coursing through her. Coursing through her the way it had not in years. It overflowed out of her, like a dam broken.

You cannot escape us, the man of lightning said. His words carried over the flux of energy rather than through the vibrations of the air.

"I'm done running," she proclaimed, balling her magic in her palms.

You will never beat us, it cackled.

"Maybe not," she said. There was no end to the men of lightning, after all. She could already see more of them gathering in the storm outside the bunker. And she was just one person. Inexperienced and weak. "But I won't know unless I try."