Hurricane

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Today is not an ordinary day. 

The wind is too strong, for starters. It howls around my ears like a crying banshee, screaming something I cannot hope to understand. I can barely see, because my hair is snapping like a whip, striking my face with every breath I take, every single confusing gust. It's not cold, surprisingly, but I stumble with every step, and I can see other pedestrians frowning in confusion, struggling to stay upright in the strength of it all. 

The sky is clear, but something seems off about it. Instead of the usual blue of a winter afternoon, there's a strange lavender tint to it, as if someone's turned on one of those colour-changing lights. There's only one cloud up there, but the bottom is a silvery lilac. 

I've never seen a purple sky before. And it doesn't get this windy here, at least not without the accompanying rain. It doesn't make any sense. Where's the storm, the thunder?

And then, as I'm trying to squint through my hair and the leaves that are tumbling past me, I see it. A face, in the air itself. A barely-there afterimage of a human face, almost feral and alien, the ears slightly pointed, the features slightly off. It disappears as quickly as it flashed into view, and I spin around, searching for that image once more. Trying to find something that's impossible, beautiful, in a way I could never understand. 

You hit me
Like a winter storm speaks
Brighter than all this lightning
Your sparks, they light the sky

I stumble slightly as I turn around, and then I see it again. This time, my eyes come into direct contact with the wild gaze of whatever it is. There's a pause, a moment of recognition, and then it goes again. And for a few seconds I can't breathe, can't process a thing. And then the wind rushes into my lungs like water, as something rumbles in the sky above. I can hear my heartbeat, feel it thudding in my ears and in my chest. It's like I'm drowning in the air. 

What the hell? Who was that? What was that? 

The wind seems to solidify around me, and suddenly it pulls round me, like someone's grabbed me and is pinning my arms to my waist, lifting me several feet into the air. Other pedestrians turn to stare as I find myself levitating, trying desperately to fight the power of the wind that's tossing trees like sticks now, ducking and twisting under bricks and bags and the occasional duck. And then, without any warning, something flashes in my periphery, and I turn around, searching for that face in the wind.

Something smacks into me, hard, and the world goes black. 

So won't you come back
Throw me like a car crash
I'm waiting for your impact
Until you're here, I'm only wasting time


I wake up, aching and sore, freezing cold, on my ass in the street. Someone's standing over me, applying something to my forehead, and I can feel a stretchy fabric under my back as they stand up, bringing me with them into an ambulance. Even as I lay there, a young woman in a green uniform talking to me in a low voice about something I can't quite make out past the irritating wail of some undulating siren. 

The moments begin to blur, my eyes flickering shut for a moment, the world seeming to spin around me like we've jumped on some horrible theme park ride that I really cannot be bothered to deal with right now. The woman grows more frantic, more concerned, but it just becomes meaningless noise when a small, translucent figure appears within the vehicle itself. 

They wear the equivalent of rags, drifting silks and robes that move of their own accord, hair blowing in some invisible storm. The face is the same as the one I saw in the storm, the same slightly alien expression, the curiosity and recognition, but the body is new. Lithe, tanned, crouched like a prey animal in the corner of the space I'm in. The nurse doesn't seem to notice, instead now trying desperately to get my attention. But I don't register anything, and my vision soon fades away. 

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