Author's Note: So I'm planning for this to be a ten-chapter story... depends on if I get any new ideas(always welcome in the reviews!) and feedback from you guys. Please review if you enjoyed it so far. :)

The Allen house was silent the night it happened. Barry can remember that much clearly. He was eleven years old. In bed, pretending to be asleep, watching the light from occasionally passing cars reflecting off his ceiling. He remembers how his room looked.

He remember the silence was broken by a piercing scream. A woman's scream. And that's where he could no longer tell what was real and what wasn't.

The water in the fish tank seemed to rise up, out of the tank, and he remembers staring in shock. Then, remembering the scream, he ran out of the room, down the stairs, and even from the top of the stairs, he could see the red and yellow light, flashing with unbelievable speed, and he could hear clearly now the woman's screams, and, louder than that, the sound of a tornado wooshing and spitting and thundering.

He had never gone down the stairs faster than he did that night, sprinting down all fourteen, almost tripping over his own feet and standing frozen in terror when he reached the bottom. Because the woman who had been screaming was in the center of the roaring tornado was his mother and it looked like a bolt of lightning was trapped in his living room.

Red and yellow streaks of electricity zoomed around the room so fast the entire house was shaking. Or maybe it was just Barry shaking, or maybe he was hallucinating the entire thing. "Mom!" he screamed above the roaring. "Mom!"

"Barry!" Then "Don't let him touch you!"

He was trying to reach her, to see her behind the spinning wheel of light. But all he could see was the blinding lightning showering the dark room with the dizzying, racing colors that were so bright they seared into his eyelids so that he could see them when he blinked. He was desperately trying to compute what was happening, to understand what the light was and why his mom couldn't get out and who the person he shouldn't let touch him was when he saw it.

Just for a split second. Like the brief glimpse of lightning you can see right before it vanishes.

A man.

And just like that, Barry was certain the man in the yellow was the one trapping his mother, the one making the yellow and red light. He wasn't sure how, but he screamed above the storm again anyway.

"Mom!"

Then his dad, who he hadn't even realized was standing there, turned to him and gripped his shoulders with strong hands and cried above the wind, "Run, Barry!" He shook Barry's shoulders. "Run!" But Barry couldn't move, his legs were caked in wet cement and he was too entranced, too held captive by the howling lightning, and by the sight of his mother in the middle of a swirling whirlpool of light.

But before Barry could answer, he was no longer beside the tornado, and everything was dark and silent. He was in the middle of a deserted road he remembered- it was a street where he and Iris had ridden their bikes just a week before. But there was no way he could have gotten there on his own, no way at all, he had been by the lightning- the red and yellow were still imprinted on his vision, blocking his sight, and his ears were still ringing from the noise. He turned in a circle, his heart rate climbing despite the peace and silence of the street because he shouldn't be there there was no way he should be there he needed to get back to his house, and just like that, Barry remembered his mom again, sitting in the center of the lightning, and he ran. He ran as fast as he could in the direction of his house, he knew the direction well enough to get there on his own, his feet slapping against the wet asphalt and splashing drops of rainwater behind him. His lungs burned the full mile back to his house, and he felt like he could barely breathe, but there were no cars and no one was going to help him and he had to get back to the house.

But when the house came into view, Barry could see more lights flashing- red and blue. The sound of approaching ambulances and sirens shrieked in the distance, but there were already so many cars outside of his house, all flashing blue and red. He felt reassured for a few seconds- the police were here, they were going to take away the bad man and the lightning, they were going to help his mother, and the light was gone from the house so there was nothing left to be afraid of. He didn't stop running, though- he sprinted all the way up the sidewalk, before he came to a sudden stop.

The police were taking his father out of the house in handcuffs.

Barry's eyes grew wide. When they wouldn't let him talk to his dad, when they put him into the police car, Barry ducked under a police officer trying to stop him and into the house.

Detective West was there. He was Iris's dad, and he was talking to another officer about the big bag on the floor, and before anyone else could stop him Barry ran up and lifted up the bag, because there was something bad underneath it he just knew there was and-

The blank, staring face of his mother was underneath the bag.

Barry's heart felt like it had been shattered with a sledgehammer. Nausea curdled his insides as he shook his mother's shoulder and said in a disbelieving monotone, "Mom. Mom." He felt the panic rising and expanding in his stomach like a balloon, as his breathing came faster and faster and tears started to pool in his eyes because he couldn't seem to get enough air in and he didn't know what was going on and he had never been so scared.

A large hand gently rested on his shoulder, and Barry whirled around to see the sorrowful face of Detective West, whose stony features had never looked so defeated. "Hey, Barry," he said softly. "I'm going to need you to go with this lady over here for a minute, okay?" He crouched down so that he was eye-level with Barry. "She's going to take care of you, okay? She's going to make sure you're absolutely safe. She may need to ask you some questions, but nothing until you're ready, I promise. Do you see her?"

Barry didn't respond. He stared at Detective West with terror-filled eyes, still breathing shallowly and shaking. Detective West took Barry's hand. "Here, let's go see her together, okay? See, she's right here." They walked across the hall to a tall woman with frizzy, unruly hair who looked to be in her mid-forties. The woman looked down at the eleven year old, pity written across her face. Barry barely noticed her through his blurry, tear-filled vision, but finally comprehended what Detective West was saying and shook his small head vigorously. "No. No! Detective West, please, don't leave me, please, I need to stay here, I need to find my dad and I don't know where he is and I need to help my mom and please-" Barry broke off with a broken sob, hyperventilating as the impact of what was happening struck him with terror.

Detective West's own eyes filled with tears as he hugged Barry gently. "Barry, hey, shh. Everything is going to be fine, I promise, but you need to go with Ms. Amelia right now, she's going to take care of you. I promise. I promise. Can you be brave for me now, Barry?"

Barry hesitated, looking up at Detective West's face. He had never wanted to say no more in his life, but Detective West was an adult, and Iris's dad, and he knew Barry's dad and he knew what to do.

Barry gave a small nod.

Ms. Amelia drove Barry far away from the police sirens, and the lights, and from Detective West and his mom. They drove all the way to downtown Central City, then into a small, wet, deserted parking lot filled with autumn leaves. By that time, Barry was quiet, tears still drying on his cheeks as he pressed his forehead to the cold window of the car and focused on breathing as deeply as he could. The air was still and silent when Barry finally opened the car door. The woman with the frizzy hair walked him all the way up the slippery brick stairs, into a little alcove with a door set inside that she unlocked with a jangling of keys. Barry had just enough time to read the sign above the door, which was hard to make out in the darkness, before he was escorted inside.

Western Central City Foster Home.