For the alternative prompt: Natural disaster

I'm writing the original prompt 18 as a separate piece, so you get the short alternative one here for now :)


The grass was slippery underneath his feet as he ran, the heavy smell of ozone and wet dirt clogging his nose. His drenched clothes clung to his body because he hadn't been able to even grab his jacket before running outside. A riffle shot hitting the ground not a foot to his left reminded him he had worse problems.

Thunder rumbled over his head like a warning. Running across the field was far from ideal, leaving him exposed in more than one way, but it was still better than straying too close to the tall pines looming at the edges.

A flash of light blinded him, followed by a glass-shattering crash that shook his body and he fell to the ground. His ears rung and spots danced before his eyes, and he had to forcibly blink them away.

When Alex looked behind him, one of the pines had lost its top and most of its bark, and the remaining part of the trunk had been set ablaze. Close by, two black lumps laid in the grass – the men who had chased him. Alex looked away before he knew if they were still breathing.

Another lightning bolt flitted across the sky, thunder followed with a roar in its wake, and Alex stumbled back to his feet and ran. While the men chasing him could have hardly been called harmless, Alex feared the weather more. Humans, no matter how irrational, were still human; thinking and feeling creatures, even if you wouldn't always believe it when watching the news.

Storms were mindless, unpredictable, wild; only obeying the forces of nature. One thing humanity had still not managed to tame and control. And Alex shuddered at the thought of anyone managing it. Forget bombs and drones; the sheer power surrounding him as the sky looked to split in two with a triumphant roar was otherworldly.

You couldn't fight something like that.

Alex yielded to the panicked part of his brain that shouted at him to run and find shelter, to curl up and hide until the sky had calmed its temper and the pouring rain turned to a fine drizzle.


Themes: thunderstorm, non-graphic description of dead/unconscious bodies