There is a moment before a storm
when the world seems to remember something.

The birds disappear.
The trees go still.
Even the light changes, fading into that strange colorless hour
that belongs neither to day nor darkness.

Nothing has happened yet.

Still, the body knows.

The air presses closer.
The skin listens.
Something ancient moves quietly beneath the ribs.

Maybe that is why some people look up
when everyone else looks for shelter.

They recognize what is coming.

Not the rain.
Not the thunder.

Something older.

The beautiful violence of a world
that has stopped pretending to be still.

Then the sky tears itself open.

For one fractured second,
everything hidden is illuminated.

Every tree.
Every empty road.
Every shadow that thought darkness could keep its secrets.

Then blackness again.

Darker somehow for having been interrupted.

Rain strikes the roof, runs in silver rivers down glass,
gathers in places that were dry only moments before.

The wind bends what will bend.
The water finds what was left open.

And the thunder keeps speaking
to something beneath the skin.

People close their windows.
Lock their doors.
Wait for it to pass.

But some stand at the glass and watch.

Not because they are waiting for the sky to clear.
Not because they need the sun to return.

Some have simply learned
there are kinds of darkness that do not frighten them.

Some hear thunder
and feel something inside them answer.

Some watch the sky tear itself open and understand
why beautiful things do not always need to be gentle.

The storm will pass.

They always do.

But for a little while,
the sky is allowed to become exactly what it is.

Dark.
Loud.
Uncontained.

And no one asks it to apologize.

© 2026 Wynter Rayne. All Rights Reserved.