the calmest of storms || closed

As the hurricane raged, the young woman watched as the world-destroying storm approached her coastal hometown. It was her anger and sorrow that had seeded this apocalyptic scene, nature's fury having become her own. For though her enemy now lie dead at her feet, the battle had broken the dam that had long-kept her emotions at bay. "It's all my fault" she thought. The winds whipped at her hair, flogging her face with the black threads, leaving thin white cuts across her cheeks and nose. Suddenly, the roar of thunder tore at her ears. It deafened her, drowning out even the sound of her own thoughts. She had thirsted for revenge against the man who had torn everything from her. Her home that he had burned, her family that he had crippled, and more. Her rage had finally escaped her control. And now that he was dead, charred by the power of the storm within her, she felt nothing. Her anger now manifested in its most uncontrollable state beyond her body. Revenge had brought her peace, but now without the drive to focus it, she had unleashed something far worse than a murderer into the world. Nature's wrath was indiscriminate. There was no rhyme or reason to it. And in her guilt and her grief, the woman found her answer: to let go. Not to forgive, but to let all her pain flow down into the sea. A blue light emerged from her eyes, racing into the heart of the storm. And in that eye, she found her peace. For a brief moment, she held a hurricane in her hands, as if cradling its power and calming it like a child. Waves ceased, the winds died down, and the clouds began to separate and flee in an airborne diaspora. Just as the sea and sky had deigned to consume the earth, just as quickly had they been halted. And in that moment, the woman saw the calmest of storms break into the blue light of a new dawn.