Lightning

A short story by memory-flower

I crouch cat-like beneath the prickly bushes of the forest. Rain is plunging in droplets, hitting the ground in tiny explosions. The sky is crying. The clouds shout at the world, growling in thunderous roars, throwing spears of electricity everywhere around me.

I bet you're wondering what I'm doing here. The truth is that I don't even know what I'm doing, kneeling behind a rose bush, thorns-

"Ow!" I gasp as a thorn shoves its way into my arm, releasing a bead of blood. I don't bother to wipe it off.

I had been running away, but when I saw the greyness of the sky, I had to stop, had to take cover.

I hadn't seen lighting before, nor been in a storm...at least, not for real.

I had never been outside before. I don't have a name. You can call me Outcast. I am Outcast, now and forever. Before I get to explaining what I'm doing, you should know a few things...

A little while ago, about 15 years to be precise, a child was taken unknowingly from his mother's arms. She never knew. She believed the child to be dead, or at least dying. The kid was hidden from the world, hidden in a mysterious room that smelled of sour milk and sawdust. It had only one small window that was welded to the cold walls of imprisonment; the walls were the boundaries that kept the child from the outside world, if there even was one. The kid couldn't talk; it had never learned how. It had never met any humans, or any animals, or even seen any. There was never any light. Food appeared like magic before its eyes; it eventually figured out it was supposed to eat it, by the nagging pang in its stomach.

You may have guessed who that kid was. Maybe you've got your own theories about the in-between parts. No matter what you think, that kid was and is me.

Now, I'm stranded. I know nothing. How was I supposed to know what lightning did? It strikes the Earth in crashing sounds. It looks fascinating as it hits and shatters a tree. I run into the opening, and straight into a burning, shocking sensation. I scream, but no one hears me...

I am dead before I know what death is.

A/N: Wow it's been a long time since I've posted anything...this story came from a challenge game that I play with my friends-they give me a word, I write either a short story or a poem on that word. Sometimes, I get decent work from it, but it's mostly just for fun. Just thought I'd post this. Lemme know whatcha think *nudge nudge* *hints at reviews* *wink wink*