The Last Storm

Listen to your heart.  Michelle Liew

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He'd survived worse. He always did. James, a cantankerous, stubborn old man, had lived in the same cabin in the woods all his life. The howling echo of the wind and rain deluges made their presence constant, as did the still, eerie silence. James glanced toward the storm, hearing its deceptive call.--it carried something strange, unspoken.

The radio sounded a warning of an impending storm--leave. But the old man, true to his form, tried to block the radio announcer's caution from his ears. But his fingers lingered over the radio dial. The ex-soldier had come through the Second World War alive--but this time, he had to pause.

Besides, it would surely pass. Surely.

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The storm raged on. Odd sounds resounded through the cabin--quick knocks on the door, faint whispers in the wind. To James, they were mere tricks of a malevolent storm -he'd seen and heard them all.

An abrupt power short, and the fire in the fireplace sputtered its last breath. He knew its moves. He gazed at the window and blinked. A shadow moved outside, pushing him towards the door. The lights flickered.

He turned the handle.

Nothing could prepare him for what he saw.

It was a younger version of himself, his eyes wide with fear and urgency.

*You have to leave, or you won't make it. Not this time. LISTEN TO ME."

Then, he remembered.

James stared, standing still, his mouth hanging slightly open. His younger self looked out-of-place.Ignored.Fearful--almost.

Stubbornly, he slammed the door shut.

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Was it really himself? Or was this his mind's weird idea of a joke?

James paused in thought as he gazed at his younger self. "Not this time." The half-sentence felt like a disturbing echo of his past--how he had ignored the constant call to leave time and time again.

He faced the young man before him squarely, but refused to look him in the eye.

His younger self regaled him in a piercing voice. "You always know. But you never listen. Never."

Outside, the storm continued its menacing rage . He'd come through many of them before, but this one, with primal thunderclaps and too-angry lightning flashes, was the consummate antagonist.

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Then, he knew. He had to listen. He reached out a tentative hand to his younger self, lingering outside the door with a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

And the young James' visage faded, growing dimmer and dimmer, a fleeting image. The storm raged, taking with it the ramshackle roof, walls, and windows.

It remembered James. The door to the outside patio flung open, and slammed shut as it flew, closing the way to the past.

"I always knew. But it meant nothing--I never listened."

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The rain came to a quiet stop, reflecting on the quiet chaos it had created. The cabin, now without James, was empty, a haunted space for a forgotten soul. The rescue team found no jimmied locks, no broken windows.

James had refused to leave the cabin--and left a constant call unanswered.

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This work is NOT AI generated or copied. Any AI tags are coincidental.