Doomsday Challenge: Purple Lightning

I remember when it all began. Whenever I think back to December 6th 2019, the memory begins the same way. It was 9.19am and I was playing one of the songs I made with my guitar, it is ironically called “World is coming to an end”. I would come to this spot often and would sit in the mini tree house in the woods where I grew up. It was my perfect spot. I could lean back on part of a tree stump and gaze at the sky while singing my heart out to the universe. Purple lightening caught the corner of my left eye while twanging the incorrect note on my instrument, it was a loud screeching sound; both my guitar and the thunder as I stood up with a strong, instant feeling of dread. The clear, blue sky was morphing into something so beautifully angry; I say this because I have never felt such pain in my eyes looking at these bright vibrant colours. They were first shooting between the clouds, the clouds which were white and bright simply evaporated into the sky like dust, camouflaging amongst the other colours. Trees began screaming at me through the noises of dogs barking in horror. I knew I had to get out of there but paused, my long blonde hair was whizzing around me like a helicopter from the now modern weather upon us. My senses were telling me; this is not temporary - this is now the new world. I shook my head in disbelief, seeing the colours in the sky creating a thick atmosphere of smoke through the woods, like rays of multi coloured fire sunshine. As my heart began to raise and race, I started to run. For some reason I was not thinking “oh my god, I am going to die – be careful of that ultra-screaming tree”. I was seeing my dreams of becoming a famous singer being ripped away from me just like a naughty child’s favorite toy being taken, just like that. I was 19, I felt I was at the high peak of my life, I was really and truly just starting to feel happy and hopeful for the future. This feeling soon vanished as I reached outside the woods. Adrenaline kicked in as I saw other people spread around my neighborhood in different positions; two figures in the distance running out of the way from a light pole knocking into a nearby house. Screams pitched my ears.

I noticed to my left - a pretty female around my age, looking terrified as the smoke started to drift around us, feeling thicker every second, I yelled to her “I’m coming to help you, it will be okay!”

As I ran, the wind slowed me down. It was just like one of those dreams when you are begging in your head to get away but you are in slow motion. I don’t even think she heard me, or if she did- it really didn’t make a difference to her. Just about six more tedious steps away, I finally reached her, then right at that moment, a bolt of lightning came striking down hitting both of us. The noise was unbearable, one of my fleeting thoughts were ‘goodbye eardrums, at least you served me well in all those concerts”.

I’m lying on my side right next to the now deformed street path – remembering the girl who I was running over to – I scoped around, still lying down when I notice her long hair facing away from me. I jumped to my feet – startled. Instead of seeing her scared, hurt or deceased, she had an eerie smile with her head directed up at the sky. I crept around to see the top of her face. To my disbelief, her eyes were bright purple just like the lightening was. I gasped and this grasped her attention, waking her out of the hypnotization. Her neck twitched, she didn’t even stand up – her feet elevated her like she was possessed, eyes focused on me, looking calm and completely psychotic, her smile and features not moving a muscle. She instantly reminded me of one of the faeries in my oracle card collection. She was beautiful but extremely creepy, a very shocking and confused combination. I started walking backwards through the wind keeping my eyes on her the whole time, she was slow with her feet like a ballerina stalking me. Out of nowhere she appeared in front of me, holding my shoulders, burning the brightest lilac into my scared soul just like the new sky did.

A moment later, she started grabbing my neck and almost ripped off my locket keeping her hands wrapped around my throat-I could feel the cricoid pressure. Her eyes too bright to look at, only her mouth visible, no movement, just smiling. Out of nowhere I hear my name “KENDALL” and the psychotic, hypnotized woman is ran over with my own car before my newly burnt vision. It is my housemate Louise. When I got in that car, I knew everything was changed forever. Louise started driving us to god knows where through the new storm asking me frantically what the hell was happening to me with the stranger when I yell “Wait, STOP, pull over I need to drive!”

Louise remained with her hands on the wheel “Kendall are you seeing what is happening here? I don’t think road rules matter anymore” she exclaimed.

“Well I honestly think that a learner driver will lessen our chances of survival in a car in a crazy ‘pandemicy’ storm! So Pull over!” I insisted.

Louise rolled her eyes and was about to open the door:

“No, no just switch over in the car” I stuttered as my body was shaking “nothing out there is safe anymore”.

After we shuffled around we look at the horror among us, there were streaks of the lightening heading out of the sky randomly. Louise looked at me with a look I’ve never seen from her out of the 14 years I’ve known her and said “I saved your life” with an intuitive tone.

I grabbed her hand and nodded with tears in my eyes as I started driving to anywhere.

Louise had tears down her face and asked me “So where are we gonna go now…And what the hell happened to your eyes?”

All we did was drive and camp in the car within the safest places we could find, mostly sticking to tunnels. It felt like years later, but it must have only been a week or so-we found a base in a shopping Centre maybe about three hours from home. We were lucky enough to get to a fuel station and there was still gas to fill up our now world war three looking car. There is no routine for day and night anymore, it is just an ongoing surprise of weather events.

When we somewhat ‘recovered’ from coming to terms with our new world, there were questions we thought we would never get answers to. The answer I needed most was from the day everything changed; why did the lightening only affect the pretty stranger and not me? I felt…special. My guess is we are in around February 2021 and we have seen our fair share of ‘the possessed’. Saying we; I mean Louise, myself and three other’s we have met along the way. First came along Danny, I first saw him getting attacked by an elderly ‘possessed’ and he certainly didn’t act elderly. He had super strength. You see that’s how it makes human’s; If the thunder hits you, your eyes change to the colours of the sky, you acquire an above average strength you can only imagine in supernatural entertainment. It’s far from entertainment, it is a breath of dark, thick air that makes it unbearable to breathe. We have to try and stay inside as much as possible. Heading back to the day we met Danny; Our group takes shifts in collecting necessities from around the shopping Centre, there are certain parts of the Centre not completely destroyed. Louise and I headed on our shift to scrounge up supplies. Along the way, we saw huge spirals of crazy colours, mostly purple, we all wear sunglasses to somewhat salvage our eyes. Colours were shooting from the elderly gent’s eyes into Danny’s, I hit the possessed with my awesome, guitar, sharp, weapon, knife, thing and I battered his head six times into the ground. The purple blood was squirting and pouring out everywhere, delicious...

Louise was already helping Danny. I honestly thought his eyes weren’t going to change back to their normal colour. He stared intensely with huge, bright pupils and an impressed tone saying “You girls certainly have learnt a thing or two”.

Louise and I gave each other a look only the two of us share.

“Oh my god, are you okay?!” Danny asked me with a look of surprise.

As we walked back to base, Louise and I began explaining to Danny about the reason my eyes are a slightly glow in the dark bright purple and the unknown reasons of how I survive through the lightning.

His eyes had already changed back to their so called ‘normal’ colour, but it was very far from normal in my eyes. They were the colour of a green heaven with flecks of the deepest hazel and surrounding bright crystal lime swirls. He had light brown hair with flickers of grey just seeping through. I could tell they had only started coming out in the last year.

I am now a soldier with strangers forced together to trust one another and to fight through the never-ending journey. Our group has expanded to eight of us now, we have to vacate the shopping Centre. It is too dangerous and has much more damage from the possessed and the thunder. We are in a mini-van heading south, hoping to find some place we can call home, base or whatever.

Danny had been driving the van for about 50 minutes waking Emily and Louise with an abrupt tone “WE GOT COMPANY”. I peeked behind Danny’s ear and I counted 19 ‘Possessed’, the van attracted their attention. When they ‘wake up’ they seriously wake up. They are fast, strong and well frightening.

“Danny, just drive slowly” I suggested.

Ronaldo, a member of the crew piped up “We will be sweet bro, just step on it”.

“Yeah great idea Aldo, so we can get chased for miles” I said sarcastically.

Before we could even get into a good bicker; the possessed were already on top of the van. The thunder then started shooting down around us, we had no choice but to get out of the van and fight our way out of the situation. Louise, Danny, Emily and I ran through the trees that were next to the road and the worst possible thing imaginable happened. The thunder struck all four of us, I watched the closest people to me go to the ground right before my very eyes, along with me. They weren’t. They died. They will be possessed. Pain filled my whole body and my tears were filled with venom, I screamed, I yelled gibberish at the sky “WHY, WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME, WHAT WILL I DO”.

Earshot overcame me, I frowned up at the sky and I saw an angel- it was my grandmother, she was wearing the same heart necklace as me. I received a flashback of when she gave it to me.

“Kendall, you gorgeous girl, I have a present for you” Grandma said as she forcefully wrapped the heart shaped locket around my neck.

I looked down, and instantly loved it; “Grandma, its stunning!”.

“You need to make sure you take good care of it Kendall, in return it will take care of you”. As the memory faded away, as did my angel, I looked down at my necklace and It was filled with purple lightning. I realized it was my locket that had been protecting me all along…but how much more will it let me endure?