Tidbit: THE WIND

The howling wind ravished past me, blowing my blond hair back, my hood flying off my head. I pulled my hood on again with frozen fingers before returning my numb hand to my jacket pocket. I forced my frozen body on, every muscle on the brink of collapse. White mist met my every breath, I was beyond the point of feeling. All I knew was the lingering cold, that with bony fingers, grasped me to the bone.

There was no snow, no flurries, no excuse for the blistering cold that surrounded me. There was just the dark, cloudy sky and the ghostly wind that howled in laughter at my shivering form. Another gust, strong and deep, hit me like a brick wall. I stopped and shivered in the cold as the wind blew and my hood flew again. And even after the howling had stopped to take a breath, I couldn't move. I remained, to forever be a frozen form standing in the dark gloom of morning. The form of a shivering girl who couldn't find warmth.

The wind laughed at me again, laughed long and hard and sharp at me. With head bowed, I took the mockery of the grand element. Why did he taunt me so? Was I, a poor, shivering, lonely girl, his only prey? Or did he pick me specifically to taunt with his cold laughter? The wind blew again, and I could no longer take his taunting. I forced my feet to move, had the faint sensation of my feet touching ground, my surroundings snailing past me. I kept my eyes on the ground, not daring to face the wind full on. He laughed, his breath playing with my hair, sending a frozen shiver down my already frozen spine. And yet I pressed on, hoping by some miracle to escape the wind.

The wind calmed his voice and finally, I looked up. In the distance there was a light. A fire in the window, a window in a house that I knew.

Home.