Page 9 of When Storms Awaken

“Today, I thought we would practice our three-dimensional buildings,” she said as she settled into the chair at her desk.

“I showed you how to do this exercise last week, don’t forget to put the starting point at the horizon in the middle of the page. Go ahead and get started. I will walk around to see how you are all doing and answer any questions you may have,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. These last few days she had been so…out of it. More than usual, which was really saying something.

I glanced around the room, but there was no sign of Nik. As I went to get my supplies to start my drawing, he passed through the open doorway, sitting in the chair closest to the door again. He glanced at Ms. Finch who was busying herself with her stack of papers, she didn’t scold him for being late again today. He cast his glance around the room, his eyes finally resting on Tess who sat in the chair next to him. A look of confusion crossed his face.

I returned to my chair on the other side of Tess and started the assignment. I could feel his eyes on me as I picked up my pencils and began drawing. Was he mad that I took him down with me when I slipped on the ice this morning? I had said I was sorry, which he hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge.I glanced quickly at Tess who had scrawled out the beginnings of a boutique and a shoe emporium on the paper I had given her.

“What are we supposed to be doing?” he asked in a smooth voice. It sounded sensual, or decadent. Like warm honey. I could still feel his eyes on me. I paused for a moment, waiting to see if Tess would answer him, but she wasn’t going to take the bait. She wanted me to fall into this trap. She was waiting for me to incriminate myself. I cleared my throat and spoke up.

“We are supposed to draw three-dimensional buildings. She taught us how to do it last week…but I don’t think you were here…” I trailed off in a small voice, meeting his gaze. As if he actually planned on completing an assignment, he literally slept during class yesterday.

“I just transferred into art, I took woodshop at my last school but it wasn’t working out,” he said with a laugh. I could only imagine what would have gotten him kicked out of woodshop. Nailing someone’s hand to a piece of wood? Accidentally cutting someone’s finger off with a saw? “I think I can figure it out though,” he said with a wink as he got up to gather his materials.

Hewascute. Dammit. My face flushed involuntarily, and Tess threw me a disgusted glance. The sound of a chair scratching against the tile regained my attention as he pulled the seat away from the table and sat back down. For the rest of the art period, he paid us no attention, and as the bell was about to ring, I glanced over at what he was working on.

On his paper was an intricate scrawling of broken-down buildings with a setting sun in the distance. Ruins. The ruins from my nightmare. My mouth hung open as I continued to stare. There was a large wooden door on the building to the left, it appeared to have been chopped in half by some incredible force. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought it looked like the door that had been in my dream last night.

It was well done, almost better than anything I could draw. I could feel his eyes on me again as my mouth hung open. I snapped my mouth shut and shamefully brought my eyes back to my own paper, but not before absorbing his expression. His eyebrows were raised, almost in a challenge. There was no way he could have known what I dreamed last night, so what was that face about? What is that place that he drew, and why did it look so familiar? Could it be the same place that I had dreamed of? The bell rang, and I put away my drawing and materials. When I turned back to the table to retrieve my book bag, Nikolai was gone.

On the drive home from Tess’ house, I felt that same pit in the bottom of my stomach that I had been experiencing all day, but I couldn’t place the feeling. As I turned onto my street, my mouth dried up and I was suddenly gasping for air. It felt as if something heavy was pressing on my chest, and it wouldn’t let up. Something was wrong. Was I having a panic attack? Is this what a panic attack felt like? I threw the front door open, racing into the house and leaving my jacket and bag behind in the car.

I whirled into the foyer like a tornado and slammed the door behind me. The feeling had moved to my chest, and now my throat. It felt as if someone had their hands around my neck, squeezing relentlessly. I tried to suck air in through my nose and failed, my vision started to go blurry.

I fell to my knees in the foyer and crawled towards the side table next to the couch. I had to get to the phone, I had to call for help. My arms felt like they weighed a ton and I struggled to grab the receiver. I could feel gravity taking over as I slumped to the ground. My chest felt heavy, and my head swam. Everything was a blur, the hardwood floor cold against my cheek.I had to get up, I had to get help.

Was I having a heart attack? An asthma attack? I tried one last time, putting all of my effort into standing and I managed to make it onto my hands and knees. My face was hot, and my lungs felt strained as I gathered up a scream in the back of my throat. Whatever this heavy, strangling, feeling was, it wanted out.

I cried out and my head fell back, my arms flung out behind me from the force of it. I heard a loud shatter, and I collapsed down on all fours again. I took a deep steadying breath as hot tears rolled down my cheeks.I could breathe.It was as if the panic had been building in my chest and the scream had released all of that pent-up energy.It’s alright Diana, you’re alright. It was a panic attack. Deep breaths. You are ok. Deep breaths, In and out. Everything is ok.

I wiped the tears from my cheeks and stood, finally opening my eyes. Every light bulb in the room had shattered and lay in a pile of broken glass across the hardwood. The sliding glass door that lead out to the back porch had shattered as well, leaving a spray of glass shards across the floor and the threshold. A fire roared in the fireplace, and I could have sworn it hadn’t been there when I walked in. How did all of this glass break? I heard a loud crack of thunder outside and left the broken shards of glass on the floor before me as I moved towards the back door.

I stepped over the threshold carefully, taking in heavy gulps of fresh air, my hand on my chest. I swallowed hard as I saw the storm that was brewing in the distance. Over the field in back of our house was a heavy, angry, black thunder cloud. Thin blue bolts of lightning burst down from the clouds striking the snowy ground beneath. The storm had to be only a few miles away. How had it moved so fast? Thunder cracked again in the distance as a single raindrop fell from the sky onto my cheek. It was too cold to rain…would it be turning to more snow? Or worse—ice?

HadIdone that? HadIshattered the glass? HadIstarted the crackling flames in the fireplace? Tears came again, rolling silently down my cheeks as I did my best to wipe them away with the sleeve of my shirt. What had just happened? How would I explain this to my mom? To Tess? I walked across the porch and had my cell phone in hand before I was even settled down onto the deck chair.

“Hello?”

“Tess…it’s Diana. We need to talk.”

“What’swrong,iseverythingok?” Tess asked, “did something happen?”

“Yes…” I replied, my breathing becoming shallow. I dug my fingers into the material of my jeans and closed my eyes. Where would I even start?

“I think I just had a panic attack…” I started, swallowing hard. “I came home and as soon as I pulled into the driveway I couldn’t breathe, and my vision went blurry.”

“Oh my gosh, Diana, are you ok? Do you need me to come over? Although that might not be possible at this exact moment—I’m on lockdown.” Tess sounded worried on the other end.

“No, you don’t need to come over, I’m ok. There’s just one major problem…” I trailed off, biting my lip and turning my face towards the dark stormy sky.

“And what’s that?”

“Well…all the glass in the living room broke. Shattered. Lightbulbs, the sliding door, everything. It’s all destroyed. My mom is going tokillme when she sees it. There is a fire that magically appeared in the fireplace, and nobody is home. I could haveswornit wasn’t there when I walked in, but maybe it was. I was trying to focus onbreathing.”

I opened my eyes and could see that the storm above had started to dissipate in the distance. The warm raindrops were melting the layer of snow beneath to unveil small patches of grass in the field behind our house. The clouds turned from an angry black to a grey, and the thunder rolled off into the distance softly.

“How the heck did you do that?” Tess asked, confused.

“I don’t know. I mean, I screamed. But I don’t think I hit ‘breaking glass’ opera level octave screaming. I had all this pent-up energy I needed to just let out. Weird things are happening, Tess. I feel…different. I’m stressed, on edge. I’ve been having nightmares almost every night. I don’t know how to explain it,” I responded.

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