The Empty Storm (Prologue)

On a beaten, heavily forested road overlooking a wide river, an old van trundled home. William James sat in the back seat, arms crossed, head leaning against the windowpane as he stared out in apathy. He could see the river through the trees, and the weathered and expensive houses on both sides of the bank. The sky was gray and lifeless above, with the occasional dark rumbling accompanying a single drop of rain against the window pane every now and then. The branches above were silent and still as the van trodged along underneath them.

His father was giving him the tired old speech again. He couldn't go on through his whole life like this. Listlessness didn't put food on the table. Plenty of other people had jobs they hated but they did them anyways for the few hours of life they got at the end. He'd first heard the speech when he was twelve. He'd spent years doing things for the sake of feeling alive. It hadn't worked. He wasn't sure he'd ever feel like his father said he was supposed to.

Today was the seventeenth iteration. He'd stopped listening around the tenth iteration of the speech. His father had stopped caring around the twelfth. The radio was on, blaring white noise underneath his father's voice. It was all just white noise to him.


Thunder cracked from the sky, and William's eyes darted over the sky for any sign of lightning, but could find none. He resumed staring at the river, but the river growing rapid and turbulent. He focused, looking up and down the length of the river with his eyebrows furrowing, confused. There were small waves forming. The docks off the houses were starting to come apart. A wooden pillar ripped away from underneath one and began floating downstream. He looked back to the sky, through the motionless branches. There was a dark spot forming in the clouds, and a thickening layer blanketing everywhere he could see. A long whisp of a cloud peeled away from the forming masses, turning back towards the dark spot forming. More followed, forming a slowly circling mound.

Hairs began to raise on the back of William's neck, his heart pounding. Something was wrong here, he could feel it.

The thunder crashed from what felt like all around them, the tremendous booming shaking the van. The noise did not completly fade away, a continuous rumble remaining, growing. The seat was vibrating with the noise as it grew, overtaking the radio, drowning out his father's voice. His father stopped talking, pulled the van onto the side of the road and got out, staring up at the forming mound in the sky. The circling clouds were widening until they appeared like an upside down vortex, the center at the highest point.

Part of the river start flowing backward against the current, forming a frothing wave that crashed and dissipated. Another tiny vortex formed in the center of the river, growing larger with each moment. William slid the van door open and walked around to the roadside to stare at the sight of the river, unable to hear his father over the thunder's never ending rumble. The docks of the houses near the river broke apart violently, chunks of wood splintering and dissapearing into the forming maelstrom. He stood transfixed by what was happening.

A hideous scream broke the terrible rumbling noise, coming from the woods all around them. It was a scream unlike any animal ever heard. It was like a woman's scream, but without anything human about it. It sent chills through William's bones, freezing him to the ground. He couldn't breathe. The space around William grew heavy, as if though the very air itself was pushing against him. He struggled to even gasp.

The shrieking faded. He clutched at his chest and sucked in air as he found himself able to move again, leaning against the van. His father was grabbing at his heart, eyes bulging. He screamed for William to get back in the car. Something was different now. William felt it. Something was tugging at him on the inside, like a heartbeat. A vicious wind was picking up at last, blowing his hair every which way. Rain battered him, coming at him from every angle. He jumped back into the open van and shut the door as quickly as he could, curling up against the seats. The van's engine started up again and began to speed away. William couldn't take his eyes off the water.

A rumbling in the ground began to match the rumbling in the air. The water vortex's center suddenly dropped as if the ground beneath it had given way, forming a true spiral of water dipping into the depths. The banks beside the water cracked and launched upward, houses and all, forming tremendous cliffs over the water, obscuring the river from view. The remains of the docks snapped away and fell with the crumbling earth. There was a lone unfortunate figure on the very edge of the newly-formed cliff. William wondered what the person could see from there. His eyes were pulled upwards as the clouds spiraled away as the water head. He watched dumbstruck as the center of the cloudy vortex shot upwards and upwards until he couldn't see it anymore.

The shrieking came back. It was much closer this time. He looked around in terror, pressed against the van's insides. The van lurched and jumped over a bump in the road and slammed into the muddy bank, tires squealing loudly and digging themselves in. His father gunned the engine and tried to manuever them out of the mud, but it was useless. William shrunk back into the seat, clasping his arms around himself, feeling a shivering cold creeping into the car.

A low, primal growl echoed from the forest bank nearby. The growl was the most singularly upsetting thing William had ever heard in his life, even with the shrieking in the background. It was a sound of nightmares, a monstrous thing, feral and deep. His father stopped dead in his efforts to gun the engine, looking nervously at the bank. William's eyes turned to meet the source of the growl.

He couldn't scream. He couldn't breath. He yanked the door to the van open and ran onto the road. The air felt heavy and got heavier with every step. He strained. He ran. He had to escape. The pulsing within him beat faster, faster, faster. It was behind him. He could feel it. He had to get away, away, away. He ran. The force inside him felt as if it were yanking him forward uncontrollably. His eyes squeezed shut as he felt a tremendous rushing sensation, legs running on nothing, wind and ice tearing at him.


He was still screaming in his mind when he crashed into the side of a wooden shack. Pain struck his head and he stepped back, blood trickling down his forehead. It was a small wooden hideout, and he was in the middle of a forest of dead trees and dead leaves. He looked to the sky and saw clouds moving in what must have been an enormous vortex, such that he only saw a single edge of it. Confusion and chaos reigned in William's mind. A low growl from the forest interrupted his thoughts with renewed terror. He stopped thinking and bolted, desperately. He turned around a tree and felt as if though he'd broken through an invisible wall of ice.


He crashed down onto the hood of a parked white car, which began blaring its alarms loudly. He felt numb all over, as if every muscle in his body had fallen asleep.

What just happened? He thought, and it hurt to think. He quickly tumbled off the car hood and onto the pavement. He could breath again, he felt light. People in suits and dresses were staring at him. He was on a downward sloped street in the middle of a city he didn't recognize. The sun was shining. There wasn't a cloud in sight. He got up, stumbling, and managed to wander into the middle of a street while frantically looking around him when a girl screamed, piercing his stupor.

"LOOK OUT FOR THAT CAR!"

William James jerked out of his confusion for just a moment, long enough to see there was a red sports car coming down the street, and he'd stumbled right into its path. It was too late, he was going to be hit. He closed his eyes and held his arms up, bracing. He felt the pulsing beat within him suddenly start up again, every beat painful, strained.

A few long moments later, and William wondered why the car hadn't hit him yet. It was hard to open his eyes, but he worked them to a squint. The car was still there. It was moving rather slowly. The driver was caught in slow motion, frantically braking at a snail's pace. He tried to lower his arms, but it felt as if though the air was made of iron. He tried to strain towards the side, to move his body. The beating inside of him was hurting. It was slow, but surely his limbs were moving through the air. But the car was getting closer.

He thought to himself he could perhaps get out of the way in time, but the more he strained, the more it seemed as if though he could only move as fast as it did. He would never make it in time. He had the idea to jump instead, reckoning maybe he'd land on top of the car's hood. He tensed his knees, prepared to jump.. and all at once the beating inside him gave out with the most intense feeling of relief. The car braked straight underneath him as his jump gave him inches to spare from the hood, and he managed to land on his feet. He didn't manage to stay there, immediately falling backwards onto the street, landing on his rear.

A young lady ran up to him and quickly grabbed his arm, dragging him off the road, looking at his bleeding head wound. She was talking to him, maybe yelling at him. He couldn't really hear her. He stumbled to the curve and retched, pressed against the car he'd landed on. Someone was pulling him away, and he let himself be guided through a door and into a house. He managed to make it to a couch before he collapsed, and the last thing William James saw was the face of a girl looking concerned into his eyes, speaking, probably asking questions. He closed his eyes and let sweet darkness take him.