Embracing The Inner Storm

Thunder punched the walls, and glass fell like rain around my feet. The storm outside roared, but it was the one inside that finally broke free. I stood amidst the shards, not flinching—my reflection shattered into jagged fragments. Each one showed a different version of me. I wasn’t Mitchell anymore.

I was the storm.

The Beast had waited long enough. Sam had kept him caged. Nina had fed him. But I—I gave him wings.

“I see now,” I whispered, staring into what was left of the mirror. “He needed the lightning to break through.”

All these years I thought the camera was mine. It wasn’t. The Beast used it to find what he needed—energy, chaos, release. Storm chasing wasn’t a hobby. It was ritual. A hunt.

I remembered every humiliation. Every no. Every dismissive smile. They weren’t helpless. They never were. They chose when and how. We—men—we waited, neutered, reshaped into kittens.

But we were lions.

I was a lion.

I knelt beside Nina’s body, studying the marks she’d left. She had chosen pain.

So I had, too.

Fair.

That was equality.

I closed her eyes with a thumb and murmured, “You don’t get to walk away this time.”

The lightning cracked again.

This time, I smiled.

[from SEETHINGS, downloadable and free for a limited time].