Lightning Incarnate

CW: Physical violence, gore or abuse, Mental health

Lightning is destructive, volatile, beautiful—and I have craved no element like it.

When I was six, a devastating storm rolled through my hometown, the sky thick with black clouds, the air heavy with the promise of rain. It was a sticky August day, the kind where heat was wavy above the streets, like a river you could touch, but instead of basking in cool water, you drowned in sweat. The sun was high and blinding, relentless in its mission to scorch the earth. And the next moment, like a cloaked hero in a novel, the clouds spilled over the sky, turning midday to midnight.

My baby sister, Amaranth, wailed. She was only three; of course, she was bleating and screaming for our mother. I held tight to her hand, feeling only an electric zeal building beneath my sternum, buzzing in my blood.

Thunder cracked, like the sky was about to split in two. Amaranth screamed. I knew I should pick her up, hug her tight as an older sister ought to. Take her home lest the rising wind and chill give her a cold.

But I couldn't. An ache grew in my chest, my heart pounding—breathe, breathe. But I couldn't. Something deep, intrinsic within me was waiting.

And then the sky lit up.

My lungs filled with air, with awe. It crackled across the sky, arcs of blue and white in zig-zagging patterns. First one, a solitary blinding light. Then they came in rapid succession, two, ten, twenty strikes, cutting through the swollen clouds, illuminating the sky in a phantasmagorical green-gray.

Deafening thunder crashed, punctuated by another discordance of lightning. Rain pelted my face. I turned my face to the drops, welcoming the reprieve of the whipping wind.

In the blink of an eye, it was gone. The clouds retreated, twisting and stretching until there was nothing left in the sky save for the blistering sun. Petrichor was all that remained, fading quickly as it was, that the storm had come at all.

I'd stood there for long enough that the neighbors trickled out of their homes, judgmental glares piercing through me. My sister was still wailing, clinging to my leg. Softly, I stroked her hair, my face turned up, waiting for the storm to return.

Eventually, my mother screeched into the driveway, tires squealing. Her hair was a rat's nest, her face stretched thin with worry and stained with tears. She'd scooped us up in her arms, rushing to the safety of our house, whispering frantic apologies, frazzled admonishments—what were you doing out in the storm, where's your father, you're going to get sick, you silly children—but my gaze was still fixated on the sky, my veins still humming. There was something more.

The storm wasn't finished.

I've chased that feeling for decades. Twenty years now. Waiting for a storm of that magnitude to return. Pregnant clouds have come through, thunder rumbling gently through the years. Sometimes it would scream through, and I'd rush onto the porch, waiting for my gangly limbs to soak through with rain, vibrate with the heady feeling I'd felt as a mere child.

But it was never the same. Always a stay of execution. Teetering on the precipice of something grand. Giving me just enough hope to cling to, a thread fraying and slipping with every passing year.

And I was desperate for someone to believe me. Not believe in me. Believe me. My sister, my friends—few and far between—my husband, they believe in me. You're passionate, you're inspiring, but you're a lunatic. That's what believing in someone is like.

But to actually believe me? To believe that what I'm chasing isn't all for naught—that would be pure ecstasy.

Late April, last year, we got married. I chose that date under the guise that I loved the romanticism of spring. Lee was always too bright; he saw through me, but he nodded his head and smiled, his green eyes twinkling, and said he, too, appreciated the spring's symbolic rebirth (it's perfect for nuptials).

Now, Lee sits in the driver's seat next to me, his forehead creased in apprehension.

"Camellia..."

His tone has the same tightness to it when I suggest something unorthodox and he's sure I'm crazy (he'll never admit it).

"Lee, this one is different. I'm sure of it."

He sighs, resigned. I know I've said those words before. And I know I've said I mean it this time, a million times before.

But this time, this time, it really, actually feels significant.

"Honey...I just don't want you to be disappointed." He's cautious, dancing around his words.

Irritation flashes through me, hot and volatile, setting fire to the kindling in my bones. He still doesn't believe in me. Treating me like I'm a child obsessed with dolls. It's not like I'm a drug addict, and I've rarely indulged in liquor (I can't catch the lightning if my mind is muddled).

"You didn't have to join, Lee." I turn my eyes to the horizon. The sun has yet to dip below the grove of thick pine trees, and the sky is still clear. Not a cloud in sight. But the buzzing inside of me, the tangible anticipation growing behind my sternum—it's undeniable, I know it is. It will come.

He's endured the highs and lows of my passion for the better part of three years. I know he found it exciting, even sexy, at first. But the worry lines are starting to appear, and he's barely thirty. It's wearing on him.

Lee takes my hand in his, gently rubbing his thumb over my knuckles. "I can't let you do this alone. Not after last time."

I squeeze his hand, channeling my fanning rage. As it is, I'm not the only one who finds thrill in the pursuit, the exhilaration of witnessing a powerful storm, standing untouched in the midst of destruction. Storm chasers in around have always had an intense, tight-knit community. Watching out for each other, sharing favorite locations, flooding posts with likes.

I've found them too...influential. Focused more on getting attention and praise than the unfiltered majesty of being in the presence of something terrible and great. I prefer to connect with the essence of the storms. Exist in their being, sink to my knees to fully experience what it could be to be a part of the writhing mass of clouds and wind.

Angelo Mick is the only other person I know who has shared an inkling of that feeling. We first met on a Reddit thread in our late teens, gushing about a massive tornado that had torn through the Midwest. Catastrophic proportions, nearly impossible. It started in South Dakota and didn't stop until it tore through half of Nebraska, stopping just short of Kansas.

We both lived only a state away from the storm, reeling with adrenaline at the mere prospect that we could've seen such a monstrosity. The tornado had destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes, taken even more lives, torn the soil so asunder that the "Crevice" is a 400-mile-long tourist attraction, practically putting the Grand Canyon out of business.

No one knew where it came from or how the wind had reached such magnitude, nor how it could sustain a path of four hundred miles.

But I desperately wished I could’ve seen it. And so Angelo and I constantly updated each other about the chatter we heard on the weather radar, the abnormal shifts in data on the Kestrel meters. Waiting, hopelessly, to catch a glimpse of a destructive phenomena, to stand beneath the storm that called to me years ago.

It was fun. At first. But we both felt the allure, the sort of intense possessiveness that the storm we sought was calling to only ourselves.

So the shared passion morphed to friendly competition. And soured to bitter rivalry.

"He wouldn't dare try anything this time," I mutter, biting the inside of my cheek to keep my cool. "Angelo’s truck is barely drivable now anyway.”

Lee’s hand tenses for a moment. A month ago, when the barometer readings were impossibly low, Angelo and I raced to catch the storm, the storm chock full of lightning, the one wild storm that was calling to us, beckoning the very fiber of our beings.

He tried to run me off the road. I got to him first.

That was one of the first real fights Lee and I had. And probably the worst.

“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” He’d shouted. “You could’ve died! You could be behind bars, right now, Cam. Are you fucking kidding me?”

My blood was already at a boiling point, pumping with adrenaline and frustration. Even after all that, the storm had disappeared too quickly, vanishing in the blink of an eye. “I might as well be! You don’t understand, Lee! I have to catch that storm. And I will do absolutely fucking anything to get to it.”

“Anything? It’s just a storm for Chrissake!”

“It is not just a storm! It’s a part of me, I know it is and you’ll never be able to understand it because you’ve never dedicated yourself to something so completely.”

“I did, for you.”

“That’s not fair.”

We’d argued for another hour, neither relenting, only shouting and crying and finally falling to a fitful sleep in each other’s arms, when we’d exhausted our voices and minds. I woke the next morning, cold and shaky with regret, and held him tight in my arms.

So, now more than ever, I have to prove why this matters so much. When Lee sees the storm, he’ll feel it too. He’ll understand.

Silence blankets over us. It’s companionable, though there’s an undercurrent of tension. But perhaps that’s my excitement bleeding out. Lee cranks the radio up. I nod my head along, not daring to tear my eyes from the sky.

The sun finally brushes the tips of the pines, dusting the darkening sky with gold and pink, the sky still unabatedly clear. Disappointment falls like a boulder, wrestling my hope for control, tamping the fervor, the intrinsic absoluteness I’ve carried with me since that first marvelous storm.

Tears sting behind my eyes. It was supposed to be here. I knew it was coming, it was supposed to come, it was calling to me, shouting at me, pulling me—

Lee cups my cheek with a gentle hand, ripping my blurring gaze from the horizon. The corners of his eyes crinkle, a light ever-shining behind them. He smiles, and a warmth swoops in to ease the crushing dismay. I want to fall into them, live in that blissful light behind his eyes.

He kisses me softly and then shifts our seats flat. “I know it hasn’t come, my love. But at the very least, it’s a beautiful sunset. Though it pales in comparison to you.”

I laugh, the sound choked and watery. “You’re so cheesy.”

But I rest my head on his chest, ignoring the tug beneath my sternum. I can let it go for tonight. If only to enjoy the soft glow of the sunset, the warmth of Lee’s arms, his love, his eyes. The music blares louder, a stupid pop song we’ve heard a million times. As much as we hate it, we both scream along to the lyrics, before collapsing into fits of laughter.

The tug dulls for a moment. Then, it tightens. A sharp, scorching flare. I gasp, clutching at my chest.

Thunder booms, the sunset consumed by a swath of apoplectic clouds. Another crack sends my ears ringing, the trees swaying, bending near to the ground as if bowing to the might of the storm.

Without a second thought, I throw my door open, stumbling off the road into the tall, swaying grass.

I half scream, half laugh, overcome with rapture, joy, bliss. “LEE! It’s here!”

Puzzled, he steps out of the car, leaning against the hood, scratching his head. “Where the hell did this storm come from?”

“I don’t know!” I shout, over the rising wind. “It’s anomalous! And beautiful.”

The last part, I know he can’t hear, but no truth has ever left my lips as intensely candid as that.

Rain drops from the thick, dark clouds, roiling with flashes of blue and yellow. I ache for the lightning to emerge, to dance in the sky, to strike the earth beside my feet.

Headlights cut through the enveloping dark. I turn over my shoulder to find a familiar wreck of a truck screeching to a halt behind Lee.

“No!” I shout, momentarily forgetting my anticipation. “You! Get the fuck out of here! This storm is mine!”

Angelo is already halfway too me, his dark hair soaked through with rain and still irritatingly perfect. “We’ve been over this, Cammy. You’ve no claim to it.”

Rage burns through me, inundating my senses. “More than you, asshole! You’ve never seen it before, never been blessed by it. And I told you never to call me that.”

“And yet, it called me to follow, Cammy.” He punctuates the infernal nickname with a sarcastic smirk. “And I’m here!”

Angelo and are within arm’s reach now, and I want nothing more than to hit him. How dare he. This is MINE.

“Cam!” Lee’s voice is laced with panic. Visceral, raw terror. He’s racing towards us, repeating my name over and over.

A mere second before I comprehend the reason for his alarm, the loudest, most ear-splitting crack of thunder knocks me off my balance. Lightning flashes behind the clouds, blinding and swelling, gorgeous flares spindling, spiderwebbing, coalescing—

The clouds part, and the heavens too, as a bolt of lightning wider than a car splits the night. I don’t feel it, not at first. Really, I simply should cease to be.

And yet.

Vigor crashes through me. The tug behind my sternum, the itch that has tormented me, driven me, for decades, explodes. I breathe the crispest, deepest breath I’ve ever taken in my life. Every inch of my body, every minute nerve and fiber, hums with zeal.

Electricity in its purest, most natural form crackles between my fingers, blue, yellow, purple. It should sting. But I’ve never felt more truly alive.

“Lee?” I murmur. There’s an edge to my voice, a rasping crackling quality that seems to make my words echo, spiral, fuse together in an electrifying chorus.

The entire valley where we stood is scorched to nothing. Not burned grass, not rich soil, not rocks. Just…barren, useless dirt.

Angelo stands before me, his chest heaving, his eyes wild. He looks the same, though there is something unequivocally changed within him.

When speaks, his voice is a deep, thundering boom, the essence of him deepened and strengthened, though behind it there is a shaking. With terror or awe, or perhaps both. “He’s gone.”

“Gone?” I whisper. My voice is still unfamiliar, the timbre scraping against my ears. “What do you mean, gone?”

But the truth of it resides in my bones. I choke, staring at the charred remains of what was the love of my life. Charred, eradicated, like everything in a mile radius.

I scream, something deep and raw and drowning. And pure, searing light erupts from my eyes, my fingers, my mouth.

I drop to the ground, a sob building in my throat.

Angelo places a tentative hand on my shoulder. “What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know,” I whimper. Lightning crackles in rings around my fingers, sparking circles chasing each other around my limbs. My lip trembles. I should feel more empty, hollow, overwhelmed with grief.

But all I feel is power. Rage. Lightning incarnate.

“Are you okay?” He ventures. The ether seems to bend at the depth of his voice. He blinks, and the clouds disperse. He seems more surprised than I am.

“Better than okay, Angelo.” I turn my face to him, staring at his frenzied eyes with the same reveration I gave to the sky. The tug hasn’t left. Merely metamorphisized. It calls to him now. And I can hear the answer in his chest. The thunder to my lightning. “I—we—are a storm.”

I stare at what’s left of Lee. I try to ignore the memories bubbling to the surface. Grief hovers over his body, an intangent force wisping towards me. I blow it away. I will not mourn. I have no space. I’ve never had space for anything more than the lightning.

“And we were called upon to wreck havoc on the world.”