5- Pangs Of Distress

That afternoon, the sky bruised itself with dark clouds that churned over Mahdfel. Autumn drifted through the kitchen, adrift in heartbreak, unaware that outside, the world was unraveling at the seams. The television murmured warnings she barely heard.

Suddenly, thunder exploded overhead—a sound so sharp it rattled the plates in the cupboard. Autumn jumped, her grip on the countertop white-knuckled.

"Wow, what was that?" she asked, looking a little stunned and worried.

She heard what sounded like rain pouring down from the roof. Autumn takes off down the long hallway.

The next thunderclap shook the house to its bones. Autumn peered out the window—where rain should have been, there was only darkness, swirling and wild. 

"That's not just rain," she whispered. "It's a storm—maybe worse."

 The curtains were whipping high through the large open windows in the house.

 "I need to get the windows closed before the house gets drenched."

Rain lashed against the house. In the process of closing one window to get to another, the television now catches her attention. Autumn stops and finally looks at the breaking news weather report on TV. A significant storm has hit Mahdfel, with winds expected to reach 200 miles per hour. Autumn pulled herself away from the television. She needed to close the remaining windows in the house. She promptly went through the house, trying to close all the windows as the wind whipped and the rain pounded down hard and fast.

Autumn calls out to her Aunt, who came downstairs, "My God! What is this? I've never experienced a bad storm like this before.” 

"I've seen a few bad storms, but nothing like this," Aunt Rose said, her voice barely audible over the roar. As they wrestled the last window shut, rain whipped inside, drenching the curtains and Autumn’s hair and blouse. Towels and mops in hand, they scrambled to fight the flood. The wind howled, pressing against the fogged glass, with Autumn—drenched, hair plastered to her cheeks— as she watched shingles tear from the neighbor’s roof and spiral into the chaos outside.

"Autumn, you go change before you catch a cold. I'll clean the rest of the water up here on the floor."

"Thank you. “I’ll be right back." She said, tossing her wet hair back from her face.

As Autumn stepped into the shower, lightning cracked—blinding and furious—right above the house. The thunder chased it, shaking the walls. She shrieked, bolting from the bathroom in nothing but a towel as the lights sputtered and threatened to die.

“Autumn, are you okay?” Her Aunt shouted up the stairs.

She pressed her trembling body into the corner, clutching her towel tight. “Yes, I’m okay,” she called, though her voice barely sounded like her own.

No doubt, people were huddled in their homes, waiting for the chaos to pass.

She crawled into bed, every creak and groan of the storm-battered the old house echoing in her bones. Each fresh blast of wind sent her heart pounding; fear felt like a living thing, crawling under her skin. She pressed herself against the headboard, praying for morning.

Autumn squeezed her eyes shut, trembling as thunder rattled the windows in this old house, as if it might shatter them, and shadows of the wind-tossed 200-year-old trees, tearing them from their roots, as if they were mere paper, as she saw them dance across her wall. The storm only grew wilder in strength, and the fierce wind whistled like a warning, rocking the old house's foundation.

"Is this the end of the world?" Autumn tearfully wondered. "Will I die here tonight, all alone?"

“Aunt Rose! Aunt Rose!” She called out, but got no answer.

When the sun finally returned, Mahdfel looked bruised and weary. Trees lay sprawled across roads, power lines drooped dangerously, and houses stood with their wounds bared to the world. The air still smelled of wet earth and worry, as if the storm’s touch lingered in every corner.

Autumn opened her eyes. The house was quiet. She quickly threw on her robe and opened her door. "Aunt Rose, are you okay?" 

"Yes, what about you?"

"I'm fine." A faint smile appeared on her face as her Aunt emerged from her bedroom down the hallway.

They were truly fortunate this time. The old house creaked but held fast.

"Your Uncle Ray said this was a sturdy house."

Next door, Mr. Langley’s roof had vanished. Down the road, the Jensen family’s barn was a splintered mess. Folks gathered to clear debris and patch what they could, but the conversations were short and the smiles uneasy. Nobody wanted to admit how rattled they felt.

But more trouble was only looming. A few days later, came the sickness—a cough at the bakery, a fever in the schoolhouse. It crept through the town like a shadow, and soon entire families taped hand-written quarantine signs to their front doors. The doctor’s office overflowed with anxious faces. For as long as Autumn could remember, Auntie Rose’s house doubled as a makeshift clinic.

Jars of dried herbs lined the kitchen shelves, filling the air with the sharp smell of mint and sage. To most in Mahdfel, Auntie Rose was more than a healer; she was the one who remembered everyone’s birthdays, who brewed tea for the lonely, who listened without judgment. Mahdfel was a town of old-timers—retirees who’d come home to the familiar, and others who’d never left.

People in Mahdfel depended on Auntie Rose, especially since the nearest hospital was an hour away in the town of Mary-lane. They came to her for sprained ankles, stubborn colds, or just a listening ear—always leaving with a tin of salve and a gentle word. Autumn saw firsthand how grateful people could be, pressing eggs or a jar of honey into Auntie’s hands as payment, as cash was getting tight.

But lately, the faces at their door had changed. More and more, rough-edged men from faraway cities—fathers, brothers, sons—showed up with bruises and haunted eyes, chased by stories of violence that clung to them like a second skin.

The town felt cursed. People whispered about what was happening, about Mahdfel losing its spirit to these strangers and heathens. Autumn wondered if it was just the world changing, or if something darker was at work.

Autumn tried to stay strong. She brewed soup for feverish neighbors, patched leaky roofs with borrowed tools, and looked after restless children so their parents could catch a breath. But every kindness felt like a drop against a rising tide. At night, the weight of it pressed on her chest—a fear that Mahdfel was slipping away, that the town she loved was becoming a stranger.

One afternoon, as she walked home from the market, she saw two young men fighting in the street. A crowd gathered, but no one intervened. The police were slow to arrive. When they did, the tension didn’t fade; it just simmered under the surface.

Autumn hurried home, her hands still trembling from what she’d seen. Auntie met her at the door, lines of worry etched deep around her eyes. "This town isn’t what it used to be," Auntie murmured, voice low.

She nodded. “I know. But we’ll make it work. We always do.”

But the truth was, Autumn had never felt more alone. Everything she had been reading for months in that book was coming to fruition. The silence in the house after dark was so complete, she sometimes pressed her palm to her chest just to feel her own heartbeat.

Summer had vanished. Calvin was gone. Most of Autumn’s friends had drifted away, chasing jobs or simply escaping. Mahdfel echoed with absence—playgrounds stood empty, beaches lay still, barns sagged into silence. Still, Autumn clung to hope like a lifeline. She threw herself into helping Auntie, believing if she worked hard enough, maybe she could stitch a little life back into the town’s seams.

But as unexpected storms raged, sickness spread, and crime became more common, she wondered if hope was enough. Sometimes, late at night, she would sit by her window and watch the clouds roll in, and think about Calvin, about all the people who’d left, about the world beyond Mahdfel.

“Was life easier for him and others?” She thought.