Stillness In The Storm Novels & Stories

My eyes blazed, twin flames reflecting the fury I had suppressed for too long. I raised my hands, palms outstretched, and drew a deep breath. The storm was mine to command, a manifestation of my power. With a single exhale, I willed it to stillness. The waves flattened, the clouds parted, and the moon emerged, radiant, silver, and bright, bathing us in its glow. The boat steadied, the air growing quiet save for the soft lapping of water against the boat.

A deadly storm that masked itself serenely. There is no rustling of the wind, no chirping of birds, no morning sounds that can be heard usually. Everything stood still. As if nature is also afraid to make a sound, waiting with bated breath to hear what he has to say. Willow couldn't take it any longer. She took a step, a silent storm brewing in her eyes as anguish threatening to break her at her seams. Her hands shook. Her heart pleaded with her to forget what she heard. If only she can hear it.

*"But you clung to *meat*." Eden's hand finds mine. His blood is cold. "Don't... listen..." The girl sighs. *"Tiresome."* She flicks her wrist, and Eden's ribs *crack*. Something snaps. The storm isn't dead-it's been *sleeping*. It wakes. --- **The Storm's Answer** Lightning erupts, not from the sky, but from the Silence itself. The static in me harmonizes with it, a dissonant shriek that makes the girl recoil.

The violence of the storm was now a memory, a phantom tremor in their bones. He guided the plane into a dilapidated hangar at the far end of the strip, its corrugated metal walls rattling in the wind that still howled down from the peaks. The instant the engine spooled down into silence, the world became unnervingly quiet, a stillness broken only by the drumming of rain on the metal roof and the ragged sound of their own breathing. Neither of them moved. The confession-I'm so scared I might want someone I shouldn't-was heavy in that stagnant air, as thick and unresolved as could be. It had been much easier to disregard, inside that roaring cacophony of the storm. Here, in this profound quiet

The calm is ending. The storm is coming. And I am ready.

With every breath, the storm loses its teeth. The storm keeps raging outside. Inside, I finally feel still. My eyes close slowly. Not because I am weak. But because, for the first time, I trust the ground beneath me.

Something in my chest is way too still, too still. Like the air right before a storm.

She watched it carefully. Wind lashed across the open ground. Bending what little grass remained. The storm did not frighten her. It clarified something. Stillness had prepared her. Movement had strengthened her. Now pressure tested her. The stranger’s voice rose slightly above the rain. You do not turn back. It was not a question. No. Why. She looked out at the shifting land. Because what stands after the storm matters more than what bends during it. The words felt familiar. Rooted in lessons she had carried from fire and lake alike.

**Chapter Sixty** The shift didn’t break the world. It *quieted* it. Not silence—never silence—but a narrowing of everything unnecessary. The wind softened. The crackle of Storm’s power dimmed to a low hum. Even the restless energy of the ruins seemed to draw inward, as if the stones themselves understood that something final was approaching. He didn’t move. Not at first. And that—more than anything—set every nerve in the clearing on edge. Storm flexed her fingers, lightning flickering restlessly along her skin.

Then without waiting for any more, he left with big strides. Staring at the back of Nicolas, she stood at the parking zone, all alone. The darkness and silence of the parking zone were feeling extremely weird at that moment, it was exactly like the silence and calmness after the storm which has left after destroying everything on its way and leaving behind the marks of its destructiveness and cruelty.