The thunder sounded different. I just couldn’t quite put my finger on it. The night was hot and sticky. It was one of those nights that your clothes stuck to your skin in that uncomfortable way. It wasn’t quite as bad from my porch. I had a fan rhythmically shaking its head in protest of the hot evening as it moved the air around. The ice in my mint julep had already melted a while ago, giving the drink a disappointing muted flavor. The drink had already done its job and I stopped caring.

Another flash of blue raced behind the clouds in the sky, filling dark night sky with a voluminous diffused light. For a moment it was day again, illuminating the gully before my house. In the moment, I could see some sucker out on the lazy river right in the middle of it. Rain was coming, and the poor soul looked rather exposed in his small dinghy rowboat.

The darkness returned just as quickly and the world fell into mystery beyond the limits of my porch light. Another sip of my drink and I pulled out my phone, quickly forgetting about oncoming storm again. The thunder came. I put my phone down again. It definitely sounded different. It sounded longer, maybe? More echo-y than usual? I remember thinking, it clearly was thunder, how could it not be? But what was different about the sound? Something familiar…?

I tried to shake the feeling from the back of my head. Was it Dread? Ecstasy? Danger? Excitement? The emotions felt like they were piling up, putting damper on the light show. It was stupid. I loved thunderstorms. Ever since the old oak in my grandparent’s pasture exploded next to me when a errant bolt struck miles from its thunderhead cloud. I was only a boy and managed to escape with only a few minor cuts and burns, but I was hooked from that moment. I loved storms and the chaos they could unleash. I put my phone down and went back inside to add more ice to my drink. "I’m drunk enough," I tried to justify to myself, "the ice will help me sober up." I knew it was a lie.

I grabbed one the cubes and swept it across my brow, enjoying the momentary relief from the heat. Droplets fell over my eyelids as lightning once again filled the sky. This time it wasn’t shielded by the clouds, it was a single columnated bolt. The furious streak from the heavens focused on a single point on the earth -- Right were the man’s dinghy was. Just as soon as it came, it was gone. The world turned dark again. My brain didn’t even process what I saw. The mint julep and ice were already falling to the floor and my feet were already carrying me at maximum speed toward the river.

The thunder came quickly, thick and weighted like a Mack truck, knocking me on my ass and into a patch of loose soil. It sound felt more like a roar than a stream of electricity cutting through the air faster than the speed of sound. Something in me found it comforting, almost recognizable. For a brief instant, the oak tree exploding at my grandparents came to mind. The rest of me was terrified. I pulled myself back into action, reminding myself that every moment I delayed could be one moment too late for the stranger I was rushing to save. I didn’t see him get struck, but everything in me told me to go. So I did.

My veins burned and my lungs ached for air, but I kept running. In the darkness I could feel the brush changing into the marshy grasslands by the river. Some common sense in my head finally pried through the adrenaline. I need a flashlight, and my phone was still sitting uselessly on my porch. Lightning! Give me lightning! I caught myself thinking, and immediately took it back. There was enough water around me that even a nearby strike would certainly be a messy end for me.

I squinted and searched, hoping for any sign of the man or his boat. I stepped further into the marsh. I had to be close. I had to be. I called out, and only the croaking of some nearby toads responded. With another step, my feet fell through the grassy bottom and I found myself knee deep in the river. That’s when I saw it. Burning metal embers sizzled in the night. The metal dinghy I had seen was in a thousand pieces. A few chunks were recognizable enough to identify the form, but I didn’t recognize the boat. "Who the hell-?" I felt myself start to ask but the answer came before it finished.

Something grabbed me by the hip and I whipped around in a sheer panic. My feet slipped on the river bottom and I sank to my chest and came face to face with the man I had been searching for. A diffused bolt filled the sky, giving my eyes the flash needed to resolve what I was looking at. Something was wrong with him, very wrong. His skin was charred and any part that wasn't was covered in 3rd degree burns. He was missing an arm and a leg. He was convulsing violently as his one hand held on to me with an iron grip -- his one remaining eye burned into me the fear and desperation of a man who knows his end is upon him. Darkness retuned and I was left with the grisly afterimage, slowly fading from my vision. The good in me wanted to help him, to comfort his agony, put him out of his misery if I could. Instead I just screamed and tried to pull away. His hand gripped my hip even tighter. My feet struggled for purchase, but I just made it worse for myself. I was nearly on my back, neck deep in the dark sludge and grass of the river fighting to escape the man I had intended to save.

I kicked at the man’s head with everything I could. The water softened the blow, but after 3 or 4 kicks, he had enough and let go. The adrenaline burst peaked and the next thing I knew, I was standing back on more solid marsh, eyes wide and desperately trying to catch my breath. I stared back at the dying man, who still reached for me. In the darkness I watched him die, too afraid to go back near him. He was quiet in his suffering, and quiet in his death.

The rain finally came. Everything told me to run home. Get back to cover. The self-preservation instinct was screaming inside my head, but my feet held firm. I started to shiver in the rain, but I wasn’t cold. I was excited. My eyes lifted skyward, filling the crevices of my eyes with water. I squinted and focused on the dark sky, searching for something.

Then I saw it. It was only for a moment, but I knew it was true. High in the sky, a length of lighting, flailed and swept through clouds. It wormed its way through the dark clouds at terrifying speeds. A moment later, everything around me illuminated with the haunting blue light of the living bolt of electricity. The thunder came instantaneously. The roar was loud and clear. My spine rattled and liquified, sending me straight to my knees on the marshy ground. Blinded by the flash, all I could see was a world in black and white. The rain stopped and my nose was filled with smell of burning grass. I was still alive.

As my eyes recovered, I saw a small crater where the bolt had landed a few dozen feet from me, igniting anything nearby that could carry a flame. In the center was a young woman, or at least I knew it was a woman. Her skin seemed mostly translucent, giving her an almost incorporeal look. Stray drops of rain sizzled against her skin as she stepped forward. Each step burning the earth beneath her. She was there, but she seemed more like a tracing of a memory drawn on reality rather than a real person.

My body was terrified. The rational part of my brain knew I was going to die. She was living lightning and I was drunkenly standing on a small wet patch of ground, completely drenched. The feeling in the back of my head smiled and my body held its ground.

Her mouth moved soundlessly, but I heard her words anyways.

“I found you,” She said as her hand reached toward my lips. My heart pounded faster than I through possible. I wanted to move. I wanted to flee, but I knew there was no escape. I didn’t want to die, but the grin in the back of my head grew wider and more bold. “Thank you,” I said, not realizing the words had escaped my throat.

She rested her hand on my cheek, and I felt a cold wave pass over me. It should say that it felt cold to my body… but I could swear the growing presence in the back of my head let out a sigh of relief. It seemed anything but cold.

“Missed you,” her supple voiced echoed inside my head. Tears streamed freely down my face on their own regard as she moved her hand from my jaw to my chest. “I missed you too,” I unknowingly replied.

The bolt happened upon me faster than I could have possibly thought. The stream passed through the woman harmlessly and focused to a point through her hand.

My chest exploded out of the back of my spine. I felt nothing but ecstasy as my body was ripped apart in slow motion in front of my eyes. My eyes melted, but I could still see. My nerves were gone, but I could still feel. I smiled and looked back at the freshly charred body on the ground, at first like an old friend, but quickly the old friend became a complete stranger. Then that stranger became nothing more than a host bug dying quietly after the parasite within emerged. The world was fresh, and alive once again.

Thunder rattled off the hills, a celebratory roar. I looked back at my mother, her beautiful electric scales shining iridescent in the night. I stood and took a weightless step forward, igniting more of the grass around me. My mother pressed her cheek against mine affectionately. “I searched for so long.” She tried to say, her voice choking up in my mind. “You still found me.” I said wordlessly back to her. She turned to the dark sky above and I followed her gaze.

I could hear everyone calling to me from the sky. Voices I hadn’t heard in ages. Timbre and melodies of songs I had long forgotten. My mother showed me the way. Her long, slender body and tail coiled tightly, before her hind legs exploded upwards, propelling her skyward and into the clouds. Streams of electricity flowed from her horns, forking to the ground in a brilliant blue flash. She cried out again, calling for me to follow.

I closed my eyes, and flexed my muscles, reminding myself how to use them after so many years. I mimicked my mother’s movements exactly, and with all the energy I could muster, I launched myself into the dark sky above. I was free and I roared as loud as I could, the sound echoing into the distance.