“Fuck, why me?”

Rain poured, thick drops hitting the pavement beneath her. Water spattered up, clinging to her jeans, soaking through the blue denim, seemingly seeping into her very being, mocking her.

Thunder crackles in the distance and she shudders. It isn’t bad yet.

She peers from underneath her temporary solace, blue awning whipping around in the harsh storm winds. No lightning yet. Maybe she could do this!

Tentatively she reaches out her hand to test the waters, but immediately retracts it. It’s drenched.

“ARGHHH” she grumbles in her throat in frustration.

And as if the weather shared her frustration, another rumble of thunder rolled in, closer this time, and longer. Sending shivers up her spine, less about the temperature, more to do with just the general...everything.

It’s not like she’s ever had a truly terrifying experience with a storm. No childhood trauma haunting her. No personal story. Just a fear. Because what if she’s driving and a tree trunk cracks and blocks the road, or worse, hits her? What if the power goes out in the building she’s in and she’s stranded? What if she’s on her way home and stuck under an awning while a thunderstorm rages around her and she can’t get back to her car let alone see the road? What if she hydroplanes? What if lightning strikes her car?

Her anxiety is spiking again, as it does time and time again. Her legs and arms shuddering with every breath as she tries to distract herself with literally anything.

But she’s alone in this strip mall, the parking lot illuminated by two streetlights. Further away there’s an intersection of stop lights swaying violently in time with the wind.

Oh no.

What if she’s driving underneath and the stop light detaches and crushes through the roof of her car, shattering her windshield and killing her with the sheer size and gravitational force???

So sometimes her anxiety is bad.

She shakes her head vehemently. It. Will. Be. Fine. She tries scanning the surrounding areas but darkness shrouds any semblance of house from tree from road. It makes her uneasy.

And as if the weather sensed her uneasiness, a flash of lightning illuminated the sky, casting a blinding yellow-white light across her horizon, a brilliant contrast to the silhouetted structures. But it’s gone quicker than her sanity, although her eyes fail to adjust to the light quick enough, remnants of the flash continuing to blind her until slowly fade back into darkness.

Whether it was two minutes or two hours, she knew she was stuck. She slumps against the shoddy storefront, resigned to her fate.