It started at the cracks in the doors. I remember because all the doors in the house were shut (not locked).

At first I thought it was some kind of bug coming through the cracks in the front door. Groaning, I looked for the nearest box of Kleenex, while trying to keep an eye on the black bug—

—on the black bugs….

…on the black…mist?

—coming into the house through the cracks in the door.

I backed away. Poison gas? There was no smell.

Scratch that: there was a smell, just not the one I expected.

A wet smell.

A smell of static.

I backed up, never taking my eyes off the black cloud seeping through the cracks in the front door.

Through the cracks in the doors.

And the windows.

Surrounded.

The wet, static smell assailed my nostrils.

A raincloud, heavy with water.

A flash of light blinded me.

I yelped as the thunderclap hammered at my eardrums.

I pressed my earlobes against my inner ears and ground my teeth, shutting my eyes.

Violently I rocked back and forth.

Not daring to turn my back, I stumbled in the direction of the bathroom.

I tripped.

My knees banged against the hard floor, followed by my head.

Another thunderclap. I thought the house was splitting in two.

Reason left me. I was a prey animal, all terror, stumbling to flee the determined predator.

How had it been mere minutes before I found the bathroom?

Flipping on the light and the fan, I slammed the door. I don’t know if it covered another thunderclap.

Locking the door, I sat on the toilet, my fingers still pressed hard to my ears. I rocked back and forth, humming.

My mouth opened, and words came out:

“This could be the room of any small boy. But it just happens to belong to a boy named Christopher Robin. Like most small—“

The thunderclap drowned out the fan and my voice, shaking the whole house.

My head hurt and my eyes swirled from my fingers pressing into my ears. The back of my head kept banging against the toilet.

The storm cloud seeped through the cracks in the bathroom door.

I sang at the top of my lungs:

“FINDING RELEASE, FINDING RELEASE FROM THAT WHICH DROVE THEM ONWARDS LIKE THEIR PREY!!”

Suddenly there was nothing between me and the thunder.