The Disaster

While somehow forgetting about that day is odd, Leon had begun to forget a lot in the months leading up to it. Not just being forgetful, but having an odd sense of deja vu. He would involuntarily push the memory of the basement out of his head. The memory faded into the background of his 2019 summer.

While losing more and more of his memories, he also found many things he had forgotten. It wasn't like he had Alzheimer's, but he certainly was more forgetful than before. He felt a surge of energy sometimes, shivers down his spine, a whirl of wind in his palms, a breeze inside his house.

On one of these weird occasions, he met with Zach Moore, his best friend, after school. The two hung out on the baseball field, throwing a baseball back and forth while talking about school and some other random topics that they would eventually forget.

Leon threw the ball, but something was off. He felt a strange surge as he did, and the ball shot forward, almost as fast as the wind. Zach ducked and the ball crashed into the chainlink fence behind him. Zach raised his head and looked at Leon with a glance.

"Leon?" He questioned.

"What?" Leon asked, not sure what just happened.

"So you are...?"

"A what?" Leon asked, the confusion growing and twisted around him.

"Nevermind. It must have been a good throw."

Zach had said such strange things before then, but Leon just let it go, thinking Zach was just a little bizarre.

The ball had been lodged in a hole in the fence. Zach wrapped his fingers around it and pulled at it, but it wouldn't come free.

"Ah--sorry man, I'll get you a new one," Leon said, approaching Zach.

"That's fine, this one was junk anyway. Don't worry about it." Zach replied, a smile covering his face.

Zach's smile was one of pure kindness, however, he rarely used it, not even in school. Since Leon knew him, he always seemed reserved and less---happy.

"Well, what do you say we head back," Zach asked.

"I suppose. Same route as usual then?" Leon asked, pointing in the general direction of their houses.

Zach nodded and stepped next to Leon, they both then began walking back. Leon stopped briefly to remove his shoe and empty the small rocks from it.

"Quite a dark day, isn't it?" Zach questioned. "You like days like this, don't you?"

That wasn't even a question to Zach, he knew the answer.

"Yeah. Especially when it rains." Leon looked up to the sky. "Perhaps it'll storm."

"Hopefully not badly. I have some outside homework."

"Mr. Hertain's Class?"

"Nature Studies, yeah."

Leon hated that class. Not that he didn't like animals and nature, but Mr. Hertain wasn't very entertaining. He was an older, bald man, who hated kids more than his ex-wife, who he constantly ranted about or compared to the common bad things in life like taxes.

"Well, let's go," Zach said, which moved Leon's gaze from the sky to his best friend.

***

Finally, they had reached their street, and Leon found himself staring at the sky once more, a shiver rushed down his spine, and a gust of wind made his shirt flap around.

"Brrrr. Sure is cold all of a sudden." Zach remarked, to which Leon agreed, he turned around to avoid the tough wind on his face.

"Well, I'm heading home then. Get home safe, alright?"

"For sure," Leon replied, continuing his walk home. The wind slowly calmed.

Leon found himself at his front door quite quickly. He hadn't realized his hands were shaking and he had quickly walked so far.

His mom opened the door and ushered him inside.

"They're saying the storm should subside soon." She said, the outside turning ever darker, rain droplets landing on the window with loud splats.

Leon felt strange, the surge of energy was pulling and pushing on his insides, he felt sick, and he found himself in the bathroom within a matter of minutes, sitting near the toilet in case he had to vomit.

It was at the moment he stood up that the tornado alarm for his town sounded. His eyes widened as he rushed out of the bathroom and to the living room, where he could see his mom and sister sitting on the floor. They both looked at him and quickly stood up, rushing to the basement. Leon followed quickly after, rushing downstairs. As he closed the basement door, he gulped hard.

The three sat in the basement for some time, none speaking a word, as if the tornado would hear their words and take them away forever.

That was when it happened.

Leon looked toward the roof as a loud bang come from upstairs. On the ceiling of the basement was a bright blue butterfly. It hovered in place, it glew a bright blue against the dark ceiling.

His mom and sister also looked up but didn't mention the butterfly whatsoever.

Leon felt compelled to touch it. So much so, that he suddenly stood up and reached for it, only for the ceiling of the basement to be torn off, revealing the biggest tornado Leon had ever seen, online and in real life. It stretched for what had to be miles on end, it had to have been as big as his town itself.

He could hear distant screams, however, the screams weren't distant at all. It was his sister and mother's screams and his own.

The rest was a blur. The basement got pulled out of the ground, Leon was tossed around, banged against many objects, and he was flying---no, he was being tossed around by the tornado. He found himself slapped against huge debris, debris from someone's house.

He felt a warm substance trickling down his face, and his arm was cut quite deeply into, however, he felt no pain, just adrenaline.

He reached out his hand to reach a person flying in the distance, however, he could not reach the blurry figure. Leon's hand shimmered a bright blue, and in his palm lay the butterfly, ever calm, and ever powerful.

All sound drowned out, and there was only the delicate fluttering of the butterfly's wings as it lay there in his palm. Leon could feel tears fall from his eyes as if he understood something.

"It's just the beginning." A voice spoke inside his head. He closed his palm as if to shelter the butterfly.

A blue light shone brightly from his closed hand; he felt a strange heat as the wind around him exploded with heat and chill.

A bright light enclosed him, and he felt calmer, despite being so high up inside a tornado. Everything had vanished around him. He knew this would only shelter him from the pain of the impact that was soon to come.

And come it did. A large rock was hurled at his head from inside the tornado, and everything went black. Leon fell quickly toward the ground far below, the tornado continuing through his town.