Chapter 330

The wind kicked up suddenly, a sharp gust that seemed to come from nowhere. Far above, the sky darkened, heavy clouds rolling in as if summoned by some unseen force. Frank stood in the doorway, squinting against the violent shift in the weather. It wasn't like any storm he'd seen before.

"Damn weather," he muttered under his breath, pushing open the door. He should have just stayed inside, should've ignored the rising pressure in the air and the sudden calm before it all broke loose.

But he needed the fresh air. Needed something, anything, to get his head out of the deep hole it had been sinking into for the past few months.

The first of them came with a shriek. It was so sudden, so strange, that Frank didn't even know what he was hearing at first. His mind struggled to make sense of it. A cat's cry? But louder. Too loud. He glanced around, confusion mixing with unease. And then, the wind picked up again, this time twisting violently in a direction that made him stagger back.

It was like a vacuum had opened up in the sky above him. He turned around, watching in horror as the small town he lived in seemed to disappear into the maw of something impossible.

The wind was pulling at the trees now, yanking them like toys. Frank could feel the dirt beneath his boots shift, his balance faltering as the gusts began to tear at his skin, the roar of the storm deafening.

Then he saw them. At first, just a few—a half dozen cats, darting across the yard. They were small, then they weren't. The wind, the tornado, had swept them up, and they spun around in the center of it like some grotesque, unnatural force. Their fur rippled, their eyes glowed with madness.

Cats. Hundreds of them. Thousands. They filled the sky now, twisting in a violent dance of claws and teeth. A circle of pure chaos. Frank felt his heart pound, a cold sweat soaking into his shirt. His instinct screamed at him to run, but his feet wouldn't move. He was frozen in place, his gaze locked on the horror unfolding.

The cats weren't just in the sky. They were on the ground too, streaking across the streets, diving into alleys, climbing walls. Some were running directly toward him, and Frank took a step back, his body heavy with dread.

There was something about the way they moved that wasn't normal. The way their eyes glowed with something sinister, something not quite animal.

Frank swallowed. A shrill yowl echoed around him as the first cat hit the ground near him, a brown tabby with fur matted with dirt and blood. It screeched, but it wasn't a natural sound. Not a cry of terror, not a call for help, but a warning. A warning he should've listened to.

A dark form darted out of nowhere—another cat, its eyes glistening with malice. It leaped, its claws sharp as knives, and Frank barely managed to dodge the first swipe. He was faster than it, but only just. He ran. But the air was too thick, the wind too violent. The cats were everywhere now, rising from the street, spilling out from the windows, coming from every crack and crevice of the town.

His heart pounded as he stumbled down the street, trying to get out of the storm's reach, but it was everywhere. The tornado was no longer just wind—it was alive. A swirling, twisted mass of teeth, claws, and fur, all intent on one thing: tearing him apart.

One of the cats lunged from the side, its fangs sinking into his calf. Frank screamed as pain shot through his leg, but it was quickly drowned out by the roar of the wind and the chorus of cries from the cats above.

He kicked the thing off, but the damage was done. He could feel the blood starting to pool in his boot, thick and warm.

But there was no time. There was no time to think, no time to wonder what had gone wrong. The streets were empty now—except for them. There were no people left. No sounds except for the claws and yowls, the screeches that sent chills crawling up his spine.

The tornado, the one pulling all the cats into its center, had begun to twist tighter, the air darker. Something was wrong about it, something so wrong that it made Frank's stomach turn. It wasn't just a storm anymore. It was a nightmare made flesh. Something worse than any storm. A living thing, hungry and vengeful.

Frank collapsed against a building, gasping for air. His leg was on fire from the bite, the blood seeping into the ground beneath him. He barely had the strength to move, let alone run. He thought of his family, of his daughter, of his wife. But it was all too late. He would never see them again.

The cats swarmed the streets, surrounding him from every angle. He saw them, their fur matted and clumped, their eyes glowing with an unearthly light. They were not just animals anymore. They were something else entirely. Something that had evolved into a force of destruction, born from the storm, fed by the chaos of nature.

One of the cats leaped at him again, and Frank's hand shot out, grasping a loose brick from the ground. He swung it with all the strength he could muster, connecting with the beast's side. It flew back, crashing into the dirt with a sickening thud, but more appeared in its place. They surrounded him, circling, their growls vibrating through the earth beneath his feet.

The tornado raged above, its center now a twisting black vortex, a writhing mass of death. Frank realized, with a sick sense of clarity, that the cats were no longer the only threat. It wasn't the wind, it wasn't the claws or teeth—it was the storm itself, pulling them in like fuel, feeding them, turning them into an unstoppable force.

The cats moved in, closing in on him from every side, their eyes glinting with hatred. The pain in his leg was unbearable, his body was giving up. He could barely raise the brick to defend himself.

And then, it happened.

The cats pounced at once, their claws raking across his skin. He screamed, but no sound came out. They were tearing at him now, not out of hunger, but out of something far darker. They shredded through his flesh, their sharp teeth biting into his arms, his chest, his throat. Frank could feel the life draining out of him, every shred of skin and muscle torn away.

His vision blurred, fading in and out as the cats clawed deeper. They swarmed him like a living sea, devouring every inch. Frank could no longer move, no longer feel anything but the pain. The screams of the cats, the deafening noise of the wind, it all felt so far away now.

And then, as his world turned to blood and darkness, he understood. The storm, the cats, the madness—it was all connected. It was all part of something bigger, something ancient. The wind, the swirling of the tornado, it wasn't just pulling them in. It was feeding them. Feeding the rage that had been dormant for so long.

And Frank, in his final moments, realized that he wasn't just part of the storm. He was the storm now. He was nothing more than a victim of the very thing that had consumed him, a sacrifice to the chaos of the world.

The last thing he felt before the world ended was the claws. The endless, tearing claws.