Her feet move along the dirt path, dragging with a grating rhythm as the road is remade with shuffled rock. The sky moves above, as gentle as a quiet ocean in the air, but with a depth of colour that promises an entire rearrangement of the little rocks on the road. Thunder murmurs beyond, a gentle hum lulling her forward.

The clouds are gathering to hear what the thunder has to say, and without anything else to worry about anymore, she continues towards the gathering. Even as the clouds tightly pack and the world darkens. Even as the murmurings become roaring. Even as the empty air fills with more drops of water than minutes she has lived. Even as the road beneath her begins to transform into puddles of shifting dirt. Even so, she must hear what the clouds are gathering to hear, what the thunder is saying so enthusiastically.

When the crashing of sounds seems like it’s at its loudest and the road beneath her is unrecognisable, she stops. She turns her face to the sky and closes her eyes under the bath of rain. She feels the wet and cold everywhere, the thunder feels her being. She listens. And then she roars. And she cries. And she kicks the ground beneath her. As her cold skin and hot blood melds together, she feels weightless, lost in the sudden peace of the storm, even as it howls and moves. The winds begin to push from behind, pushing her further along the road and the fields of grass wave in agreeance.

She has heard what was said, and it came not from the clouds but from within herself. She continues on down the road, her body and mind flushed and snuggled by the storm. She is listening to the parts of herself she finds free in the storm. She is listening to herself.

Note: I just picked a random picture from Pexels to leap into prompt writing and didn’t see the photo again until afterwards … and my brain remembered the flash of the image as a dirt road (⌒_⌒;)

This was also a quick prompt where I just kind of let the words fall out as they came. I don’t know the story, and I didn’t go through to edit anything. But it felt strangely therapeutic and has been a pleasant experience. Perhaps I should continue to write practice prompts this way (ㅅ´ ˘ `)