The days following the winds were quieter. The air had settled, the trees stood still, and the world seemed to breathe in a calm rhythm that Kane had begun to appreciate. But as the sun rose on the third morning after the wind's passing, something different hung in the air—a tension that Kane couldn't explain. It wasn't the wind, nor the rain, but something else. Something inside him, stirring like a storm waiting to break.
He tried to ignore it at first. After all, he had learned to embrace change. The winds had come, had forced him to adapt, and he had done so willingly. But this? This feeling was different. It was quieter than the winds, yet far more intense. It was like the calm before a storm—silent, yet powerful, building up without a sound.
That afternoon, while working in the garden with his father, Kane couldn't shake the feeling. His hands moved mechanically, planting seeds in the soil, but his mind was elsewhere. It wasn't the garden that had his attention—it was the feeling of restlessness that had settled deep in his chest. It was as if something inside him had shifted, but he couldn't figure out what.
His father, sensing something was off, glanced up from his work. "You've got that look again, Kane," he said, his voice steady but knowing. "What's going on in that head of yours?"
Kane paused, looking at his father, his mouth suddenly dry. He didn't know how to explain it. How could he tell his father that something was wrong when he couldn't even put it into words himself?
"I don't know, Dad," Kane said quietly, his voice almost a whisper. "I feel like… like something's coming, but I don't know what it is."
Dela's gaze softened, his eyes never leaving the task at hand as he continued to dig into the soil. "A lot of things come, son. Some we expect, some we don't. But you can't run from what's inside you. It has to come out eventually."
Kane nodded, but his father's words didn't comfort him. If anything, they only heightened the feeling—the storm inside him that had begun to build, silently and slowly, like the swelling of an ocean tide before it crashes against the shore. He had learned to embrace change, but this wasn't just change. It was something darker, something deeper, something he wasn't sure he was ready to face.
That evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, Kane went for a walk, the world growing darker around him with each step. The air had a weight to it, thick with the humidity that clung to his skin, and the quiet of the evening felt suffocating. The storm was coming, and Kane could feel it in his bones.
He wandered deeper into the woods, moving further away from the house. The trees here were tall and dense, their trunks thick with age. He couldn't explain why he had come here—maybe it was the need for solitude, or maybe it was the pull of something he couldn't quite understand. All he knew was that he needed to be away from everything. Away from his father's steady calm, away from his mother's knowing gaze, away from the life that had been his for so long.
As he walked, the air seemed to change again. The temperature dropped slightly, and the once still trees began to rustle in the wind. The leaves whispered, but this time, it was a deeper sound—a sound that felt like the very earth was speaking, like it was calling out to him.
Kane stopped and looked around. The path had narrowed, and the trees seemed to close in on him, their shadows stretching long and thin like fingers reaching for him. For a moment, everything felt still. He could hear his breath, steady and slow, but something else lingered in the air—the tension of something unresolved.
And then, without warning, the storm hit.
It wasn't a violent outburst. It wasn't loud or forceful. It was subtle at first—a shift in the air, a sudden gust of wind that sent the leaves spinning around him. The storm, it seemed, wasn't coming from the sky. It was coming from within him. His emotions, his thoughts, everything he had tried to suppress, everything he had tried to ignore, suddenly rushed forward like a flood. His chest tightened, his breath came faster, and for the first time, he couldn't keep it all inside.
The storm inside him was silent, but it was relentless. It pulled at him, tore at him, demanding that he confront it. The pressure built, and Kane felt like he was going to explode. He dropped to his knees, his hands clutching the earth beneath him as the weight of his emotions threatened to drown him.
It was then that he understood.
This storm wasn't something to be afraid of. It wasn't something to run from. It was a part of him. A part of his growth, a part of his becoming. Just like the wind that had come before it, this storm was pushing him forward, challenging him to confront the parts of himself he had been hiding. It wasn't a force of destruction—it was a force of transformation.
Kane closed his eyes, breathing deeply, grounding himself in the earth beneath him. He let the storm rage inside him, not resisting it, but letting it pass through him, trusting that, like all storms, it would eventually clear.
And when it did, he would be stronger.
As the storm slowly subsided, the air cleared, and the world around him returned to its natural stillness. Kane stood up, his legs shaking from the intensity of what had just transpired. He took a deep breath, feeling the cool air fill his lungs, and for the first time in a long time, he felt a sense of clarity.
The storm had passed, and with it, something inside him had shifted. The quiet stillness that followed wasn't an absence of movement—it was the calm after the storm, the space where growth could take root.
Kane stood there for a moment longer, looking out into the trees. He understood now. The storm had been his own. And it had come to teach him something he had been unwilling to face: that growth wasn't always peaceful. Sometimes, it came in the form of a storm, quiet but powerful, demanding change.
And Kane was ready for it.