26 27 THE CEDARVILLE REVIEW Santa Ana by Brosnan Butt THUMP. In December 2011, I awoke with a shuddering gasp in the darkness of my childhood room. The room spun and smeared around me like an abstract painting. My senses, resurrecting after slumber, became conscious of the wind howling around my window panes. I could hear their subtle vibration as a dull hum that wormed into my skull. THUMP. This was not normal. Something was terribly wrong. I slipped from my sheets and began to tread, wraithlike, out of my bedroom into the hallway, towards the wall of windows immediately outside my door. The howling wind crescendoed. I wondered what sort of mystery the windows framed. What sort of world lay between the fragile glass and me? THUMP. The first thing I noticed was the unnatural light that came from neither streetlamp nor celestial body. My mind, in a daze, thought that it was 7 in the morning. I crept down the hallway toward the kitchen, fingertips tracing the floor-to-ceiling window panes to my left. With a growing sense of horror, I realized that the typical signs of a Butt household morning were absent. There was no sign of Dad typing away in his office. The familiar scent of Mom’s coffee was not present to stir my senses. THUMP. I glanced at the microwave clock, looking for some logic and clarity. It brought none. Chills traced my spine, and goosebumps sprouted across my body. 3 o’clock? I glanced out the windows once more. What had made this dark dream-world so bright? THUMP. I walked back to my spot in front of the window. This time, I noticed the trees spasming in the wind, their frames bending and twisting in ways that suggested great pain. Their leaves were torn from their branches and sent tumbling skyward. And this wind was unlike any other that I had experienced. It felt alive, but wholly unnatural. All this time it roared, yet it carried no rain and sent no lightning lancing across the sky. THUMP. I suddenly got the sense that a great presence hovered over our home, talons gripping the edges of our roof, ready to rip it clean off like a raptor pouncing on a rabbit. THUMP. In fright, I dashed to my parents’ room. “Mom, I’m scared!” I said, my lip trembling.
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