Reese de Moya “In the Eye of the Storm” First Place Winner: Prose The crumbling, old wood of the cabin door stares back at her as rainwater comes tumbling down from the sky in fat droplets. She stands there for seconds, minutes, hours, absent from the world around her, her eyesight focused on nothing but the door in front of her, waiting stubbornly for it to open, because it will, it will, it will. She starts to shiver from the icy air, but still, she waits for the door to open. A high-pitched howl crackles through the air like a siren, ringing and bounding off the trees, startling her out of her blissful ignorance. Only now does the sting of the night air seep into her skin, chilling her to the bone, and the shivers escalate. She wraps the thin shawl she has tightly around her, though it helps little since it, along with everything else on her body, is soaked through with water. Another howl pierces her ears, and she cannot help the curiosity coursing through her veins as she turns and takes a step towards the dark wood, squinting her eyes. Steadily, she progresses forward, her steps careful at first before growing rushed and sloppy. She passes the tree-line and walks deep into the thicket, chasing after the repeating howls like a lost child searching after its mother. Her mind goes blank, focusing only on this sound, searching for something, anything. Maybe it’s her way of subconsciously trying to forget what was behind that stupid, stupid door, and she tries to think past it, but she cannot, so she just searches.
And searches. And searches. Rain still pours down, the canopy of the trees offering some shelter against the raging winds. Water patters on the leaves of a nearby bush, and she pauses, if only for a moment, to watch a singular droplet, slowly, so slowly, run down the middle of the greenery, before stopping on the tip of the leaf. Time seems to watch, just as mesmerized as she, and the droplet drips to the ground. She continues forward after the howl. The forest swallows her whole as she chases this sound, her body convulsing with sobs that finally break free of her chest. She stops mid-run and collapses to her knees, crying because she is lost, and she is forgotten, and she is nothing. The storm rages on, wind whistling, rain almost becoming hail, pounding on the ground like footsteps following her. She feels none of it though, too worn out and empty to notice. Thunder booms and lightning strikes a nearby tree, but still, she is oblivious. That is, until the howls persist, this time impossibly closer, and she raises her tearstained face up at the sky. A sliver of moonlight peaks out from behind the storm clouds that fill the night sky, shining down on her face and illuminating her glassy eyes. The world seems to be mocking her, showing her something so beautiful, something that lights up the earth when her own little world is
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