It was just past midnight. It was pitch dark, without even the stars to accompany the sky. Just clouds, stretching endlessly. Not that it was completely void of light. Intermittent flashes graced the skies with every rumble and roar.

The roars were thunder and flashes of lightning. Dust trapped within the clouds rubbed against each other until a static charge built up and exploded. An unnatural force perfectly explainable. There was a distinctive delay between the thunder and lightning that was constantly shortening. The longer the delay, the farther the actual lightning up to kilometers away.

Although it was a normal phenomenon, the tortoise was young and inexperienced. To it, this was a disaster of biblical proportions. And it hadn't even felt the full brunt of it as the storm's most powerful sections closed in. The rain got heavier, threatening to tear down the tortoise's home.

Water levels rose and the inside of the burrow became mud. The land's thirst was satisfied and could no longer take on more. Excess started to collect on the surface and trickle into lower areas like the tortoise's home and the oasis's lake. Suddenly, the thing protecting it from the elements was turning into a deathtrap.

The tortoise left the burrow, knowing that the muddy earth below was no good. Besides the walls of its hole eroded and sunk away, removing any protection it had. The minor annoyance of a few raindrops became a torrential downpour. Rather than water, it felt like small pebbles falling on it. It tucked its body into its shell for protection.

Even with the shell, it felt like meteorites falling from the sky, whittling away at its defenses. Cold meteorites. Every impact knocked its body temperature out of whack. It was so cold that it started to freeze on the back of its shell, creating a layer of frost.

A flash of lightning lit up the sky, followed by a low roar almost immediately. It was coming closer. A sharp transition happened at this benchmark. Instead of freezing rain, literal ice started to fall from the sky. Hail.

Hail was created when the upper parts of the sky were cold and the lower parts warm. Rain would be pushed upwards from the lower sky, being cooled even more than usual by the freezing upper sky. Then it would become ice and get heavier, repeating until it was heavy enough to get by the lower sky.

The ambient warmth of the desert grounds rose into the sky and forced the rain to freeze and compress. As time passed these chips of icy hail became chunks. Little pebbles became sizeable rocks. At first, it made no difference between the harsh freezing rain and the relentless tiny hail. Then, the big boys came, burying themselves into the ground with impressive force and splashing mud all around yet was scattered.

The tortoise was in a war zone with artillery striking all around. Fortunately for the tortoise, it was in a good spot. Unfortunately, good didn't mean perfect and it was hit. A massive impact embroiled its organs and cracked its shell. If it lacked a shell, it surely would've died on contact.

At this point, it was heavily injured and couldn't even muster the strength to scrunch up into its shell, sprawling out in the mud powerlessly. Then, the hail stopped. Everything stopped.

The epicenter of the storm was directly above the tortoise. Ironically, the center was where the storm was weakest. There was even an opening to the outside world where light leaked through. This ray of light stretched out and touched the ground.

On the ground, this light zigzagged and dug around like tree roots searching for water and nutrients. They defied common sense and acted like a living creature. As it approached the tortoise, it felt a shiver down its spine and a strange sensation tingling on its skin. Was it lightning? Somehow striking the ground so many times it appears like a constant stream to the naked eye? Or was it something else?

A low growl was heard as the sky lit up. The sea of clouds became a distinctively red color while dark shapes ran just underneath like veins, pulsating and writhing with the growl. In the center of this all was a shadow of something that should not exist.

The stream of light dissipated along with the growl and whatever lit up the clouds. Everything went back to normal. The way it always was.

A silent pressure started to build up as everything was calm. There was no wind, no noise, no rain. It was a bit humid and nothing but the sound of its own breathing was present. Except, it sounded louder and hoarser than usual. That's to be expected with its injuries.

Or it would be if it hadn't kept getting noisier, no closer. That was not the tortoise's breathing but that of something that should not be. Fear, a primordial fear not unlike the fear it felt instinctually from some dangerous creatures. This ran deeper than a venomous scorpion. This was an existence that wanted nothing more than its inevitable demise to come a bit early.

A silent pressure started to build up. Static electricity danced upon the tortoise's skin like a mark of death or foreshadowing of what's to come. The tortoise lacked the strength to look up and see what was not there, perhaps for the best. Just as quickly as it came, the pressure was gone, but the static stayed.

Lightning struck. Not just once. Twice in the same spot. The entire world went white and all sound was absorbed by this all-consuming might.