Wrath of Zeus

Once, when I was thirteen years old, the sky turned black and the world nearly ended. I was in Rehoboth Beach, Deleware; where my father rents a beach house every year. After dinner, around 5:30pm, I rode my bicycle to the boardwalk where I planned to spend the $20 I carried at the arcade. Things were going very well until I heard a bit of commotion outside. I glanced outside and saw people the most strangest thing; people were running; in the kind of way they only do in horror movies. I asked a bystander inside the arcade what was going on and he only frowned and pointed up towards the sky. As I wasn’t sure what he meant, I stepped outside and what I saw sent a shiver up my spine. A huge black shape in the sky was coming in quickly from the ocean. It didn’t move like any cloud I had ever seen and I was completely at a loss for what I was seeing. My gaze was trapped on this terrifying yet magnificent manifestation of nature. My awe was interrupted as more and more people began to run, seemingly in terror. The shape was filling up the whole sky over the ocean, the brutal waves were higher than I had ever seen, people were talking loudly, a low rumbling thunder was growing louder in the distance, there were shouts and screams, and I realized I had to make a decision quickly. Is the arcade an acceptable place to be for the end of the world? I didn’t mind it so much, but I realized that the power would certainly go out and I decided I could probably get home before the storm hit. I began walking quickly down the boardwalk. The rain started slowly and sporadically, but with the largest drops I had ever witnessed. I picked up my pace, and started running like everyone else. In the few minutes it took me to cover the half-mile of boardwalk and reach my bike, the sky had gone completely black, and the violent rain was no longer spread thinly. I was soaked in seconds, but nonetheless I ran on. After reaching and mounting my bike, I pedaled furiously off into the night just as the thunder had begun a deafening crescendo. The massive rain drops pounded against me, blurring what little visibilty I had from the flashes of lightning which seemed to chase me through the night. I was only a few blocks from the house, but I couldn’t read any of the street signs, and I was too scared to stop. Ahead of me, a bolt of lighting tore into a huge tree on the right. One of the large branches from the mighty fell into my path and I swerved to avoid it, narrowly escaping certain doom. While it took me nearly an hour of being hopelessly lost in the tempest to traverse the few blocks back home, I did manage to survive; the world didn’t end this time, but it sure was close.