“As I walk the streets of red, stained with the blood of both the dying and the dead, I realize that I, too, though still alive, am constantly dying.” These were the words that ran through Traugott Hollis’ mind as he entered yet another burned out city. He’d repeated the phrases so often, and for so long that he truly couldn’t even remember where or when they had come from. He seldom even tried to any longer. But they were such a part of who he was that he couldn’t ever quite put them out of his head. They were always there, itching, like a deep wound that had finally almost healed. They didn’t describe this particular city at all, though. Everything here was only black, various shades of gray, and dirty white; the color-drained hues of ash. Exactly like every leftover husk of civilization he had wandered through since his journey began.

Exactly what his destination would be, he hadn’t a clue. But even without being able to know where he was headed, he always knew he was on the right track. Lately that track had been taking him west. Always west. For so long that, had he begun with a map of his homeland, he long ago would have crossed over its edge into uncharted territory. Maps, like everything else, it seemed, were distant relics of the past. He remembered them well from the classrooms when he was a boy, though. And he had studied them so closely that he knew that he was no longer within the borders of his childhood territories. He had left that familiar land when he’d crossed the half wrecked bridge over the Tethys River. That had been two full moons ago.

Although he knew he wouldn’t find much of use, he still had to search the buildings ahead. While the provisions in his pack weren’t exactly low, he always heard the urging of his mother’s voice telling him he needed to eat more. He had always been one of the smaller boys in the village growing up, but that had never concerned him. His strong faith and the longing to follow his uncle into the priesthood made him curious as to his mother’s concern about his physical stature. Traugott’s brothers had always been the warriors of the clan. For them, size was of paramount importance, at least to hear them tell it. But up until recently, Traugott had never seen the destruction and desolation of war. “Honestly,”, he muttered quietly to himself, “I never really even thought about it.” That was the blessing of growing up in a society that had been devoid of any major conflict for over eighty seasons. Traugott still wondered why that had changed. Why had such a sudden end come to the peace and security he had always known?

It seemed like this end of town was the business district. At least, it had been, in its past life. As always, when he entered another ghost town, the nagging thought, “What did they do with all the bodies?” wisped its way through Traugott’s mind. He had passed a partially melted signpost 1,000 girahs back, which had at one time announced the settlement’s name. The fires had burned so intensely here that all traces of paint had been melted from the now twisted metal. “What sorcery could have possibly caused this kind of destruction?”, he asked the purged ruins. Like all of his questions, this one, too, remained unanswered.

The first building he came to appeared to have been some kind of warehouse or factory, a very old one, judging by the masonry. Just like in all the past villages he had ventured through, the only remaining ruins were ones built like the citadels he had read about as a child. Fortifications built to withstand a prolonged siege or the attacks that had been all too common in times long past. Although these buildings still stood, they had by no means survived the mayhem of this place. Every trace of wood, whether architectural or furnishings, had been reduced beyond the level of common ash. A smooth, almost oily, soot covered every surface of this place. Yet, surprisingly, Traugott’s clothing and boots remained untouched by the evil blackness of the stuff. It was almost as if it had bonded with the surfaces it covered. Even his blade and his pick couldn’t coax this mysterious soot to part from the stones or the metal to which it adhered.

With nothing but the stones and the soot remaining in the factory, Traugott decided to move deeper into town. He wanted to be back in the countryside before twilight arrived. Although it was only early afternoon, he feared being in this place after dark. He knew this trepidation was unfounded. “Probably unfounded,” he whispered half convincingly to himself. Perhaps he didn’t believe in ghosts, yet still he sensed the evil in this place. If not of the place itself, then of the being or beings who had caused the life to be burned from it. Although the ashes were long cold, the Destructors’ presence still lent heaviness to the air here. It had been the same throughout his recent travels. He always felt more comfortable in the open spaces, where nothing could reach out from a doorway or window to snag his tunic.

The town revealed only more of the same soot-covered emptiness street after street. Then Traugott caught a brilliant glint of sunlight from a blue street sign. The sign read “Galicia”. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of the word. He spun in a full circle in the middle of the street to assure himself that he was, indeed, alone. A chill ran up his spine, as this had been his younger sister’s name. She had been just twelve when she disappeared. That had been, what? Eight seasons ago? Yes, that was right, eight long seasons had passed since the girls in the village had started going missing. Galicia had been the third child who had simply vanished. Despite his uncle, Elishima’s, warnings that the Forloreniss would begin with children disappearing mysteriously, and despite all of Laniobre taking precautions against it happening.

Traugott knew the street sign was the Destructors’ doing. For some unknown reason, they wanted him to continue his pursuit, and by placing this sign here, painted with this particular name, they were taunting him, attempting to make him race recklessly after them. This was the first time he had seen tangible evidence that they actually knew about him and his travels. Never before had he seen anything so untouched within the destroyed zones through which he had passed. It was as if the sign had been carried in weeks after the fires and bolted to the signpost by some handyman with a twisted sense of humor. He had often wondered, especially in the darkness of night , if they were aware of his hunt. “At least that question has been answered.”, he said. The quaver in his voice belied how much this answer terrified him.

The presence of the sign also made Traugott wonder how much more they knew about him and his family. Had they chosen Laniobre because of him and what he knew about them from the prophetic dreams Uncle Elishima had told him about as a child? He had certainly been correct about the disappearances. And the attacks. The horrible attacks in the dead of night when it sounded like the entire world was exploding all around them, when it felt like the gates of Halja itself had been split open to spill its tormenting flames into his realm. He had even perfectly described the horrible, banshee-like screams of the Destroyers. Screams that seemed to come from everywhere at once, that were so loud and so horrific that even Traugott, with his unwavering faith, had momentarily prayed for the flames to claim him so the sound would just stop. Those screams had haunted his dreams, both waking and sleeping, more days than not throughout the long, tormentingly slow-passing seasons since he had first heard them.

Although he tried desperately to remain calm, he half ran to the corner beneath the sign. As he crossed the street where the sign was, he glimpsed an entire house that had been left untouched by the blaze. Even more miraculous was the fact that it was a small log cabin with shake shingles. Not a single shingle even looked dry, let alone singed. The logs were a beautiful red, and were perfectly hewed and joined, as if a group of master craftsmen had felled the trees themselves, and then brought them into town only days ago to build this cottage specifically to confound Traugott. There were even robin egg blue shutters at both sides of each multi-paned window. Although the house’s appearance was troubling in itself, even more concerning was the impeccable lawn and gravel walkway leading to the front door. Every detail was frighteningly familiar to the traveller. As well they should be. This was the very house his grandmother had lived in, surrounded by the fir woods just outside Laniobre. At least, it appeared to be. But that was impossible, wasn’t it?! The cabin had been completely destroyed, along with the woods themselves, in the first wave of attacks against the township 6 seasons ago. Of course, he had to go inside. As much as he feared what may lie on the other side of those eerily familiar walls, he felt himself slowly walking between the perfectly shaped hedges that lined the front edge of the lawn. As shocking as seeing the familiar house was, what bothered Traugott even more was the crunching of the small stones of the walkway under his heavy boots. The sound caught him off guard, as, suddenly, he was transported back to his seventeenth summer, walking up the same path toward that small, yellow door. Surely, that time, his heart hadn’t been hammering such a racing, staccato rhythm as was being sounded by it now.

Having grown up in the panhandle of Texas, I have several severe storm related memories, and I’ve seen my fair share of tornadoes firsthand. I don’t know if it’s because I grew up in tornado alley, where hearing sirens going off meant, “Find somewhere safe to wait out this storm, preferably underground.”, but severe storms don’t really scare me. This doesn’t mean I sit somewhere vulnerable to watch them roll through after the sirens sound, though.

Oddly enough, my earliest storm recollection wasn’t even in Texas, though. My parents took my older brother and me camping every summer from the time I was two until I was fifteen. I think I was three or four years old when we were camping in Arizona in a small KampKraft pop up camper. A horrendous storm rolled through one night, and I can speak from experience that a pop up is not where you want to be during a severe thunderstorm! That camper was rocking and rolling, and I remember my dad had to hold the door at the rear of the camper closed so the wind wouldn’t rip it open and let in the torrential rain. I could tell my mother was afraid, maybe not so much of the storm itself, but of what it may do to our family, since that tiny camper offered little in the way of protection. After a while, I said, “Maybe we should pray for it to stop.”, or something to that effect. Well, we did, and the storm actually did blow itself out shortly afterwards. Apparently, those Sunday School lessons had sunk in!

A few summers later, when I was probably seven or eight, we were in our hometown of Dumas at one of my brother’s little league playoff games when the tornado sirens started to go off. The sky had been getting fairly dark, but being Texans, I guess the crowds were used to that sort of thing, and the use of lightning detectors at sporting events was still several years away, considering this must have been in 1982 or 1983. When we were walking to the car, I can recall the surrounding skies like it was just yesterday. That evening was the only time I’ve seen three tornadoes at the same time. There was a single fully formed funnel cloud hanging from the sky in three different directions, like the storm had planned to surround the town in a kind of divide and conquer tactic. Miraculously, none of them did any significant damage.

Fast forward to the spring when I was in eighth grade. I was at after school band practice when one of the band directors interrupted to tell us the sirens were going off outside. The band hall was separated from the main school building and connected to one of the basketball gyms, so to get to the fallout shelter located in the basement of the main building, we had to go outside. While we were walking between the buildings, I looked up at the sky, which was almost completely black. The clouds were swirling around in a circle directly above us, which looked like an ominous scene from a sci-fi movie. I remember that once we got to the shelter, several kids were crying and hugging each other like they thought they were going to die down there. But I felt completely safe, and I thought it was pretty cool that we got to hang out in a bomb shelter. Of course, the shelter was a relic from the beginnings of the Cold War, which at this time was still ongoing, so I was excited to be down there. (I guess I’ve always been a bit of a history nerd!) This was still two years before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As far as I can remember, this is the only time I’ve been in a fallout shelter. I remember the metal yellow and black radiation symbol “Fallout Shelter” signs attached to the brick along the outside walkways around campus. I wonder if they’re still there?

When I was sixteen, my parents bought me a 1980 Pontiac Formula Firebird. That car was a tank, and it wasn’t made from the aluminum foil sheet metal that other cars had. The spring of my Sophomore year in High School, we had a really bad hail storm hit town. I was at my girlfriend’s house that evening when we heard the familiar wail of the tornado sirens outside. Her next door neighbor, Kim, was in my class at school, and their house had a basement, so we went over there to wait out the storm. Kim’s idiot older brothers had apparently been drinking for a while before we arrived, and they stayed upstairs in the garage to watch the storm. They must have been extremely competitive, too, because they kept trying to see who could retrieve the biggest hailstone from the driveway or the yard. One of them brought a chunk of ice the size of a softball downstairs! I still can’t figure out how none of them were killed, or at least injured, from running through the deluge to play their game. After the storm had passed, I wanted to check on my car, because I just knew my glass T-Tops were going to be shattered. Amazingly, they were still intact, and there were only two barely perceptible dents on my entire car! The windshield had a small crack from where one stone had hit directly opposite the rearview mirror. Apparently, that hailstone had been pretty big, as it had completely dislodged the mirror from the glass, glue and all. My girlfriend’s car, which was parked directly in front of mine in the driveway, didn’t fair so well, though. It looked like someone had taken a ball peen hammer to it so it could do its best impersonation of a golf ball!

I also remember another severe storm rolling through the area when I was in Junior High or High school. A huge line of storms was rolling through the area, and the sirens went off. A tornado had been spotted on the ground west of town approaching the city. Miraculously, about a mile from the city limits, it dissipated and was sucked back up into the wall cloud above. After the most severe part of the storm had passed over Dumas, another tornado was spotted on the ground about a mile east of town. I’ve always thought it was the same tornado, but for whatever reason, it just jumped over the entire city. Storms can do weird things. I’ve heard stories of entire houses being carried away by tornadoes, leaving a pair of work boots sitting unmoved on the porch steps. When my aunt’s house had the roof ripped off by an F5 tornado in Greensburg, Kansas, she had a shelf of knick knacks on the wall at one end of the hallway. The roof was gone, but she said that shelf and every single knick knack were exactly where they had been before the storm hit town.

A few years after my wife, Deborah, and I got married, we drove up to Greensburg, Kansas over Memorial Day weekend for a family reunion. One afternoon, we went over to Coldwater to decorate the graves of my grandfather, my uncle, and my great grandparents. While we were at the cemetery, the wind really started to pick up, and we could see dark clouds rolling in between us and Greensburg. There were probably four or five carloads who had caravanned to the cemetery, and we all collectively agreed we should get back to town. On the way back, the rain came down in buckets, and the wind was whipping around the car like crazy. It became so severe that I couldn’t see past the end of the hood of the car. I didn’t want to just stop in the middle of the road, though, for fear of being rear ended, and the small farm to market road we were on didn’t really have any shoulder to speak of. So, I kept creeping forward at about ten miles per hour in an attempt to keep moving. However, the second time I slid off of the road, I was convinced that sitting at a dead stop in the middle of the road beat sliding off into the ditch and getting stuck in the mud. Being in Kansas, we were surrounded by wheat fields, and the wind was whipping up a fury, blowing the wheat around in circles. The way the wind kept shifting directions, I was pretty sure we could have a tornado drop right on top of us at any second. Of course, there wasn’t anywhere else we could go, so we were forced to just sit there and ride it out. After a bit, the rain let up enough to allow us to continue the short drive back to my aunt’s house. That was without a doubt the worst storm I have ever been out in! Sadly, a few years later, an F5 tornado blew the vast majority of Greensburg away, including the house we had driven back to that afternoon. Thankfully, although they lost their home, none of my family members were injured in that storm.

On June 22, 2004, I was selling tires at the Sears Auto Center in Westgate Mall in Amarillo. We had a line of storms moving through the area that evening, and we had been monitoring them on the television in the customer waiting area. The storms kept getting more and more severe, and they were calling for large hail on the local news stations, so several of us had pulled our cars into the shop to keep them from being damaged. The storms got so bad that store management, in their infinite wisdom, called all of the employees over to the same area of the store so we’d all be together. Then they told all of us to go into the paint warehouse, where shelves and shelves of full one gallon paint cans were stacked everywhere above our heads. I refused to go in there, and told the manager, “I’m not getting my brains bashed out by those cans if the roof gets ripped off! You go in there if you want to, but I’m not!” Of course, over there, we had no idea what the storm was doing, because we didn’t have a TV or radio to monitor it, so a few of us just went back over to the automotive department so we could keep an eye on what was going on.

I called Deborah at home to make sure she was doing ok. At the time we were living in a double wide mobile home south of town. She and the kids were hiding out in one of the bedroom closets, and the last thing I heard her say was, “I can feel the house moving!”, before the phone cut off. When I tried to call her back, the call wouldn’t go through. I was wondering if my house had just blown away with my entire family in it! I found out later that there had been a tornado on the ground only a mile or so from our house! Thankfully, the worst of the damage we had suffered was having several of the shingles ripped from the roof, and we ended up having to have the roof replaced.

Of course, the area around the mall was the hardest hit by the storm. There were several car dealerships right across the highway that had every single piece of glass broken out in almost every vehicle on their lots! After the storm passed, we went out and checked the parking lot, and I have never seen so much smashed glass. One of the nearby hospitals had all of the windows on the north side of the building broken out. Several people in the area ended up with hailstones in their living rooms after they had passed through their roof and ceiling! That storm is the worst I’ve been through, by far!

Since I’ve been through so many severe storms firsthand, it seems I tend to be one of the calmest people in the room when they hit. I don’t think this has to do solely with my past experiences, though. I also have a deep trust and faith that God will keep me safe, no matter what the conditions outside may be. It seems I’ve had that since I was a small child, since I told my parents, “Maybe we should pray for it to stop.” Prayer worked then, and I believe it always will!

“As I walk the streets of red, stained with the blood of both the dying and the dead, I realize that I, too, though still alive, am constantly dying.” These were the words that ran through Traugott Hollis’ mind as he entered yet another burned out city. He’d repeated the phrases so often, and for so long that he truly couldn’t even remember where or when they had come from. He seldom even tried to any longer. But they were such a part of who he was that he couldn’t ever quite put them out of his head. They were always there, itching, like a deep wound that had finally almost healed. They didn’t describe this particular city at all, though. Everything here was only black, various shades of gray, and dirty white; the color-drained hues of ash. Exactly like every leftover husk of civilization he had wandered through since his journey began.

Exactly what his destination would be, he hadn’t a clue. But even without being able to know where he was headed, he always knew he was on the right track. Lately that track had been taking him west. Always west. For so long that, had he begun with a map of his homeland, he long ago would have crossed over its edge into uncharted territory. Maps, like everything else, it seemed, were distant relics of the past. He remembered them well from the classrooms when he was a boy, though. And he had studied them so closely that he knew within himself that he was no longer within the borders of his childhood territories. He had left that familiar land when he crossed the half wrecked bridge over the Tethys River. That had been two full moons ago.

Although he knew he wouldn’t find much of use, he still had to search the buildings ahead. While the provisions in his pack weren’t exactly low, he always heard the urging of his mother’s voice telling him he needed to eat more. He had always been one of the smaller boys in the village growing up, but that had never concerned him. His strong faith and the longing to follow his uncle into the priesthood made him curious as to his mother’s concern about his physical stature. Traugott’s brothers had always been the warriors of the clan. For them, size was of paramount importance, at least to hear them tell it. But up until recently, Traugott had never seen the destruction and desolation of war. “Honestly,”, he muttered quietly to himself, “I never really even thought about it.” That was the blessing of growing up in a society that had been devoid of any major conflict for over 230 seasons. Traugott still wondered why that had changed. Why had such a sudden end come to the peace and security he had always known?

It seemed like this end of town was the business district. At least, it had been, in its past life. As always, when he entered another ghost town, the nagging thought, “What did they do with all the bodies?” wisped its way through Traugott’s mind. He had passed a partially melted signpost 1,000 girahs back, which had at one time announced the settlement’s name. But the fires had burned so intensely here that all traces of paint had been melted from the now twisted metal. “What sorcery could have possibly caused this kind of destruction?”, he asked the purged ruins. Like all of his questions, this one, too, remained unanswered.

The first building he came to appeared to have been some kind of warehouse or factory, a very old one, judging by the masonry. Just like in all the past villages he had ventured through, the only remaining ruins were built like the citadels he had read about as a child. Fortifications built to withstand prolonged siege or attacks that had been all too common in times long past. Although these stones still stood, they had by no means survived the mayhem of this place. Every trace of wood, whether architectural or furnishings, had been reduced beyond the level of common ash. A smooth, almost oily, soot covered every surface of this place. Yet, surprisingly, Traugott’s clothing and boots remained untouched by the evil blackness of the stuff. It was almost as if it had bonded with the surfaces it covered. Even his blade and his pick couldn’t coax this mysterious soot to part from the stones or the metal to which it adhered.

With nothing but the stones and the soot remaining in the factory, Traugott decided to move deeper into town. He wanted to be back in the countryside before twilight arrived. Although it was only early afternoon, he feared being in this place after dark. He knew this trepidation was unfounded. “Probably unfounded,” he whispered half convincingly to himself. Perhaps he didn’t believe in ghosts, yet still he sensed the evil in this place. If not of the place itself, then of the being or beings who had caused the life to be burned from it. Although the ashes were long cold, the Destructors’ presence still lent heaviness to the air here. It had been the same throughout his recent travels. He always felt more comfortable in the open spaces, where nothing could reach out from a doorway or window to snag his tunic.

The town revealed only more of the same, soot-covered emptiness street after street. Then, suddenly, Traugott caught a brilliant glint of sunlight from a blue street sign. The sign read “Galicia”. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of the word. He spun in a full circle in the middle of the street to assure himself that he was, indeed, alone. A chill ran up his spine, as this had been his younger sister’s name. She had been just twelve when she disappeared. That had been, what? Eight seasons ago? Yes, that was right, eight long seasons had passed since the girls in the village had started going missing. Galicia had been the third child who had simply vanished. Despite his uncle, Elishima’s, warnings that the Forloreniss would begin with children disappearing mysteriously, and despite all of Laniobre taking precautions against it happening.

Traugott knew the street sign was the Destructors’ doing. For some unknown reason, they wanted him to continue his pursuit, and by placing this sign here, painted with this particular name, they were taunting him, attempting to make him race recklessly after them. This was the first time he had seen tangible evidence that they actually knew about him and his travels. Never before had he seen anything so untouched within the destroyed zones through which he had passed. It was as if the sign had been carried in weeks after the fires and bolted to the signpost by some handyman with a twisted sense of humor. He had often wondered, especially in the darkness of night , if they were aware of his hunt. “At least that question has been answered.”, he said. The quaver in his voice belied how much this answer terrified him.

The presence of the sign also made Traugott wonder how much more they knew about him and his family. Had they chosen Laniobre because of him and what he knew about them from the prophetic dreams Uncle Elishima had told him about as a child? He had certainly been correct about the disappearances. And the attacks. The horrible attacks in the dead of night when it sounded like the entire world was exploding all around them. When it felt like the gates of Halja itself had been split open to spill its tormenting flames into his realm. He had even perfectly described the horrible, banshee-like screams of the Destroyers. Screams that seemed to come from everywhere at once, that were so loud and so horrific that even Traugott, with his unwavering faith, had momentarily prayed for the flames to claim him so the sound would just stop. Those screams had haunted his dreams, both waking and sleeping, more days than not throughout the long, tormentingly slow-passing seasons since he had first heard them.

Although he tried desperately to remain calm, he half ran to the corner beneath the sign. As he crossed the street where the sign was, he glimpsed an entire house that had been left untouched by the blaze. Even more miraculous was the fact that it was a small log cabin with shake shingles. Not a single shingle even looked dry, let alone singed. The logs were a beautiful red, and were perfectly hewed and joined, as if a group of master craftsmen had felled the trees themselves, and then brought them into town only days ago to build this cottage specifically to confound Traugott. There were even robin egg blue shutters at both sides of each multi-paned window. Although the house’s appearance was troubling in itself, even more concerning was the impeccable lawn and gravel walkway leading to the front door. Every detail was frighteningly familiar to the traveller. As well they should be. This was the very house his grandmother had lived in, surrounded by the fir woods just outside Laniobre. At least, it appeared to be. But that was impossible, wasn’t it?! The cabin had been completely destroyed, along with the woods themselves, in the first wave of attacks against the township 6 seasons ago. Of course, he had to go inside. As much as he feared what may lie on the other side of those eerily familiar walls, he felt himself slowly walking between the perfectly shaped hedges that lined the front edge of the lawn. As shocking as seeing the familiar house was, what bothered Traugott even more was the crunching of the small stones of the walkway under his heavy boots. The sound caught him off guard, as, suddenly, he was transported back to his seventeenth summer, walking up the same path toward that small, yellow door. Surely, that time, his heart hadn’t been hammering such a racing, staccato rhythm as was being sounded by it now.