When Lightning Strikes

Once upon a time there was a pretty pretty princess who lived in a pretty pretty castle with all of her pretty pretty servants and moats and stuff.

I'm totally kidding. Let's start over.

Once upon pretty recently there was me, your typical, academically driven WonderNerd with a knack for getting herself into trouble. My name is Toni, and up until a little while ago Monday's chem test was the most important slot on my agenda. I don't keep an agenda these days (since paper doesn't stick around long on a flying pirate ship), but we're rewinding here. Allow me to take you back to how I got on the flying pirate ship.

Remember when I mentioned the getting-into-trouble portion of my persona? I really outdid myself a couple of Wednesdays ago. I'm kind of a sucker for violent weather, and that unknowingly fateful night a crazy thunderstorm came rampaging into my neighborhood. Since it was dead winter (and thunderstorms are not exactly common for 15 weather), I felt the irresistible need to get a closer look.

So, yes, I climbed a tree during a thunderstorm. Okay, so I'm not the smartest Band-Aid in the box when it comes to common sense, but I was a prisoner of my own curiosity! How often does a thunderstorm come waltzing by in the middle of winter? To add to my temptation, the eye of the storm was passing directly over my house as I stood gawking from my front porch. I simply could not resist getting closer. So up the big pine tree I went.

When the lightning seemed to be so close it was singeing my eyebrows, I plopped down on a comfy-looking branch and wiped my mop of red hair out of my eyes. My long, clumsy limbs, which had kept surprisingly out of my way during the climb, were drenched and aching.

But it was worth it. The swirling eye of the storm stood directly above my head, furious and peaceful all at once. For a few blissful moments, I was captivated by this freakish storm. I tried to take a picture of what I was seeing in my head.

Flash! Wow, that mental camera was working pretty well that day. Oh wait, I got struck by lightning. And yes, I felt that wonderful phenomenon that the scientific world likes to call electrocution.

But, for some reason, I didn't feel like my brain was frying.

No, I wasn't frying at all. I was whooshing, actually. Whooshing in a very upward direction, very quickly and very overwhelmingly. My stomach was telling me that I was climbing hundreds of feet very rapidly, but my brain was telling me that this was impossible. Then again, what did I know? I was only WonderNerd then.

Finally, the whooshing/electrifying/scared-out-of-my-pants sensation stopped swarming my brain. To add to the strange events of the day, I found myself facedown on what seemed to be a sundeck. Since I hadn't remembered taking a Caribbean vacation lately, this was very strange.

I scraped my face off the rough, gnarled planks and looked up. Pirates? A cryptic old ship? Oh, and yes, we were flying…

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I really had a lot of fun writing this. Please tell me what you think! I appreciate all feedback, good and bad.