The Road Beyond the Storm

Chapter 2: Winds of Destruction

The roar of the wind was unlike anything Aarav had ever known. It screamed, a monstrous force tearing through the night, rattling the walls and hammering the tin roof like fists from an angry god. The lantern in the corner flickered violently before extinguishing, leaving the family in suffocating darkness.

“Get under the table!” Aarav shouted, grabbing Meera by the arm and pulling her close. His mother followed, crawling beneath the wooden dining table that barely fit all three of them. The walls of their mud house groaned under the force of the storm. Aarav held both his sister and mother tightly, shielding them with his own body.

Then came the crash. A loud, splitting crack—wood splintering, walls breaking. The eastern side of the house caved in, bricks and mud flying across the room. Debris landed just inches from where they huddled. Wind and rain poured in through the opening like a living creature, roaring and relentless.

Meera cried out, her arms around Aarav’s neck, trembling. “Bhaiya, I’m scared!”

“I’m here,” he whispered, though his voice was shaking too. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Another crash. This time, it was the roof over the kitchen. It lifted clean off and flew into the night. Glass shattered. Dishes clanged to the floor and rolled. A wooden beam fell near the door. The wind pushed at everything—blowing apart memories, furniture, and years of effort in seconds.

The storm showed no mercy.

All they could do was wait. Wait, and pray that the structure would hold. Wait, and hope that daylight would return. Time passed in fragments—thunder, lightning, the crash of something outside, the cries of animals, and above it all, the sound of nature's fury, howling like a beast with no master.

When dawn finally broke, it brought a gray light but no peace. The winds had died down, but the rain continued in a steady drizzle. Everything was soaked—walls, clothes, hearts. The silence that followed was eerie, as if the earth was ashamed of what it had done.

Aarav stepped out into a world he did not recognize.

The village was gone.

Trees lay uprooted, snapped in half like dry twigs. Roofs were torn off, walls collapsed, animals scattered or dead. His neighbors wandered through the wreckage in stunned silence. A man knelt beside what was once his home, cradling a broken picture frame. Another woman sat by the road, rocking back and forth, her eyes blank with shock.

Aarav turned to his mother and sister. “Stay here,” he said softly. “I’ll look for food, water... anyone who needs help.”

The village well had collapsed. One of the grain storage sheds was gone entirely—nothing left but a few torn bags of rice, soaked and useless. As Aarav moved from house to house, helping lift rubble, comfort crying children, and gather survivors, he began to feel the true weight of the destruction.

This wasn’t just loss of property. It was a loss of identity. A shattering of what little hope they'd held onto in already hard lives.

By noon, a makeshift shelter had been formed in the old school building—one of the few structures still standing. People gathered there, wet and hungry. The village head, injured but alive, tried to count survivors. They had lost three people in the night. A child, an elderly man, and a pregnant woman who couldn’t escape her collapsing home.

When Aarav returned to the shelter with his family, he felt numb. His arms ached from lifting bricks. His mind from what he’d seen. His heart from the cries he couldn’t forget.

Inside the shelter, Meera huddled close to their mother. Aarav sat by the broken window, staring at the road that led out of the village. The world beyond looked unchanged—green, distant hills, pale blue sky now clear and clean. But inside him, everything was different.

A small boy approached him with a bowl of rice, barely cooked over a makeshift fire. Aarav accepted it silently, thanking him with a nod.

As he ate in silence, questions flooded his mind.

How would they rebuild? How long before aid arrived? Would it ever arrive?

And—was this life? Was this all there would ever be? Survive. Rebuild. Survive again.

The thought made him restless.

That night, after making sure Meera and their mother were asleep, Aarav stepped outside into the darkness. The sky was full of stars now, mocking in its beauty. He looked up at them—not in wonder, but in defiance.

“This can’t be it,” he whispered.

And in that moment, he decided. He would not wait for help. He would leave. Not forever, but long enough to find something—answers, work, a new path. Something more than this cycle of loss.

The road beyond the storm was uncertain. Dangerous, even.

But staying in the ruins of yesterday was no longer an option.