Chapter 1: The Winter's Cry
In Green Bay, a small town in the northern United States, winter never seemed to end. Snow fell incessantly, covering the town with a white, silent mantle. The Arctic breeze chilled the air to the bone, and car headlights were just faint spots of light in the long, dark nights. Emily Carter, 15 years old, walked through the deserted streets, her thick coat protecting her from the cold. Her blonde hair was hidden under a beanie, and her face, though determined, was marked by uncertainty.
Since turning 15, something inside her had changed. The wind seemed to respond to her presence, and a kind of electricity followed her wherever she went. In recent days, she had felt connected to something bigger, something distant yet intimate, as if the universe was trying to communicate with her. That night, something was different. Emily felt a growing pressure in the air, an invisible force pulling her outside.
“Emily!” Her older sister, Lisa’s voice, called from inside the house, from the window she was leaning on. “You have to come back! It’s getting stronger!”
Emily didn’t respond, absorbed by a strange feeling she couldn’t explain. She walked down the street, feeling the cold ground beneath her feet, until she reached the dock, where the snow was denser. The whole town was silent, the landscape covered by pristine snow, but she knew something was about to happen. The storm was approaching — not a regular storm, but something far more intense.
It was then that she saw it: on the horizon, the clouds gathered in spirals, as if the very atmosphere was distorting. A lightning bolt crossed the sky, illuminating the scene in a terrifying way. Emily reached her hand to the sky, and something inexplicable happened. The lightning seemed to respond to her touch, enveloping her with a powerful energy that coursed through her body like an electric shock.
Suddenly, everything went into a trance. The wind stopped. The waves of Lake Michigan ceased to move. In an instant, she was no longer in Green Bay, but somewhere else, where chaos reigned.
