The wind howls and tendrils of purple lightning stretch across the sky searching for a way to ground itself. The spring storms were frequent, but tonight seemed especially bad. A crack of thunder drowns out the movie playing on your TV before the screen goes black. You sigh and give up on finishing the film, pushing yourself up from the couch and padding quietly to your room.

You always enjoyed storms; the pattering of rain against windowpanes, the warm scent of the earth after the downpour subsided. To you it was relaxing. With a smile on your face you climb into bed, burying yourself under the covers before falling asleep to the rumble of thunder and the tapping of rain on your window.

You awake suddenly to a strike of lightning and a clap of thunder that sounded too close for comfort. Another bolt of light illuminates your room, causing you to flinch. The lightning was far too close, right in your front yard if you had to guess. Quickly you jump out of bed and rush to the living room where you can see the yard, worried that the lighting may have felled a tree. You strain your eyes, barely able to see anything through the dark and sheets of rain. You are so focused that when a third bolt crashes to the soaked earth you fall back in surprise. You place a hand over your heart and take a few deep breaths to calm yourself. Only after your heartbeat has slowed back to normal do you realize that all is quiet. The rain no longer thrashed against your house, thunder no longer rolled across the sky, lighting ceased its journey to find its way down. You were perplexed; there was no way the storm could have subsided so suddenly. Standing, you walk over to the front door, pausing to pull on a pair of mud boots. You flick on the porch light and open the door. The smell of something being singed hits your senses, not the clean scent of the earth you were expecting. Fear pulses through you at the thought of a tree or part of your house being on fire, but you can see no signs of flames.

Your eyes scan over the front yard, the porch light only reaching so far. Just out of reach of the light you notice a dark patch in the grass. That must be where the lightning struck you think. You reach back inside the door and grab a flashlight from the small table. You click it on to make sure it works and then walk down the steps towards the burnt grass. As you get closer the beam of light falls on something that is most certainly not part of the ground. A man. You let out a shriek and drop the flashlight which rolls a short distance away, taking its light with it.

Cautiously you step closer to the man. What was he doing here? Did he get caught in the storm? Was he struck by the lighting? The thoughts race through your head as you approach the man. The moon peaks out from behind the cloud for a moment, but that is all you need to see what lies on the ground. You in a breath at the sight before you. The man lies there facedown, bloody and unconscious, surrounded by white feathers stained scarlet. You panic; you’re at least an hour away from the nearest hospital. There’s no way you could make it there in time. Your mind races and you quickly realize that you are his only chance at survival. You reach down, grabbing the man by his wrists and drag him onto the front porch.

The dim light from the bare bulb overhead reveals the true horror of the mangled flesh of his back. Two deep, rugged cuts run parallel to each other down the length of his back and your knees buckle at the sight. There is no way he can survive you think, but something in you says that you have to at least try. So, you run inside to grab your first aid kit, every towel y