Some folks sleep to the silence, some to the gentle sounds of a fan, and on nights when nature is kind, to the steady sound of the rain. I’m among those folks that enjoys a gentle sound as I try to doze, but for the past few nights, it’s as if someone had insulted nature itself and my house was caught in their wrath.

There wasn’t a moment’s silence to speak of as the breeze turned to gales as the sun went down, and the treetops bristled loudly. Worse, the branches of the trees nearest my home kept hammering the walls, some sounding as if they were even sweeping the shingles off the roof. Yet each morning, as the sun rose, each tree remained unbroken, the house itself undamaged, and not a fallen branch in sight.

It made no sense, but then, trees have endured the world’s winds for ages…More surprising was that the house hadn’t been wrecked, given the horrific sounds that kept me awake.

Finally, one sleepless night of this raucous rampage, I decided to get up and try to uncover just what was stirring each night. Nothing natural occurs with this sort of consistent intensity…Does it?

As I made my way to the door, I looked through the windows to make sure it wasn’t all in my mind, and sure enough, it looked as if a great storm was blowing outside…Again. The house groaned as it was assailed by the gusts, and I began to rethink even trying to step outside. What could I even do if I did find…Something, something that could create such a force?

I didn’t know, but it didn’t matter, as whatever this was, it was keeping me from sleeping regardless, so it was either face it or let exhaustion overcome me.

I had to force the door open just to get out. The door kept almost slamming shut as I tried to get out, as if my home was attempting to hold me inside and keep me safe. I should have given in to its attempts.

Once outside, the trees that had seemed subject to the winds began to make earsplitting cracking sounds, as though they were breaking from the nights of relentless battery…Yet they weren’t breaking. They…were…They hadn’t looked themselves I realized, they weren’t what I saw in the daylight.

They were…Becoming what I saw in the day, just…Ordinary trees, but…They weren’t. I wanted to see what they really were, but before I realized it, I was out of breath. I blacked out.

I awoke the next day outside, and everything was as it always was in the daylight…Yet as night fell, I no longer heard the restless winds, but now…I heard my own voice, speaking hoarsely, urgently, for what I could not understand, and I daren’t give in…