Lightning Storm

For a moment, William stared at the source of his misery for the past month, then he broke into curses.

"Fuck you, you son of a bitch, you can't outbid me so now you're threatening me???" He said as he permanently blocked the infernal Mr. Empty_Sky before turning back to the bidding screen.

On it was the new bid, one hundred thousand dollars, bid by himself.

If the anonymous bidder still had a higher bid, William would have no choice but to give up again. He sat back down and impatiently waited for an update from the website.

As he waited, he grabbed a small deck box and opened it up, revealing the Drytron deck that won him the Yu-Gi-Oh World Championship this year.

He never told any of his family members, they all thought that the hobby he had picked up in grade 4 was too childish now that he was an adult, but the happiness that came with playing this game never left as he grew older.

At first, it was just a simple school-yard deck with all the terrible cards that every middle schooler thought was broken- Magic Cylinder, Destiny HERO - Defender, and Marshmallon.

Then the neighbouring school announced a small Yu-Gi-Oh tournament that he attended. There, William saw one kid who completely obliterated any semblance of retaliation from the rest of the contenders with his Dark-Armed Dragon return deck, and he was hooked.

He spent the remaining year running around, buying and reselling small things like coke bottles, pencils and erasers for his classmates and finally earned enough money by the end of the following year to buy his own competitive Yu-Gi-Oh deck and won the school tournament in his sixth grade.

To prepare for the seventh grade tournament, he remembered organizing some friends to create a sort of club association, and after getting his sister to help advertise some of their paper crafts at her high school, he managed to earn enough money to buy a Black Wing deck.

Apparently, William's mother had heard about it and told his father, Maxwell, who was so impressed by William's "entrepreneurial skills" that he agreed to let William inherit his business when he retired, instead of selling it to a friend of his. Of course, William made several motions to reject the idea, but they were shut down by his father each time he brought the subject up.

"Well, I'll just have to think about it when I get to that point," he thought as he looked at the new notification that had popped up on his computer.

William broke into a smile.

"Finally! I won the bid! I finished my collection! I've got them all, all of the cards! Eat shit you dragon stealing cu-"

BOOM!

William jumped out of his chair in shock by the sonic boom that resounded from outside.

"Holy hell, that must have struck from right above us!" He exclaimed, turning to his butler Edward, who was also visibly shaken from the thunder.

Edward stared above at the ceiling that seemed to have shaken when the lightning struck, before decomposing himself.

"It looks like our estate's lightning rod may have been struck just now, I should go check to see if everything's still functioning properly." Edward noted as he walked out of the hallway.

Another resounding crash reverberated throughout the house as Edward turned toward William.

"Stay in your room for now, it should be safer than if you ran outside to go towards the safe house location, I'll be back soon."

With those parting words, the old butler of the Zhang family took off running down the hallway.

William watched the door slowly close by itself, before sitting down in his bedroom. Two more thunderclaps struck near the estate, causing his ears to pound.

"The delay between each thunderclap seems to be decreasing."

"I think this is fine though, It's not like the lightning can break through the house anywa-"

a blinding light interrupted his thoughts, followed by a searing heat that kicked him off his bed.

"Shit! What was that?!"

William cried out before glancing around. His eyes widened as he stared at the gaping hole in the ceiling, as well as part of the wall that had been disintegrated.

High up in the sky, a colossal vortex swirled, blackening the surrounding area, and within the overhanging clouds, bolts of lightning danced around, crackling with primal energy.

As the clouds high above swirled, one of the bolts of lightning seemed to be consuming the smaller lightning bolts, growing in proportion to the bolts it consumed. When it had grown five fold, it paused, before falling down onto an area near the Estate.

Another sonorous boom reverberated through the environment, snapping William out of his trance.

"I need to get out of here!" He thought, moving away from the giant hole in his ceiling.

Then he paused.

William quickly turned around, grabbed a backpack, and began stuffing binders into the bag. After squeezing the seventh binder through the crack in his backpack, he took off running out of his room.

"Need to at least keep the more expensive cards," he considered, as he flew down the stairs.

William paused when he got to the front door. Shattered glass littered the front doorway. It seemed the lightning had struck down on more than just his room. He danced around the shards of broken glass, before making it to the front door, which was surprisingly still intact, and quickly exited the house.

Glancing back at the estate, William could see it's ruptured structure. The storm vortex had surely marked the mansion as its primary target. The back of the house had caught on fire, and William could see at least three more areas the lightning had vaporized besides his own room.

As he stared, the vortex sent another lightning bolt cascading towards the Zhang Estate, directly at the location around William's room. With a great crack, the remainder of his room was vaporized into thin air.

William slowly backed away from the collapsing structure, astonished. How could there be lightning strong enough to vaporize buildings?

He took a moment to collect his thoughts, before making way to the underground safe house that his family owned. Although Edward had warned him not to run out in the rainstorm, he couldn't exactly stay in a collapsing house either.

Making his way to the safe house down the hill, William saw several areas where the lightning had struck on the grass. Each area had a hole burnt in a ten meter diameter.

Upon nearing the bottom of the estate's hill, William saw a figure sprawled near one of the craters. Approaching the figure, he realized it was Edward. Well, part of Edward.

Edward's right foot was missing- in it's place, a cauterized stump. When he saw the third master approach, Edward struggled up to his knees.

"Run… the lightning… it's striking humans…"

Without thinking, William grabbed Edward and attempted to hoist him over his back. He took three steps before losing balance. Too much baggage. He wouldn't be able to carry both Edward and the backpack to the safe house.

He hesitated, then dropped the bag, and dashed towards the entrance of the safe house with Edward on his back.

He had only ran a few steps forward when he felt the heat from another lightning strike burning his back. William didn't turn around, but he felt it. That last bolt had missed him by a few meters.

"The lightning storm really is targeting people!" William's heart sank. He was still 20 meters away from the entrance.

Step by step, he trudged towards the door of the safe house, until William came face to face with the door to the underground chamber. After fumbling for a moment, he found the keys in Edward's left pocket, and unlocked the door.

He crawled down the old stairs of the shadowy basement, before coming to a stop at the bottom of the staircase.

William laid the old butler on the floor of the basement, then he turned around and began to ascend the stairs again.

"Wait, where are you going?" Edward gasped weakly.

"I need to get my back pack".

Ignoring the pleas of the butler, William once again ascended the stairs of the aged basement. Grabbing the door, he opened it, and then stood there, rooted to the ground in horror.

Above in the sky, a ball lightning of colossal size swam around in the air, gathering size. So great was it's size that the sky seemed to be filled with white brilliance. The bolt turned, and as if mocking William's efforts, flew down straight at the safe house.

A flash of light blinded him, and a moment later, all was empty.