The wind was howling, traveling so fast I could feel my house shaking. I was huddled under my covers gripping them so tightly that when I lifted my hands away from them they couldn’t stop shaking. Storms always made me nervous. The loud claps of booming thunder, the bright streaks of lightning in the sky, it was just so eerie. I know it is nighttime and that it being dark out is normal, but that night seemed even darker than usual.
BOOM! “Ah!!” I screamed, it was another loud clap of thunder. I needed to sleep, that was the only way I would be able to distract myself from the hurricane outside. The flashes of lightning I saw through my window made me cringe. How would I ever fall asleep?
It must have been hours later, but I finally fell asleep. I woke up gripping my covers as tight as I did the night before. I waited in bed for about 10 minutes in that same position, unsure if the storm was still in progress. I did not hear thunder nor see lightning during those ten minutes so I decided to get out of bed and look what the storm had caused. I walked into my living room to take a look out of the big window that we had and I did not like what I saw.
There was trash everywhere, puddles almost every 3 feet, a few trees had fallen too. Then all of a sudden I saw something move in one of the trees still standing. I could not tell what it was at first, I thought it was just a bird, but then I saw a paw. The paw was an orange color, and then all of a sudden the creature's head came into view. It was a cat!
“Oh no what do I do?” I was whispering to myself now attempting to find a fix to the problem. I decided I had to help the cat, but how? The police department would come to try and save a cat now they had larger problems. I finally decided I would have to resolve the problem for myself. I quickly left a note for my still sleeping mom, put on my shoes and left the house.
It was still windy outside and I shivered as I lacked any jacket to protect me from the cold. I couldn’t waste any more time however so I started to make my way across the street, dodging the puddles and debris that came flying at me.  When I finally caught sight of the cat, I noticed that its leg had dried blood on it. My first instinct was to grab the cat but when i realized that would not work I attempted to get the cat down with some treats I had in my pocket. This seemed to be working better as the cat started to walk down the tree toward me. When the cat finally reached me I noticed the collar around its neck. The cat's name was Riley and his owner was Marc. I assumed the cat got lost during the storm, and since I didn’t want to leave him outside I took him back into my house where my mom was patiently awaiting me. She praised my work - she had apparently watched from the window the entire time. She helped me clean Riley and contact his owner. When we finally reached him he was ecstatic and thanked us a thousand times over for saving Riley.
Saving Riley, helped me overcome my fears of storms, because at least I had a house to keep me safe, and I still go to visit him sometimes and his owner still thanks me.