From the opaque gleam of the windows reflecting the veins of lightning crashing through the sky, a sudden burst of luminescence erupted outside – but different from the lightning, blazing red. My family shoved their shoes on and ran outside into the spitting rain.

Two yards away from us, an independent bolt of electricity had chosen a home as its next grounding point, and now the building only an acre away from us had caught light. It was an eerie sight as we watched from the neighbor’s backyard: the scream of the firemens’ sirens and the flash of the lights crept through the trees, creating beams that illustrated the bursts of lightning through which sheets of rain shook. The blaze only punctuated the cacophony of light and sound.

There were not words to describe this sight – it happened so suddenly and so closely, all we could do was watch with jaws agape as the streams of water hurtled above the gaping maw of a rooftop.

My mom told us to get back, run, and we did.