I've seen you before, stranger.

Long ago, in a town far away from this place, when my body wasn't rugged and cracked.

I remember when you walked your way into town and brought the big one with you.

Oh, I remember that day, and I remember what you did.

Why I wait for you now.

For I was just a boy then, stranger. A lad with no knowledge of how it is to look calamity and death in the eye. How it is to see a dirt and life stock be cast into the maw of the sky.

I remember how I sat outside the bar looking at the flow of new faces entering our little town. Pa was gambling away the last of our money whilst the Devil's liqueur clawed at his throat and clouded his mind. Ma was talking to the Sherif about how our farm had been raided.

I think I was the first to see you stranger. For none else seemed to care when a giant of man calmly walked into town wearing only a trench-coat and hat on the hottest day of summer.

I do remember how I thought that melody you sang was nice. How it remembered me of what my Ma would sing to me when the howls of storms kept me up at night.

I suppose that calming song was your sign.

The calm before the storm, as they say.

I see it still, stranger. How the winds picked up and formed a spiral carved with our deaths. How the clouds covered the sun and how the maw opened up to show it's mighty teeth.

In just four seconds, I saw how the farms in the distance got dragged up by it's claws. How the wind formed hands and picked up all in its sight, to feast on us. Have our screams echo in its own.

I can still see how my Ma tried to run to me, stranger. How you passed her, not caring that she was picked up and pulled apart by the wind.

I remember how, for a moment, I thought it was funny that the sheriff first thought to use his pistol against the calamity of nature.

I felt how the floor boards I stood on started to tear apart. I remember how I jumped, landing safely on the ground whilst the bar flew away with my Pa and the others inside. How their blood seemed like nothing compared to the size of the spiral.

How the storm had grown bigger than any mountain I knew of. Stronger than any beast I feared.

In that moment, I knew. That wasn't no ordinary hurricane.

That was the devil taken form.

Destruction incarnate.

A mess of hurricanes and tornados spiraling together to make humanity nothing but drops of blood in the wind.

A tornado of such magnitude that God would fear it.

I ran, stranger.

I ran as fast as I could, feeling the winds pull me to it. I felt the skin on my bones start to tear. How the ground beneath it disappeared as it grew closer to me. I drowned out their screams, please and prayers. I just wanted back to the farm. To the warmth of my bed and the calming smell of the animals.

But I knew it wasn't possible. For it was gone as well. I could see it. I saw it like dust in the wind as it was crushed and twisted by the horrid spiral.

I continued my escape. Running faster than I ever did. Despite the rain, despite the horrors, and despite that, I couldn't feel my arm.

I ran for the whole day. Through dusk and past dawn.

You must have pitted me, stranger. For when I collapsed to my knees many miles away from my home, I couldn't see it anymore.

I wept.

I was afraid.

I felt like a coward.

But I swore that I wouldn't run again.

That the next time I see you, I would be prepared.

Even though I sat awake every stormy night, you never came. Even though I played your song, I never saw it.

But now I see you, and I'm ready now, stranger.

I heard you whistle. I heard you call.

I guess my arm tasted good enough for it to crave the rest.

With each step you take, I see the big one get ever closer.

I see that monstrous spiral grow and grow. Big enough that the mountains around me are nothing but ants to it.

I feel how the winds claw at me. How they claw at the very ground I stand on.

However, I won't run. Not like before. So let it be known that I see you stranger. I see you walking through the fields and hearing the winds howl.

Let it be known I do not fear you, stranger. It is the maw that you bring that I fear.

So open your maw once more.