The Cloud That Knew

Dear Diary,

That morning felt like any other, except for the cloud. It wasn’t like a normal cloud, though. It was… weird. I couldn’t stop staring at it. I remember pointing it out to Dad as he drove me to school, “Do you see that cloud?”

He glanced out the window and said, “Yeah, what about it?” like it was no big deal.

But it was a big deal. I told him, “It looks funny,” and he just shrugged, shaking his head like I was making something out of nothing. I tried to let it go, but that cloud stuck with me. The way it hovered in the sky—it felt off, like a warning or something.

A couple days later, I was helping Mom clean Grandma’s house. I was lifting a bucket off a chair when I saw something strange. The watermarks on the newspaper underneath had formed the shape of a man standing in a tunnel. I pointed it out to Mom, but she barely reacted. She just glanced at it and walked away, acting like it was nothing.

But I knew why. Mom doesn’t talk about anything like this—paranormal stuff, I guess. She’s always said people in this town don’t speak about things like that, especially not back when she was younger. If you did, people thought you were crazy. Her aunt ended up in a psychiatric hospital for most of her life because of things like this, and I guess Mom’s scared I’ll end up the same way. No one ever talks about it, and there’s no one I can go to. No shows or books or anyone who gets it. It’s just… silence.

Then, exactly one week later, I was jolted awake by my mom throwing open my bedroom door. She was panicked, her voice sharp as she yelled, “Get up!”

I shot out of bed, confused and half-asleep. “What’s going on?” I asked, my heart racing.

Her face was pale, and her voice was shaky when she said, “Your sister’s husband was killed in the coal mines last night.”

My whole body went numb. I couldn’t even process it. Mom just stood there, staring at me, and said, “That’s why I didn’t want to talk about it. I knew someone was going to die.”

Her words hit me like a punch in the gut. She knew something was going to happen, and that’s why she wouldn’t talk about it. It made me sick to think about. The way she brushed it off, how we both knew, but neither of us could say it out loud.

I felt so lost after that. There was no one to talk to. No one who’d believe me, or even understand what was happening. I didn’t know what to do with any of it.

Then, a few nights later, something else happened. I came home from a friend’s house, and as I walked down the hallway to my bedroom, I noticed the little red dot on the smoke alarm. It looked… wrong. I don’t know how to explain it, but it was just off. I shook my head, told myself I was imagining things, and kept walking. But deep down, I couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever was happening wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

Kay xoxo