He wondered if he might faint. How embarrassing. He wasn’t that type of person. He had always considered himself strong and unruffled by commotion or threats. But now? Sweat dripped down the side of his face, his breathing accelerated and grew heavy, and his heartbeat had kicked into high gear.

Times being what they were, who could blame him? He’d lived his whole life in one place. While it was an area accustomed to polytheism and where killing babies wasn’t unheard of, at least it was familiar. But then a guy most knew or knew of had gathered them and suggested something they’d forgotten about: freedom. Threats and weirdness commenced, and suffering increased until it didn’t even seem unusual for young men to  die in the middle of the night.

And now an attack of greater proportions than any of them had dared to think about was upon them. Why oh why had they thought things could be different?! Why had they stepped out of the normal, the usual, and the expected only to die years before they’d anticipated? They’d already been through enough, but it was about to get much worse! What had they been thinking?

He looked behind him and saw the looming cloud of the enemy thundering toward them. He felt weak. Regretful. Beaten. But then . . .

Then another kind of sound caught his attention. Louder and louder it grew has he turned from looking behind him and with amazement watched the sight in front of him! With a shout, their leader called them forth. His breath steadied as his heartbeat strengthened. And the sea parted as they walked through on dry ground.

Story prompt from Exodus 14; image: pexels-ethan-jones-3222421.jpg