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Description
Who doesn't love a good thunderstorm?
I sat at my window sill, daring myself to open it, to feel on my skin the chaos outside.
Thunderstorms were always a sigh of relief to me.  Like all the bad and the stress and the trouble in the world was just being released, and when it was over everything would have a fresh start.  It's the same feeling as a good cry.  Sometimes the world needs a good cry.
I watched my fingers creep up onto to latch.  I felt the heart in my chest as my hand drew in.  Then the pounce as the latch was flipped and the window was thrust open.
I let the rain and wind hit my face as I collapsed into a sigh.  I had been sent to my room for back talking.  This punishment was not unusual and served two purposes.  One, to punish me, and, two, to keep my dad from me.  Not because he would physically hurt me, but he could get scary when he was angry.  This had been more of a problem when I was little and had grown into a standard.
My door locks from the outside and for some reason it was also customary to lock it.
Right from the get-go my life wasn't normal, but I wasn't aware of this until I started school.  My parents were aware of the impending situation and as thus did not send me to preschool.  Like most young children, I was overjoyed at the thought of school.  But it didn't take long before the school had to have a chat with my parents. They said I was scaring the other students, I believe the word used was "intimidating".  I growled, attempted a few roars, and of course I told them that my dad would shred them. And eat them.  When he heard this my dad gave me a pat on the back upon seeing me, and my mom yelled at the both of us.
My mom ensured I grew out of this, and years later I was grateful she did.  It was mostly a forgotten thing, but even now, every so often some rumor will crop up again that I'm some crazy raised-by-wolves child, or that I'm just crazy.  Or people will get a good joke.
I guess now would be a good time to explain that my father is a Lion.
This was something I had grown up knowing, and was the root of everything strange in my life.  I never really thought that other people had human fathers.  Or that if their father was a Lion, their mother was a Lioness.
Basically, a Lion is a person who can become a lion or a human, or anything in-between at will. If he wasn't a full-out lion, my father usually just had teeth or a tail.  It was the teeth combined with growling that had scared me as a kid.  Of course he was smart enough to stay human in public.
The rest of the weirdness was that my mother was human.  It was explained to me at some point, when I would understand, that Lions generally stuck with Lions and that a child of this would also be a Lion, growing up with other Lion children.  Since I was human, my parents had decided to raise me as normally as they could.
Just how I had asked were babies come from, I had to ask why I wasn't a Lioness.  My mom had explained that since they were afraid of what would happen if they had children, I had been conceived while my father had been stuck as a human, due to the effects of a drug created by the Tigers.
This brings me to the third point in my explanation.  The war.  I actually don't know all that much about it, that's really more my father's business and something I am kept out of.  It's an age-old conflict between the Lions and the Tigers, constantly being fought although humans are completely unaware.  I have no idea why, and I don't think they do either.  I do know that for some reason they must hate each other.
Tigers are basically the same thing as Lions, although I think they have stripes on their back even when human.  Of course I have never really seen this, my dad has made sure of that.
I feel my own sigh of relief as I look out at the rapidly soaking trees beyond my window.  So close, it seems that I could all but touch them.  And suddenly I am overcome with an overwhelming longing to escape.  My locked room, my family, my house, my whole life filled with nothing but the same thing, over and over. Weird to the rest, but achingly the same, the exact same, to me. I'm tired of the war, and my parents' complete and utter protection of me from whatever is out there.
The next thing I know I am climbing down a rope of my bed sheets out my window.  With a brief flicker of doubt I let go and jump to the ground below.  I look back at the sheet and decide to do nothing, if I'm back in time I can climb back up, if I'm not my parents will know where I went.  I take a deep breath and run into the woods without a second glance back.
Once I am out of sight of my house, I stop running, slow to a walk.  These woods aren't completely strange to me, although I don't particularly recognize anything.  We live on the very edge of civilization, the woods turning into hills which eventually turn into mountains, nothing in between.  When I was younger my father would take me out hunting in here.  That stopped when I was too heavy to ride on his back and he said my footsteps made too much sound.  Having no wish to learn the proper way to hunt, I stopped tagging along.  I've rarely come out here since.
Although it's quite dark and wet because it's still raining, the woods do not scare me.  There's nothing out here besides plants and animals, and animals have never scared me. I grew up with a lion.
Unwilling to stray too far from home, I stop walking and sit down at the base of a tree. Despite the storm I soon find myself drifting to sleep. I have a strange dream, or dreams.  Everything is fire.  No matter how far I go or what I do, I see nothing but flames.  I can't tell if I'm on fire or not, but I feel very, very hot.  Eventually I start to see things in the flames, shapes, figures.  As I continue they become more specific. Lions, tigers, people, running, leaping, screaming through the fire, but they are no more substantial than the flames they are made of.  Then suddenly, quicker than if I had blinked, everything was frozen.  The endless flames had become an endless sheet of ice.  I was frozen, all of the heat was sucked away into a vacuum.
I wake up.  My clothes are soaked through, although it feels to the bone.  I know it's time to go home, whether I want to or not.  I think I already have hypothermia. By some luck I make it back to my room without being caught.  I take a hot shower and put on dry clothes, glancing despairingly at my soaking clothes and bed sheets.

Description
Who doesn't love a good thunderstorm?
I sat at my window sill, daring myself to open it, to feel on my skin the chaos outside.
Thunderstorms were always a sigh of relief to me.  Like all the bad and the stress and the trouble in the world was just being released, and when it was over everything would have a fresh start.  It's the same feeling as a good cry.  Sometimes the world needs a good cry.
I watched my fingers creep up onto to latch.  I felt the heart in my chest as my hand drew in.  Then the pounce as the latch was flipped and the window was thrust open.
I let the rain and wind hit my face as I collapsed into a sigh.  I had been sent to my room for back talking.  This punishment was not unusual and served two purposes.  One, to punish me, and, two, to keep my dad from me.  Not because he would physically hurt me, but he could get scary when he was angry.  This had been more of a problem when I was little and had grown into a standard.
My door locks from the outside and for some reason it was also customary to lock it.
Right from the get-go my life wasn't normal, but I wasn't aware of this until I started school.  My parents were aware of the impending situation and as thus did not send me to preschool.  Like most young children, I was overjoyed at the thought of school.  But it didn't take long before the school had to have a chat with my parents. They said I was scaring the other students, I believe the word used was "intimidating".  I growled, attempted a few roars, and of course I told them that my dad would shred them. And eat them.  When he heard this my dad gave me a pat on the back upon seeing me, and my mom yelled at the both of us.
My mom ensured I grew out of this, and years later I was grateful she did.  It was mostly a forgotten thing, but even now, every so often some rumor will crop up again that I'm some crazy raised-by-wolves child, or that I'm just crazy.  Or people will get a good joke.
I guess now would be a good time to explain that my father is a Lion.
This was something I had grown up knowing, and was the root of everything strange in my life.  I never really thought that other people had human fathers.  Or that if their father was a Lion, their mother was a Lioness.
Basically, a Lion is a person who can become a lion or a human, or anything in-between at will. If he wasn't a full-out lion, my father usually just had teeth or a tail.  It was the teeth combined with growling that had scared me as a kid.  Of course he was smart enough to stay human in public.
The rest of the weirdness was that my mother was human.  It was explained to me at some point, when I would understand, that Lions generally stuck with Lions and that a child of this would also be a Lion, growing up with other Lion children.  Since I was human, my parents had decided to raise me as normally as they could.
Just how I had asked were babies come from, I had to ask why I wasn't a Lioness.  My mom had explained that since they were afraid of what would happen if they had children, I had been conceived while my father had been stuck as a human, due to the effects of a drug created by the Tigers.
This brings me to the third point in my explanation.  The war.  I actually don't know all that much about it, that's really more my father's business and something I am kept out of.  It's an age-old conflict between the Lions and the Tigers, constantly being fought although humans are completely unaware.  I have no idea why, and I don't think they do either.  I do know that for some reason they must hate each other.
Tigers are basically the same thing as Lions, although I think they have stripes on their back even when human.  Of course I have never really seen this, my dad has made sure of that.
I feel my own sigh of relief as I look out at the rapidly soaking trees beyond my window.  So close, it seems that I could all but touch them.  And suddenly I am overcome with an overwhelming longing to escape.  My locked room, my family, my house, my whole life filled with nothing but the same thing, over and over. Weird to the rest, but achingly the same, the exact same, to me. I'm tired of the war, and my parents' complete and utter protection of me from whatever is out there.
The next thing I know I am climbing down a rope of my bed sheets out my window.  With a brief flicker of doubt I let go and jump to the ground below.  I look back at the sheet and decide to do nothing, if I'm back in time I can climb back up, if I'm not my parents will know where I went.  I take a deep breath and run into the woods without a second glance back.
Once I am out of sight of my house, I stop running, slow to a walk.  These woods aren't completely strange to me, although I don't particularly recognize anything.  We live on the very edge of civilization, the woods turning into hills which eventually turn into mountains, nothing in between.  When I was younger my father would take me out hunting in here.  That stopped when I was too heavy to ride on his back and he said my footsteps made too much sound.  Having no wish to learn the proper way to hunt, I stopped tagging along.  I've rarely come out here since.
Although it's quite dark and wet because it's still raining, the woods do not scare me.  There's nothing out here besides plants and animals, and animals have never scared me. I grew up with a lion.
Unwilling to stray too far from home, I stop walking and sit down at the base of a tree. Despite the storm I soon find myself drifting to sleep. I have a strange dream, or dreams.  Everything is fire.  No matter how far I go or what I do, I see nothing but flames.  I can't tell if I'm on fire or not, but I feel very, very hot.  Eventually I start to see things in the flames, shapes, figures.  As I continue they become more specific. Lions, tigers, people, running, leaping, screaming through the fire, but they are no more substantial than the flames they are made of.  Then suddenly, quicker than if I had blinked, everything was frozen.  The endless flames had become an endless sheet of ice.  I was frozen, all of the heat was sucked away into a vacuum.
I wake up.  My clothes are soaked through, although it feels to the bone.  I know it's time to go home, whether I want to or not.  I think I already have hypothermia. By some luck I make it back to my room without being caught.  I take a hot shower and put on dry clothes, glancing despairingly at my soaking clothes and bed sheets.