Status: To be updated in micro-segments.
It's Only the Rain
Four Lore
‘It’s only the rain.’
Plink, plink, ping…
‘It’s only the rain.’
We huddled together, Taylor, Amy, Jen and I, all the children under one vast, patchwork blanket and one united chant. Taylor was slightly more than a child, but he indulged us all the same in the moments he didn’t spend brooding. He had taken up our father’s mantle on his skinny shoulders, shaving with a blunt razor and thinking about death. The boy with one green eye and one milky white one also made frequent trips outside to raid warehouses for supplies.
Condensed milk, canned meat, bottled water, peaches– all were luxuries we couldn’t have had without Taylor. But for his expeditions, we would have been forced to drink water from the filthy gutters and brave the noxious air in beekeeping suits to trap rabbits or even rats. There wasn’t much competition in raiding, because most of the region’s former population were blind, dead, or worse. Instead, the real danger was in crossing the open field between our converted barn and the ruins of the depot markets.
Taylor was the only member of our coven brave enough to do this. He was a masterful climber of trees and a cat-like runner on roofs, but he could also sprint silently in the open. With only one good eye, he could see monstrosities darting in the shadows, and dodge the lunging of things he refused to describe– the same things we saw every now in the fathomless night when a white-hot lightning bolt threw them into relief, lumbering, slavering and waiting.
It was always me who asked him incessantly about the Other Ones he must have seen. Feeble Amy would protest my questions, clapping her hands to her ears. Jen would only sit still, too young and frightened to intervene in arguments between an older child and a relative adult, but Taylor stubbornly refused to tell.
I alone was left unanswered, set aside from my playmates by my desire to know the face and name of fear. I alone could not believe.
'It's only the rain.'
Plink, plink, ping…
‘It’s only the rain.’
We huddled together, Taylor, Amy, Jen and I, all the children under one vast, patchwork blanket and one united chant. Taylor was slightly more than a child, but he indulged us all the same in the moments he didn’t spend brooding. He had taken up our father’s mantle on his skinny shoulders, shaving with a blunt razor and thinking about death. The boy with one green eye and one milky white one also made frequent trips outside to raid warehouses for supplies.
Condensed milk, canned meat, bottled water, peaches– all were luxuries we couldn’t have had without Taylor. But for his expeditions, we would have been forced to drink water from the filthy gutters and brave the noxious air in beekeeping suits to trap rabbits or even rats. There wasn’t much competition in raiding, because most of the region’s former population were blind, dead, or worse. Instead, the real danger was in crossing the open field between our converted barn and the ruins of the depot markets.
Taylor was the only member of our coven brave enough to do this. He was a masterful climber of trees and a cat-like runner on roofs, but he could also sprint silently in the open. With only one good eye, he could see monstrosities darting in the shadows, and dodge the lunging of things he refused to describe– the same things we saw every now in the fathomless night when a white-hot lightning bolt threw them into relief, lumbering, slavering and waiting.
It was always me who asked him incessantly about the Other Ones he must have seen. Feeble Amy would protest my questions, clapping her hands to her ears. Jen would only sit still, too young and frightened to intervene in arguments between an older child and a relative adult, but Taylor stubbornly refused to tell.
I alone was left unanswered, set aside from my playmates by my desire to know the face and name of fear. I alone could not believe.
'It's only the rain.'