What Price, the Rain?

 

The woman appeared like a mirage on the horizon, a silver-haired phantom shimmering in the heat haze. Davyd lowered his binoculars, heart quickening as he tracked her stumbling progress across the dunes. No one survived the wastes alone, not without water, and certainly not in this heat.

"Outsider," he murmured to himself, wondering where she might have come from while calculating trajectories. If he circled east, he might intercept her before she collapsed.

The air seemed to thicken as he approached, like it did in the moments before a storm, if storms still existed in this parched, barren world. The woman staggered; her pale skin luminous against the rust-colored sand. When she fell, faint blue sparks danced where her hands met the earth.

"Easy," Davyd said, kneeling beside her. This close, he could see she was extraordinary. She had long, wispy silver-white hair, her skin was mapped with faint traceries like lightning branches. But her eyes were the most unusual, flickering from electric blue to a deep hued purple as consciousness returned.

"Where am I?" she rasped, voice cracked from thirst.

"The edge of nowhere," he replied cryptically, offering his canteen.

She drank greedily, and it was all he could do not to snatch the precious vessel from her hands. 

"I'm Davyd,” he said, noting how the traces in her skin began to recede with the hydration. “And you're..."

"Tess," she whispered, violet eyes fading to blue as she handed the canteen back to him. "I think... I'm Tess."

“What do you mean, you think?” Davyd tilted his head, studying her face in the harsh sunlight. "That's an odd way to put it."

She looked away, fingers tracing patterns in the sand, patterns that left tiny blue sparks in their wake. "I don't remember much. It's all fragments."

"Nobody survives crossing the wasteland without supplies," Davyd pressed, gesturing to her lack of pack or water. "Yet here you are, alive. How'd you manage that?"

Tess's brow furrowed. Overhead, impossibly, a wisp of cloud formed in the relentless blue sky.

"I don't know," she said finally, frustration edging her voice. "I remember falling. Through darkness and light at the same time. And before that..." She pressed her palms against her temples. "A dome. I lived under a dome. A city made of glass and steel where the weather never changed unless we wanted it to."

"Aetherion," Davyd whispered, eyes widening. Everyone in the wastes had heard legends of the last domed city, a technological paradise that sealed itself off when the world dried up.

Tess's head snapped up at the name. "Yes. That sounds right."

"And how does someone leave paradise?" he asked, not bothering to hide his skepticism.

"Not willingly," she murmured. Her eyes took on a distant look. "There was a man. His name was..." She winced suddenly, as if the memory caused her physical pain. “Marcus," she said after a moment, the name barely audible. "He did something to me. There was a device, and then I was falling." She shook her head. "It doesn't make sense."

Davyd offered his hand, helping her to her feet. As their fingers touched, static electricity crackled between them, sharp enough to make him jerk back in surprise.

"Sorry," she said automatically. "That happens sometimes."

"What happens?" he asked, rubbing his fingers where the shock had stung. He looked up in astonishment. A cloud had formed overhead, a cloud in a sky that hadn't seen proper weather in years.

For a moment, something like recognition flashed in her eyes, then vanished. "Nothing," she said, dismissing the notion.

Davyd didn't press further, but as they began walking toward his village, he noted how the clouds increased, growing slightly larger with each passing hour.

"Tell me more about your dreams, what you remember," he said later that night, after they made camp, and Davyd shared a meal with her beside a fire under the stars.

"They don't feel like dreams," Tess replied, staring into their small fire. "More like... memories underwater. I see a lab with white walls and humming machines. Experiments with weather." She looked up at him, vulnerability plainly visible. "Is that crazy? To experiment with weather?"

"Not crazy," Davyd said softly. "Just impossible. At least out here."

He watched as she unconsciously rubbed the luminous scars on her forearm, scars that seemed to glow brighter as night fell.

"What's the last thing you remember clearly?" he asked.

Tess closed her eyes. "Being up close to the top of the dome. Buffeted by wind and rain. A man's voice calling my name. And then..." She opened her eyes, their color now decidedly purple in the firelight. "Then I was in the sand, and you were there."

Davyd didn't know what to make of her story. Was it delusion, amnesia, or something stranger? But as they sat in silence, the clouds grew darker, and a single drop of moisture, impossible, miraculous, fell between them, sizzling as it hit the fire.

By the third day of their journey, Davyd could no longer deny the transformation overtaking him. It wasn't just her unearthly beauty, though that alone would have been enough, but something more elemental. Each time their hands accidentally brushed while sharing food or navigating difficult terrain, electricity danced between them, leaving his skin tingling for minutes afterward. He found himself manufacturing reasons for these moments of contact, drawn to the strange sensation of her nearness. At night, he lay awake watching her sleep, mesmerized by how the luminous patterns on her skin pulsed in rhythm with her breathing, like a second heartbeat just beneath the surface.

On their final evening before reaching the village, they sat atop a wind-carved mesa, the sunset casting the wasteland in bruised purples and reds. Davyd pointed to a distant dust devil.

"When I was a boy," he said, "my grandmother called those 'thirsty ghosts.' Said they were the spirits of those who died searching for water."

Tess laughed, a full-throated sound that vibrated the air. At the same time a cloud formed, casting a dark shadow across the mesa. Davyd heard the unmistakable rumble of thunder, despite decades of absence, and once again rain fell from the sky.

Davyd gasped in surprise, meeting Tess’s eyes, blazing with purple intensity. In the next moment, her laughter faded, and just as quickly, the rain stopped. The cloud thinned, and the tension dissipated. But something fundamental had changed. He wasn’t sure what, but he knew she was at the center of whatever it was.

The next day, the elders welcomed her without question, offering her one of the empty huts near the dust-choked well.

As the weeks passed, Davyd experimented. Static prickled his skin at a casual touch on her lower back, after which soft clouds gathered. Heated arguments brought distant thunder. And when they finally surrendered to the tension between them, tangled on his thin mattress as his hands explored her luminous skin, the first real rainfall in seven years pattered against his roof.

"It's you," he whispered afterward, watching droplets trace patterns on his window. "You call the storms."

Tess stared at the ceiling. "I remember.” She said, her voice small. “There was an accident. An explosion in the resonance chamber. After that, when I... feel things... the weather responds."

"What kind of things?" Davyd propped himself on one elbow, studying her face.

She met his eyes, challenge and vulnerability warring in her expression. "Emotions. Especially... this."

His village was dying. Fields had been dust for years; children were born who'd never seen rain. The elders prayed to forgotten gods while water rations dwindled weekly. And here, in his bed, lay salvation.

 

*-*

 

The council chamber smelled of dust and desperation. Five elders studied Tess with mingled hope and suspicion, their faces mapped with hardship. She couldn’t read Davyd’s emotions. Pride? Hope? He had brought her here, and she could feel the static humming beneath her skin, responding to their scrutiny, a familiar sensation she was only now beginning to understand.

"You claim to control the weather?" asked the eldest, Amara, her dry voice leaf-thin.

"Not control, exactly." Tess chose her words carefully. "Influence. I can... encourage rain. With focus."

And passion, she thought but didn't say, remembering Davyd's hands on her hips, the storm that followed.

"Our village dies," said another elder, a man with sun-darkened skin and clouded eyes. "Three children died to thirst last season. Our wells are empty. If you can truly bring rain..."

"I can," Tess said with more confidence than she felt. "With practice, I can manage it."

The memories were returning piecemeal: the lab's sterile white light; the resonance chamber's hum; Marcus's voice, clinical yet somehow tender, guiding her through the experiment. Then the accident, and afterward, the storms that came with passion.

"We propose a contract," Amara said, unrolling a parchment map of dust-choked riverbeds. "Restore our lands, and you will have a home here. Honor beyond measure. Anything you desire."

Anything I desire. The words echoed as Tess signed their contract with a spark-inducing flourish. What she desired was control, over the power that had exiled her from Aetherion, over the chaos inside her. This was her chance to prove Marcus wrong, to show that she wasn't merely a walking disaster.

"I won't let you down," she promised.

For three months, it worked. They built her an alter where Tess learned to channel her emotions with precision, summoning gentle rains that soaked into the parched earth without flooding. She built a routine, meditation at dawn, then a careful climb to the altar where she would focus on controlled desire, pleasuring herself with touch or thought.

The village transformed. Green shoots pushed through long-barren soil. Children splashed in puddles; laughter ringing through the streets. Nearby the river gurgled to life, a myth to the youngest generation. Davyd watched her with something beyond desire now, a reverence that made her uncomfortable.

As the seasons turned, the initial wonder of Tess's gift began to warp into something darker. The village elders, once reverent, now approached her with lists of demands: rain for the eastern fields, but sunshine for the western orchards; a dry spell for the harvest, followed immediately by downpours to replenish the aquifer.

"We need a frost by week's end," Mara insisted one morning, her tone brooking no argument. "The fruit trees won't set properly otherwise."

Tess rubbed her temples, feeling the static build beneath her skin. "I can't just…"

"Can't?" Amara's eyes narrowed. "Or won't?"

That evening, Davyd found Tess atop her weather altar, her hair crackling with unspent energy.

"They're ungrateful," he said, his hands kneading her shoulders roughly. "After everything you've given them."

Tess leaned into his touch, craving the release it promised. "It's getting harder," she admitted. "Like trying to hold back a flood with my bare hands."

Davyd's fingers tightened, almost painfully. "So don't hold back." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Show them your true power. Make them remember why they feared storms in the first place."

She turned to face him, seeing the hunger in his eyes, not just for her, but for what she could do. It should have frightened her. Instead, it sent a thrill down her spine.

"Show me," he breathed.

His kiss was bruising, demanding. Above them, the clouds darkened ominously.

Weeks later, as lightning split an ancient oak and torrential rain flooded the lower fields, Davyd laughed in exhilaration.

"More!" he shouted over the gale. "Show them what a real storm looks like!"

*-*

Six months later, the village elders approached Davyd after a particularly violent downpour collapsed the newly rebuilt granary.

"This arrangement isn’t working," Amara said.

"She's still learning control," Davyd defended, ignoring the unease in his gut. "The harvests are better than ever."

"At what cost?" asked the blind elder. "The river has overflowed three times this month. Fields are waterlogged. And yesterday's lightning sparked a fire in the southern fields."

"I'll speak with her," Davyd promised.

But that night, when he suggested restraint, Tess laughed, a sound like splintering wood. "Restraint? That's what Marcus always preached." She stretched languidly on his bed, electricity crackling along her skin. "Don't you prefer me wild?"

He did. Gods help him, he did. Instead of urging caution, he leaned into her addiction, encouraging her excesses, celebrating her power, ignoring the escalating damage. When a storm washed away the eastern fields, he blamed poor irrigation. When lightning shattered the village's newly installed solar panels, he commissioned another altar, grander than the first.

A year passed. The once-barren village now struggled with the opposite extreme, oversaturation. Fields turned to marshlands. Mold crept through storehouses. The river, once prayed for, became a menace that regularly breached its banks.

And Tess... She was radiant in her addiction. She spent hours atop her altar bringing electrical storms, arms outstretched, laughing as lightning danced around her. She spoke less of Marcus now but sometimes called Davyd by that name in her sleep. When he confronted her about the destruction, she shrugged.

"You wanted a goddess," she said, her eyes flashing dangerously. "This is what gods do."

The breaking point came during harvest. A monstrous storm descended upon the village with Tess at its eye. Davyd found her atop the altar, drenched and ecstatic as eighty-mile winds tore roofs from houses.

"Tess, you must stop this!" he screamed over the gale. "You're killing us!"

For a moment, recognition flickered in her electric eyes. Then her expression hardened.

"You used me," she said coldly. "You’re the one who stoked this fire. You can’t complain now that it burns."

The village council met by torchlight that night, their faces grim as they reviewed the contract.

"She has violated her terms," Amara declared. "The rains were to restore life, not destroy it."

"Where will she go?" Davyd asked, his voice hollow.

"Where she was found," the blind elder replied. "Take her to the wastelands."

Dawn painted the flooded village in sickly orange light. Tess stood at its edge, belongings bundled, face impassive as Amara read the decree of exile. Villagers clutched protective amulets, keeping their distance from her crackling aura.

Davyd stepped forward when it was done. "I never meant…”

"Yes, you did," Tess interrupted softly. "You saw a weapon and used it. Don't pretend otherwise."

"I loved you," Davyd insisted, reaching for her.

Static jumped between them, sharp enough to make him recoil.

"No," she said sadly. "You loved the storm."

They watched her walk into the desert, silver hair billowing. Above her, clouds gathered, following like loyal pets. The rains would continue elsewhere, Davyd knew, for someone else. Another village, another altar, another man who thought he could harness a tempest.

Eventually, the drought would return. They would thirst again, pray again, perhaps even speak her name in desperate whispers. But as Tess vanished into the haze, Davyd understood at last: some salvation came at too high a price.

Behind him, through still-flooded streets, the villagers began the work of rebuilding what their miracle had destroyed.

The Heart of the Storm

        The first crack of lightning split the sky as Tess Calder rolled onto her back, chest heaving, skin slick with sweat. The sheets tangled around her legs; the faint scent of ozone mingled with the musky heat of their bodies. She stared up at the glass ceiling of her penthouse, where storm clouds churned like ink in water, dark and restless against the faint glow of Aetherion’s dome. 

Beside her, Marcus shifted, propping himself on one elbow. His fingertips trailed lazily over the curve of her hip, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake. “That’s… new,” he murmured, his voice rough from exertion. 

Tess turned her head toward him, her silver hair spilling across the pillow like liquid mercury. “What is?” 

He nodded toward the sky. “The storm.” 

She followed his gaze. The clouds were swirling faster now, lightning flickering in jagged veins illuminating the dome’s sleek surface. Rain began to patter against the glass, soft at first but quickly building into a steady drumbeat. 

Marcus frowned, his brow furrowing as he watched the spectacle unfold. “We don’t get storms like this unless the AI triggers them for maintenance or cooling cycles.” His fingers stilled on her skin. “It’s almost like…” He trailed off, shaking his head as if dismissing a foolish thought. 

Tess stretched languidly, a satisfied smile tugging at her lips. Her body still hummed with the aftershocks of their passion, a low-level vibration she couldn’t quite place but didn’t want to lose. “Maybe it’s just a glitch,” she said lightly, though a strange tingle coursed through her veins; a sensation that felt oddly familiar yet entirely new. 

Marcus didn’t respond. His gaze lingered on the storm as thunder rolled through the city, deep and resonant enough to rattle the glass walls of their bedroom.

 Three nights later Marcus brought it up again. They’d barely made it to bed before tearing into each other; his hands gripping her waist, her nails raking down his back as they moved together in a rhythm as old as time itself. The air between them was charged, electric, every touch igniting sparks that leapt from their skin to the room around them.

When it was over, Tess lay sprawled across his chest, her breath warm against his collarbone. Outside, another storm raged, this one more violent than before. Wind howled against the dome; lightning flashed so brightly it painted their bodies in stark relief against the darkened room.

Marcus tilted his head to look at her, his expression unreadable in the flickering light. “Have you noticed it yet?” he asked quietly.

“Noticed what?” she replied lazily, tracing idle patterns on his chest with her fingertips.

“The storms.” He shifted beneath her so they were eye to eye. “They only happen after… us.”

Tess laughed softly, dismissively. “You’re imagining things.”

“Am I?” Marcus’s tone sharpened slightly as he sat up, dislodging her from his chest. He gestured toward the window where rain lashed against the glass in sheets. “This isn’t normal, Tess.”

She frowned but said nothing, unwilling to acknowledge the truth in his words.

By the end of the week, denial was no longer an option.

Every time they came together, every kiss that left her breathless, every moan that echoed through their apartment, the weather outside mirrored their intensity. Thunderheads gathered with alarming speed; winds battered Aetherion’s carefully balanced infrastructure; lightning danced across the dome like a lover’s caress.

It was Marcus who finally connected the dots.

“You were right next to it when it overloaded,” he said one night after pulling away from yet another fevered embrace.

Tess blinked at him in confusion, still dazed from their encounter. “What are you talking about?”

“The resonance chamber,” he clarified grimly. “The day it failed in the lab, you were standing right there when it discharged.”

She sat up slowly as memories flooded back: the blinding flash of light; the deafening hum that had vibrated through every molecule of her body; stumbling out of the chamber with static crackling through her hair and an odd warmth radiating from within.

“You think…” She trailed off as realization dawned.

“I don’t think,” Marcus said firmly. “I know.” He gestured toward her with an almost accusatory air. “Whatever happened in that lab, it changed you.”

At first, Tess tried to resist, to suppress whatever connection she had to Aetherion’s weather systems by keeping herself calm and controlled. But every time Tessa’s passion flared, whether in laughter, anger, or love, the skies reflected her mood.

The storms weren’t just accidents or side effects, they were extensions of herself: wild and untamed manifestations of everything she felt but couldn’t contain.

And oh, how she came to love it.

Each time she gave in, to let herself feel without restraint, the skies responded with a ferocity that left her breathless and exhilarated.

“You can’t keep doing this,” Marcus tried to caution her. “Think about the balance! What if one day, you can’t stop it?”

But she wouldn’t listen.

Tess’s cravings escalated. She sought more ways to ignite her electromagnetic surges: pleasuring herself when Marcus was away, adrenaline-fueled feats like base jumping from the dome’s upper catwalks, racing through underlit tunnels on hover-bikes, even daring to override the city’s safety protocols just for the thrill. Every spike in her pulse triggered savage weather above.

The city suffered for it. Storms battered Aetherion’s dome, power grids flickered under relentless strain; lesser structures buckled beneath unrelenting winds, but Tess didn’t care.

For once in her carefully controlled life, she felt alive.

“Tess!” Marcus’s voice cut through wind and rain as he climbed toward her atop Aetherion’s highest spire, lightning rods humming ominously around them like living things waiting for release.

She turned toward him slowly, her silver hair whipping around her face as jagged arcs of electricity danced along her outstretched arms, violet eyes glowing brighter than any lightning bolt above.

“You have to stop!” Marcus shouted over deafening thunder as he clutched a portable dampener, a last-ditch effort designed specifically for neutralizing electromagnetic anomalies like hers.

There was a wicked smile playing on her lips, as if she embraced the storm’s fury as part of her very soul. “You can’t stop me,” she called back, her voice steady despite the tumult around her. “I was born for this.”

Marcus activated the neutralizer. A searing flash exploded around Tess, momentarily stripping away the wild energy that surrounded her. In that moment, the world seemed to pause: the swirling storm, the pounding rain, the echo of Marcus’s desperate plea, the charged air that still clung to Tess like a second skin. For a single, suspended heartbeat, the storm abated as the arcs on her skin dimmed and her violet eyes softened with a flicker of uncertainty.

But then, the storm intensified, and Tess’s gaze hardened. “Nothing’s changed, Marcus,” she snarled, her voice slicing through the electric air. The words dripped with bitter resolve as torrents of rain carved down her porcelain cheeks, each drop glowing in the erratic flashes of lightning.

“I am the storm,” she said, and with a breathtaking, heart-stopping leap, Tess hurled herself into the void.

Marcus’s anguished cry was drowned by the tempest as Tess disappeared into the rain and lightning. He stood there, gripped by the searing ache of loss and the lingering terror of a love that had become as uncontrollable as the storm itself. Would he ever see her again, or had she become a myth, forever woven into the heart of the storm? 

Breadcrumbs

 Sunlight filtered through the canopy of trees, dappling the forest floor with patches of golden light. Emma adjusted the strap of her backpack and set off in search of a letterbox. It had become her solace during rare breaks from her whirlwind life as a photojournalist for National Geographic. It was a quiet, meditative hobby that let her explore the world in a different way—one that didn’t involve deadlines or the pressure of capturing a perfect shot.

She’d discovered this series of letterboxes a week ago while preparing for an overdue vacation. Logging onto the letterboxing website, Emma had been surprised to find a series of boxes titled Heartstrings. What startled her most was they had been planted ten years before by someone called BestFriend. 

It had been their old trail name, a nod to the charm necklaces she and Ben had exchanged in college when they were young and inseparable. Each wore half of a heart. Hers read Best, his read Friend.  They’d even made matching stamps for their letterboxing adventures. When they broke up after graduation, they swapped the stamps as parting gifts. Emma had carried Ben’s Friend stamp with her ever since, though she hadn’t used it in years.

She found the letterbox nestled beneath the roots of a spruce tree, hidden in a pile of moss-covered stones. She brushed away damp leaves with gloved hands, her breath curling in the crisp Nova Scotia air. Her heart raced as she tugged the weathered container free.

Inside was a logbook and a carefully wrapped stamp. It was designed as a compass rose, simple yet elegant, carved with precision. What caught her attention wasn’t the stamp; it was the note at the top of the logbook. Written in neat handwriting were the words: “The best adventures start with an open heart.”

Emma sat back on her heels, staring at the note as her chest tightened. The handwriting was bold and familiar… it couldn’t be. Could it?

She inked and stamped the compass rose into her own personal logbook and pressed her half-heart friend stamp into the letterbox log. Her mind raced with memories of Ben. His lopsided grin as he handed her the freshly carved heart stamps before their first college letterboxing adventure; the way his steady presence had always balanced out her restless energy; their whispered dreams of traveling and maybe one day settling down in Nova Scotia.

Later that night, after returning to her Airbnb, she logged her find on the website. Her mind raced with memories of Ben, wondering if he could be the one who had planted the boxes, and if he would know she had found one.

She followed the trail of letterboxes like breadcrumbs over the next few days, each cache pulling her deeper into Nova Scotia’s rugged beauty.  The stamp in the first box was carved like a lighthouse, the note read “Love shines like a beacon in the dark.”

The second box held a stamp of an anchor. “Dreams of you are anchored in my heart.”

The final clue led her to a bluff overlooking the Atlantic at sunset. The trail climbed through dense forest before opening onto a windswept clearing. Emma spotted a cairn of stones marking the last letterbox and knelt to retrieve it.

Her breath caught when she opened it. Inside was an object she’d never thought to see again.  Ben’s half of their heart charm necklace, the piece that read Friend. Her hands shook as she took out the logbook and read the note at the top.

"Sometimes we have to lose what we love to find our way back to it."

The tears came when she unwrapped the stamp and saw it was Ben’s *Best* stamp. Slowly, she pressed it into ink and aligned it beside her own Friend stamp in her logbook, completing the heart for the first time in twenty years.

Emma returned the box to its hiding place and stood slowly, lost in memory. The sun was dipping lower on the horizon, painting the cliffs in hues of gold and crimson.

“Emma.”

And there he was, at the edge of the bluff, silhouetted against the setting sun like something out of a dream.

He looked older but no less familiar: broad shoulders wrapped in a dark coat; warm blue eyes framed by faint lines; that same steady presence that had once anchored her restless spirit.

“Ben,” she whispered.

His lips curved into a tentative smile as he stepped closer. “I wasn’t sure if you’d ever come.”

Her chest tightened as tears stung her eyes. “You left this,” she said, holding out his half of their necklace.

“I was hoping you’d find it. I’ve been waiting,” he admitted quietly.

“For ten years?” Her voice trembled with disbelief. And… Anger?

“For longer than that,” he said softly.

Emma’s breath hitched as memories flooded back: late nights spent poring over maps together, dreaming about all the places they’d visit; their summer trip to Nova Scotia before graduation; their whispered promises under starlit skies that they’d always find their way back to each other.

She shook her head, blinking back tears. “Why didn’t you ever call me?”

“I thought I was doing what you wanted,” he said simply. “You were chasing your dreams. I didn’t want to hold you back.”

“That wasn’t your choice to make,” she shot back, her voice breaking.

“I know,” he said after a moment, his gaze steady despite the pain in it. “You could’ve called me, too.  At least you knew where to find me.”

“I thought you’d be married by now. You always said you wanted children,” Emma said.

             “Not without you,” Ben replied with a familiar shrug of his shoulders.

They stood in silence for what felt like an eternity before Emma removed her own half of their heart shaped necklace, the piece that read Best. Slowly, she stepped forward and fit them together in his hand.

“I missed you,” she said softly.

“I missed you, too” Ben replied. 

As they sat on a nearby bench overlooking the ocean, Ben told Emma everything: how he had inherited enough money after his father’s death to buy property here, where he spent every spring and summer planting letterboxes and hoping she’d come find them.

“Why Nova Scotia?” she asked after a moment.

Ben smiled faintly. “Because it was our dream,” he said. “I wanted to live here, to keep our memories alive.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “You live here?”

“Part-time,” he admitted. “The rest of the year I run my dad’s newspaper back in Colorado. But this… this is where I feel closest to you.”

Emma listened quietly, feeling something shift inside her, a longing she hadn’t even realized she carried until now. She loved her job, traveling and chasing stories across continents; but she also yearned for somewhere to call home between assignments, a place where someone would be waiting for her.

“I don’t know what to say,” she whispered.

“Say you’ll stay,” he said simply.

She let out a shaky laugh through her tears. “For how long?”

“For as long as you want,” he said with a smile that made her heart ache in all the best ways.

Outside

 

Prompt 1: Freedom | Word count: 1200 Words Exactly | Due Date: Jan 27, 2021

 

Pexels Photo by Enrico Preini

 Something has awakened me. A noise from my chamber, perhaps, though I can see the room is empty. My body is drenched in sweat. My senses filled with foreboding, like a premonition carried over from nightmare. 

I was dreaming of being hunted. I don’t even know what that means, to be hunted. I’m vaguely familiar with the term, from conversations overheard during my shifts in the cooking chambers. In my dream, I was being chased, threatened by someone unseen who intended to harm me in some unknown way.

I know that hunting is a thing that’s done Outside. But only a select few are ever allowed out.

 There’d been talk last night about the Outside. Discussions around the evening meal that must have stayed in my subconscious and trickled into my dreams. People rarely speak about the Outside. It’s not taboo, it just isn’t done. Even the stories of how we came to exist in this subterranean homeland are mostly forgotten now.

 And yet, I’ve heard more talk about Outside in recent days than I have in all of my sixteen years.  Whispered suggestions that we’ve been fed on lies.

 “Outside isn’t the dangerous place we’ve been given to believe,” they said. “There’s freedom Outside, even if our Forefathers believed otherwise, when they locked us all inside.”

“It’s been more than four generations. Hasn’t it been long enough?”

 I sit up in my bed, pushing these thoughts aside. The sleeping chamber is empty and my sister is gone. I notice her chest is open, the contents removed. Not just her everyday clothes, but her ceremonial dress is gone, and her jewelry as well.

 “Darie,” I think, “what have you done?”

 Darie’s always been a rebel. A nonconformist, as Mother would say.  Yet, Darie is the one Mother chose to take her place as the next faction leader when Mother eventually steps down.

 I have an idea where I will find Darie, though it seems early for such a venture. I suspect she will have gone to the same place I followed her yesterday; an unused section of the subterranean where I found a surprising number of people gathered.

 “We know there are others living Outside,” a man had shouted from the front of the crowd. “We know this to be true. Why do we allow ourselves to be trapped inside this subterranean land? Why shouldn’t we be allowed to experience life Outside?”

 They crowd had grown more agitated as the gathering continued. They were riled up and edgy when the meeting adjourned. I hoped Darie knew what she was getting into, and not just following a group of dissidents for the sake of having something different and exciting to do.

 I dress quickly in a loose tunic and snug leggings, soft soled shoes for my feet. I don’t bother trying to tame my hair, just pull it back into a loose knot as I hurry from the chamber.

 The place is a bustle of activity, a typical morning for most of the faction. Here in the main passage there’s a constant stream of people, moving in the direction of the eating chambers or the washing pools. They’re going in the opposite direction, paying little attention to me as I pass them on my way to the meeting place my sister led me to yesterday.

After traversing several long passages, I finally reach a narrow path that leads down into a level of the subterranean that’s rarely used. I grab up a lit torch when I reach the end of normal living space, before moving deeper into this unused network of caves.

 I hear murmurs of speech as I approach the innermost chamber. Torches have been set in notches in the wall, so I extinguish mine before taking several steps into the room. Pressing myself against the rough wall inside a small alcove, I blend in with the semi-darkness.

 Voices are raised in excited agitation. I can tell that something is about to happen. It takes but a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. The impatience I hear in the crowd is reflected in the restless way the people are fidgeting, shifting from foot to foot, barely constrained as all eyes fix on a point along the southern wall.

 That’s when I see my sister, standing at the wall, dressed in her ceremonials. Two women in similar attire stand beside her. Before them is the man who spoke at the meeting yesterday, also dressed in official costume.

“Oh, Darie,” I think again, “what are you doing?”

 “The time has come to take back our freedom,” the man calls in a voice loud enough for all to hear. “The time has come to act.”

 He motions to the women, who respond by turning to face the wall, raising their arms high above their heads, taking hold of something I can’t make out. Whatever it is causes their muscles to strain with effort as they pull it down towards themselves. I don’t understand the purpose of their actions.

But in the next moment, I do understand, and the foreboding I felt when I awoke this morning suddenly flares to life in my mind. Light is penetrating our sanctuary from Outside.

 My sister is opening a forbidden door, tricked into thinking there is freedom Outside.

 The light is gradual at first as the door rises slowly, until the women gain momentum and the door rises faster. Higher. Blinding light shines through the doorway, shattering the darkness of the subterranean sanctuary that is my home.

 Beyond the brightness of the doorway is the Outside, exposed for the first time in more than a hundred years.

 The crowd has become alive with excitement and feverish curiosity. They shield their eyes and press in on one another to gain better vantage with which to see.

 Seven armed warriors, silhouetted against the brilliance of the Outside stand there, waiting, as if they knew this door would open at this time. Rushing in with maddening cries, with long, wicked blades, they begin wounding and killing my people.

The people start yelling in fear.

 I go berserk with anger and frantic energy. I put aside my fear and push my way into the melee of slaughter, past the people who allowed this terror into our subterranean home. Somehow I am able to forge a path to the southern wall where my sister had been and make my way to the mechanism she had operated when she opened the door.

 Darie and the two women are lying grotesquely in a pool of blood. They would have been the first to be killed by the warriors, stabbed and trampled and left behind. My heart aches for Darie, but I can spare her no thought. I can see the mechanism that opened the door, can see that there are three. Even if I can manage one, which I doubt, since I’m not nearly as tall as my sister, I can only work one at a time. Will I be alive to work a second?

 At least I will die trying.

GrammaLou

 Short Story Prompt 12: Hyped | Wordcount: 1200 words exactly | Deadline: 2 December 2020

Continuation of  In The Garden of Eden and Into the Dark

 

 

Gramma Louise was asleep when Gigi let herself into the darkened room. Her grey hair was like a wispy halo around her wrinkled face, giving her a fairylike appearance that Gigi adored. She sat in the chair beside the bed, taking the elder woman’s hand in her own. She was surprised at how warm it was, like she was lit by an internal glow that radiated from her heart to her fingertips. 

  

GrammaLou would laugh at Gigi’s thoughts. Her eyes would twinkle, and she would encourage the teenager to make up little stories about fairies and elves. Gigi remembered GrammaLou dubbing herself Gigi’s fairy godmother, claiming that Gigi was her little princess, left under a mushroom to be raised by the heroes of the realm. 

  

Gigi’s eyes misted, thoughts of her first foster parents inevitably filling her mind. They were the heroes GrammaLou referred to. She barely remembered them. What memories she had were formed mostly from GrammaLou’s photographs and the stories she'd told Gigi after Jack died and Brenna left. 

  

Gigi scanned the room for the beloved photo album, finding it in the bookshelf by the shuttered window. Gently laying GrammaLou’s warm hand on the bed, she rose and retrieved the book of memories, returning to her seat. She remembered the photo album being much larger and heavier. She supposed it must have seemed huge to her six year old self, sitting in GrammaLou’s lap and turning the pages when prompted. 

  

GrammaLou stirred slightly as Gigi clicked on the bedside lamp, nestling deeper into her pillow and snoring softly. 

  

Gigi opened the album, unprepared for the rush of emotions that overtook her. The first page had only a hand written note. “Her name is Georgette, but I call her Gigi. Please take care of her. And tell her I love her.”

 

She traced the note with her finger, wondering about the woman who wrote it. About how and why she could abandon her baby as she had.

 

Finally, she turned the page. There was a picture of Jack, wearing his fireman’s uniform, beaming down at the baby girl in his arms. Next came a series of nine photographs of her, posed in the same spot on that old ratty couch. A small chalk board displayed the number of months since her estimated birth. 

 

Here she was on her first birthday, propped up inside the front wheel of the firetruck just at the golden hour of sunset.

  

She turned the page and her chest constricted with bittersweet pain. She was three when this picture was taken. There was Engine 29, all shiny and clean in the background, next to the Station 52 sign where she’d been left by a mother no one knew. Brenna had become her mother, Jack her father. In this photo she was holding their hands, dancing on tippy-toes, dressed in a gauzy pink princess outfit, a huge smile on her impish face. There was Brenna, proud and beautiful in her paramedics’ uniform. Jack, handsome and tall in his fireman suit. GrammaLou stood next to her son, her hair grey and wispy even then. 

  

It was the only family picture they’d taken. The last picture of Jack before he died. There were a few more photos of her and Brenna, before her foster mother abandoned her, just as her real mom had.

 

Bitterness tried to take hold of her heart, but GrammaLou’s early teaching took over, and she let it go before it could take root.

  

The remaining pages were filled with pictures of her and GrammaLou. Here she was dressed for Halloween as Pippi Longstocking. This one at a kindergarten recital. The last page held ticket stubs from their trip to Disneyland, along with a snapshot of her and GrammaLou, grinning in matching Minnie Mouse ears. 

  

She smiled past the lump in her throat. Those were good days, she thought. The best. Just before the Parkinson’s disease became so bad GrammaLou couldn’t care for Gigi anymore. 

  

“Georgette? What a nice surprise.” GrammaLou’s voice was crackly with sleep. She rolled onto her side, propping her head in her hand and smiling like it was Christmas and all the gifts were for her. “How did you get here? Oh, but look at you, you’re crying.” 

  

Gigi sniffed, swiped her forearm across her face, blinking rapidly to clear the wayward tears. “It’s nothing. Just taking a trip down memory lane.” 

  

“But, how did you get here? I thought you moved out of state?” 

  

“Yeah, that didn’t work out so much. They fought all the time and ended up getting divorced. I’m with another family now, but I can’t say it’s any better.” 

  

“Why ever not?”  

 

“Oh, you know. The dad drinks all the time, mom’s having an affair. Us older kids are left to watch the younger ones and expected to do all the cleaning and cooking. I know I could ask to be placed somewhere else, but it’s not too bad, really, and anyway, now I’m just a bus ride away from you.” 

 

“Are you old enough to ride the bus by yourself?”

 

“I’m sixteen, GrammaLou. Old enough, don’t you think?” Gigi rose and sat on the bed beside the older woman, kissing her cheek and hugging her gently. “I’ve missed you.” 

  

“And I, you. I think of you all the time. My little princess growing up without a protector. It’s just not fair, is it?” 

  

“Of course it’s not. But you taught me that life isn’t fair, and we just have to…” 

  

“…make the best with what we’re given!” They laughed, finishing the sentence together. 

  

“So,” GrammaLou caught Gigi’s hand in her own and gave it a squeeze, “what has life given you, that you can make the best with?” 

  

Gigi ran her fingers across the back of GrammaLou’s hand, tracing the veins and caressing the knuckles, giving the question serious consideration. “Well, I like the new school I’m going to. They’re getting ready for basketball tryouts, and I’m hoping I get picked for the team.” 

  

“Of course you’ll get picked. Are you any good at it?” 

  

“You bet I am! I can shoot a hoop from mid court. I never miss from the foul line. I dribble fast, I pass real well, and I can steal the ball from the best of the best. ” 

  

“You must really enjoy playing basketball! Look at you; you’re all lit up just talking about it,” GrammaLou’s smile was infectious. Gigi found herself smiling back. 

 

“I get hyped just thinking about it! I was on the basketball team at my last school, and it was like... I was part of something. Like, I belonged, you know? I’ve never really fit in anywhere, and I don’t make friends easily, but none of that matters when I’m playing basketball, surrounded by my teammates and cheered on by the crowd. Oh, I hope I make the team!”

 

“Of course you will! As your fairy godmother, I will it to be so!”

 

Gigi could almost see pixie dust floating in the air at GrammaLou’s proclamation. As GrammaLou took hold of Gigi’s hands, warmth transferred from her fingertips into Gigi’s soul, like a transfusion of confidence and love that filled her heart to the brim.

Into the Dark

 Short Story Prompt 11: Area 52 | Wordcount: 500 words exactly | Deadline: 4 November 2020

 Prequel to In the Garden of Eden

 

 

Icy rain pelts Allie, soaking her clothes, dripping from her hair in rivulets down her face. Beneath her sodden coat, the baby mews in equal misery.

 

Street lights are just coming on, illuminating the rain. The street is empty, save for a pizza delivery car, pulling into a driveway at the end of the road. God, what she wouldn’t give for a piece of pizza.

 

She trudges on with dogged determination, until arriving at her destination, shivering from the cold. Kevin’s car is in the open garage, filling her with conflicting feelings of dread and hope.

 

Plucking up her courage, she climbs the steps and raps loudly on the front door.

 

After a few moments, the porch light comes on and Mrs. Langley opens the door. She peers at Allie with scornful recognition. “Kevin,” the elderly lady shouts, turning away dismissively, leaving Allie to wait outside, “it’s for you.”

 

Allie unbuttons her coat and lifts the crying baby from the harness. She hugs her to her chest, feeling as helpless as the child, with no means to feed and change her, to provide warmth and or even dry clothes.

 

“Oh, it’s you,” Kevin says, with an unfriendly scowl. “Go away, Allie. You shouldn’t be here.”

 

“Please, Kevin. We need help. I can’t keep her, and she’s your daughter.”

 

“Bullshit! I’m not the father. I was at the party that night. I saw you flirting with those guys. The brat could be any one of theirs.”

 

The cruelty in his voice is sharp, it tears at her heart like a serrated knife. It hurt almost as much as it had when those guys had held her down, taking turns raping her. She’d been eight weeks pregnant. Kevin’s response had been more painful when she went to him afterwards, expecting help and support rather than accusations of betrayal.

 

“I can’t help you, Allie. Maybe you can find safe haven at Area 52. They take abandoned babies there, no questions asked.”

 

He slams the door in her face and turns the porch light off. A moment later, the garage door closes as well.

 

Wrenching sobs tear through her chest and she eases down to the porch, rocking the baby and unbuttoning her blouse. She’s shaking uncontrollably, from cold, hunger, and desperation. She presses the babe to her breast, though her milk dried up last night.

 

“Oh, Georgette! I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry, Gigi.”

 

Allie longs for her mother, for her warm arms to wrap around her and tell her she isn’t alone. But Mom’s been dead these past three years, and Allie is alone.

 

She thinks of her dad, whom she loves dearly, but recalling his extreme disapproval when she told him she was pregnant, and his stern disappointment in his sixteen-year-old daughter, she just can’t face him yet. How could he forgive her, if she can’t even forgive herself?

 

Blinded by tears, by irrational thoughts, Allie pushes herself to her feet, straps Gigi into the harness, and flees into the night.

In the Garden of Eden

 Short Story Prompt 10: What I wish I said… | Wordcount: 1500 words exactly | Deadline: 7 October 2020

To enhance your reading experience, play this Link as you read the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIVe-rZBcm4

 

It was the stench that first assaulted George’s senses as he locked the car and walked the short distance towards the homeless camp. This camp was far worse than the other two he’d been at recently, chasing rumors and leads that he desperately prayed would reunite him with his estranged daughter.

 

Dozens of makeshift tents and cardboard shelters formed the camp. It had a relaxed, party atmosphere about it, though it was dank and dark here under the highway overpass.

 

God! How could people live like this? Could Allie really be here? His heart ached at the thought of his daughter living in these conditions, rather than putting aside the hurt or the pride that kept her from coming home.

 

As always, when he thought of Allie, their last moments together replayed like a movie scene, etched forever in his mind.

 

She, barely fifteen, sitting on the couch with hands held protectively on her belly, mascara tears staining her cheeks. He, standing over her in a rage, responding badly to the news of her condition, uttering those words he’d do anything to take back.

 

“I thought we raised you to have more self-respect than to give yourself to the first boy who came along. What would your mother think? You’re just a goddamned baby yourself, and now you think you’re gonna raise one? I’m so disappointed with you. Get up to your bedroom. I can’t look at you right now.”

 

What would Mandy have thought of him, castigating their only daughter at a time when she was clearly frightened and most in need of his support? His wife would have been so disappointed in him, but she would have smoothed things over before Allie ran away.

 

In A Gadda Da Vida pulsated loudly from a silver boom box outside one of the larger tents. Thinking of Mandy, he remembered how she had loved dancing to this song, especially this full, seventeen minute rendition. The tune drowned out the rumble of cars and trucks that sped down the highway overhead.

  

Unkempt men and women loitered alone or in small clusters, some grooving to the beat of the music, others too stoned to care what went on around them. Diaper-less babies lay on dirty blankets, while scraggly children ran about in wild abandon, heedless of the poverty and the filth that surrounded them.

 

These people might live in squalor, he thought, but at least they were together. 

 

Cigarette and marijuana smoke hung thick in the air along with the smoke of smoldering cook fires. It masked the scent of unwashed bodies and dirty clothes, of soiled diapers thrown into a pile beside a makeshift toilet. An overflowing trash can had fallen on its side, rotten food and other debris strewn about, where scrawny dogs foraged and snapped at each other.

 

As Gunnery Sergeant in the US Marines, he took offense at such living conditions. He instinctively wanted to start barking commands at these people and attempt to bring order to their camp. Instead, he schooled his expression to keep the distaste from showing on his face, though from the way the crowd around him reacted to his presence, he guessed he wasn’t fooling anyone.

 

Or perhaps it was his powerful build, the desert camos he wore, his short cropped hair, or his rigid posture that put them on edge.

 

He watched them watching him as he approached, cautious curiosity in their expressions. Pulling a photo from his shirt pocket, he held it out to the group of people at the nearest tent.

 

“I’m looking for my daughter. I heard she might be here.” He spoke quietly, hoping it would ease the tension, though he was anything but calm, this close to the possibility of finding his Allie.

 

One of the women took the photograph from him, scrutinized it carefully. She shook her head and passed it on to the man beside her.

 

“Have you seen her?” His voice cracked with emotion. “She’ll be older now. This was taken on her fifteenth birthday, but she’ll be seventeen now. She might have a baby,” George said, uncertainly, “about eighteen months old?”

 

Others had joined the group as the photo was passed around. Some of the children came to see what was going on. 

 

One girl in particular caught his attention. She looked to be about ten, and she reminded him of Allie when she was that age. His throat constricted at the memory of his daughter, snuggled in his lap, solemnly promising to never grow up or forget who loved her best. She’d been so loving back then, so trusting. Not yet intimidated by his imposing demeanor, or his demand for proper behavior. 

 

He remembered the way she’d smelled that day, of green-apple hair detangler and Heaven Scent perfume. Stark contrast to this filthy, homeless girl who pushed her way through the crowd to peer at the photo. 

 

“That’s Allie!” she said, and it was as if a jolt of lightning ran through his body at the sound of her name. “She doesn’t feel very good today. Did you come to make her feel better?”

 

“Where?” George could barely speak. It felt as if his breath had bottled up inside his chest. He forced himself to be calm, clinging to the hope that he had found her at last. That she would be okay. “Where is she?”

 

That’s when he saw the clothesline strung between two tents, a pair of jeans and a cherry-red tee shirt left hanging to dry. The sight of the shirt set off a flurry of butterflies inside his stomach. His heart began beating erratically. He would recognize that shirt anywhere. It had the words ‘Hot Chick’ emblazoned in gold letters beneath the image of a yellow baby chick. Mandy had bought it for their daughter’s thirteenth birthday, just months before the cancer stole her life. It had been Allie’s favorite shirt. She’d worn it at least once a week. To see it here, now, four years later, was a blow he hadn’t expected. 

 

All the words he wanted to say to Allie swelled in his heart as he ran to the tent.

 

Not ‘where have you been’ and ‘why have you stayed away;’ but ‘God, how I’ve missed you,’ and ‘I’m sorry I drove you away.’

 

Recriminations were for later. For now he just wanted to hold her and tell her how much he loved her, and to beg her to please, please come home.

 

But the words died, unspoken, when he flung aside the tent flap and saw his daughter for the first time in almost two years. 

 

She was lying on her stomach, as if sleeping. Her right hand pillowed her cheek. Long, dark hair covered her pale face, left arm flung out in careless repose. Her forearms were covered with old scabs and weeping abscesses. A bright red puncture wound showed beneath a tourniquet still wrapped at her elbow, hypodermic needle fallen to the dirty mattress beside her emaciated, unmoving body. 

 

All sense and sensation receded as he fell to his knees beside her. Only an anguished, silent scream filled his mind, until a moment later sound returned, bringing the psychedelic guitar strings of In A Gadda Da Vida transitioning to mind numbing drum solo.

 

“Is there a phone nearby?” he shouted, pulling his daughter into his lap. “Somebody call 911.”

 

She coughed when he moved her, eyes blinking open, unfocused. She barely weighed anything. Her skin was cold and clammy. Her breathing shallow and labored. He swept her hair out of her face, and her eyes opened again. This time she looked at him directly. Her pupils were constricted to mere pinpricks.

 

“Daddy?” Her voice was a bare whisper, the word full of love and longing and fear.

 

“I’m here, Allie. I won’t leave you.”

 

“I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m so sorry.”

 

“Shhh, baby. Shhh. Don’t try to speak.”

 

“I gave my baby away, Daddy. I couldn’t keep her.”

 

Her breathing became more erratic and her eyes closed. Her body went limp in his arms.

 

He rocked her back and forth. “Stay with me, Allie. Don’t leave me again.”

 

Light filtered in through the tent flap as a woman stooped down to peer into the cramped space. “An ambulance is on the way,” she said. “It’ll be here soon.”

 

Allie’s fingertips had gone blue as George held her, weeping and willing help to come, though he knew it wouldn’t arrive in time. 

 

The drum solo ended and the last lines of In A Gadda Da Vida was crooning over the stereo.

 

The lyrics were simple. He knew them by heart, having sung them often to Mandy. “Oh won’t you come with me, and take my hand. Oh, won’t you come with me and walk this land. Please take my hand.”

 

Allie breathed her last as the song ended. She would never take his hand again. But maybe she would be with Mandy, in the Garden of Eden that Iron Butterfly had been too drunk to pronounce.