Thunder and Lightning

Chapter One

Lillyth lies awake in bed while rest of her family has been asleep for hours. Her parents have to work in the mornings so they go to bed right after dinner. Her little brother, Christopher, needs to be in bed by nine so she watches him until his bedtime. The rest of her family could lay down and be out within five minutes. As for her, she's up all night.

By that I basically mean, she can't sleep so she stays on the Internet all night. She's not the kind of person to sneak out or get into trouble. She's been told to stay away from screens when she can't sleep, but listening isn't her best quality.

Her doctor says her insomnia comes with her depression. Of course, she thinks everything he says is wrong. She doesn't like science and medicine and doctors. Lillyth believes that doctors are a joke and everything they do is based on protecting their ego. It's not necessarily all wrong..

Lillyth had a routine. She starts with Facebook. Scrolls through her newsfeed until she gets bored, checks the same two profiles; her mom and her crush. Her mom to make sure she hasn't put anything embarrassing up and her crush... Well, just because. Moving on to Twitter. She checks her DMs and messages back her international best friends. Then she checks more profiles; Ellen DeGeneres, Ezra Koenig, and of course, her lord and savior, the wonderful and amazing, Karl From Online. She's into the funny accounts with dry humor and jokes about things that shouldn't be joked about. Next is Instagram. She doesn't even check her feed, straight to the profiles. @Quotes and @LifeAnxiety are her favorites. Then she searches the hashtags, '#redbandsociety' and '#daveannable'. Red Band Society was her favorite show before it got cancelled. Dave Annable is her biggest celeberity crush.

After Instagram she watches TV for awhile. Usually she watches whatever she can find. Mostly what's on her DVR, 19 Kids and Counting, Dance Moms, etc. She loves fake reality television. Almost as much as she loves Tumblr. Save the best for last, right? Lillyth's favorite is Tumblr, even though she doesn't have an account. She goes on 'The Best of Tumblr' Facebook page and goes through their posts.

Usually by time she concludes this process it's about 3:30 or 4 in the morning. Getting up to get food is too much work for her likings. She had a drawer in her bedside table dedicated to holding her (after) midnight snacks. She restocks it every morning so she never runs out.

Obviously, Lillyth has some problems with sleeping. She doesn't care too much though. No matter how little sleep she gets, she rarely complains. She never acts tired.

On most nights, after she finishes her routine she has music on at the highest volume. This particular night she was listening to Rihanna's "Four Five Seconds" on repeat. She couldn't hear the front door slam shut or a stampede of horses running through the hallway with her music that loud. Let alone, one small child's footsteps.
After half hour or so it started storming. Lillyth knew Christopher didn't like storms, they scared him to death. Her parents were heavy sleepers and she knew they wouldn't hear the storm so she decided to go check on him.

Surprisingly, she found his bedroom door open and his light on. But there wasn't a sight of him. The bed had the covers pushed all the way back to the foot of the bed and his teddy bear had been dropped on the floor.
Trying not to freak out, she figured he just went downstairs to get a drink or something to eat. But once she got down there, everything was completely still. She walked through the dining room to the back door and checked for him in the backyard. She had no luck there and started walking back into the kitchen. She stopped in the entrance between the kitchen and the living room when she saw the front door hanging open.

She locks the doors and windows every night before she goes up to bed. She double checks them and even sometimes triple checks them. She knew there was no chance she had forgotten to lock the door. She checked the alarm system beside the door. It read: "FRONT DOOR UNLOCKED: 3:56 A.M." and "FRONT DOOR OPENED: 3:58 A.M."

"Thank God it's the weekend," Lillyth thought to herself as she remembered she didn't have to attend school the next day. She wouldn't be in the mood for school after she found what she was about to see.

She grabbed her coat and jacket and ran outside into the freezing weather. In Ohio, it was normal to have below freezing temperatures near the end of March. She didn't bother to shut the door or put on any real clothes. In fact, all she was wearing was a tank top, cut off shorts, her slip on dress shoes and her dads jacket. She didn't have time to put on anything else, she needed to find her little brother. It would be a different story if he were older, maybe 12 or 13, but he's 8 and he doesn't know any better. Yeah, he should know not to run away. But on the other hand, it's not his fault nobody ever told him that. He didn't see his parents much and he didn't go to the best school. All the 'what if's started popping into Lillyth's mind.

What if he gets kidnapped?
What is he gets hit by a car?
What if he freezes to death?

She pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind and tried to decide where to start. She started running towards the park across the street. It was Christopher's favorite place and he didn't have many friends that lived around there so there wasn't many other places he would be.

When she realized he wasn't there she ran across the field, jumped over her best friends fence, and started banging on his window. He was an insomniac too so there was no doubt he'd still be up a this time.

"Oh my God, Lillyth. Do you know what time it is?!" Hunter asked in a hushed tone after he opened up his bedroom window.

"Like you care, idiot. Christopher went missing. He wasn't in his room and the front door was hanging open when I came downstairs. I can't find him anywhere. You have to..." Right in the middle of her sentence lightning struck what seemed like right across the street from her.

"Come in here, you're going to get sick." Hunter said trying to pull Lillyth through the window.

"I can't, I don't have time. I have to find him before something terrible happens to him." Lillyth said running around Hunters house to the front yard. She looked right and then to the left. Her eyes landed on what looked like a little boy laying down on the street corner. She started screaming and running towards him. She knew it was Christopher, it had to be.

Just as she reached him Hunter came running out. "Oh my god, he needs to go to the hospital, check his pulse!" Hunter yelled over the sound of the rain pouring down on the streets.

"Shut up and call 911, idiot."

By the time the ambulance got there Lillyth's parents, Marcia and David, were already down there. They tried to convince Lillyth to stay with Hunter while they travelled to the hospital with Chris but she had no part of it. She was the first one in the back of the ambulance and she held his hand the entire way there.