The skyscrapers didn't seem real. I hadn't ever actually been to Seattle; the WLF had minor outposts all over Washington, and I was based at one of them, so seeing skyscrapers this size was pretty phenomenal. But there they stood, quite literally towering over us in half broken pieces, leaning and groaning and craning across our bodies that were so minuscule in comparison that it set my teeth on edge. Vines and diverse foliage wove themselves in and out of the broken window frames, of which there could have easily been a thousand.
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ˢᵉᵃᵗᵗˡᵉ ᶦⁿ ʳᵃᶦⁿ, '³⁸
The weather wasn't much better, either. It may have poured at Violet's funeral, but now it hammered, flashes of lightning lighting up the midnight sky like electricity, resembling a sparking wire that zig zagged down from the heavens and opened the gates for the great sound of doom to echo through the earth and rumble like the depths of hell. Thunderstorms had never been much favoured by anyone I had ever met, but I adored them.
It was a helpful spectacle. If nothing else, it distracted us both from our previous misery; I in awe of it, and Ellie positively terrified, looking out at the fast expanse of darkness that lit up like a camera flash, revealing the hurling winds and the pouring rain, and shuddering at the sound of thunder.
"Isn't it amazing?" I shouted, half deafened by the storm.
"I don't know, Crumpets. Maybe we should find some shelter..." she replied, unabashedly unenthusiastic about allof it, which annoyed me to no end.
I shook my head. "Don't be a pussy, Williams. I'm going to get off Shimmer, okay? Experience it up close!"
"No, Amelia, wait-"
But before she could convince me, I had hopped off the horse.
"Don't worry, hardass. I'm not going to be struck by lightning," I explained, still shouting. "You can only get one miracle in your life, and mine was freakin' immunity! Wahoo!"
And I stuck my arms out in the air, running about like a crazy person on the highway we were on that was just as cracked and fractured as the architecture, the rules and the people of this world. It was so freeing. I loved storms because there was never any other chance on earth to be truly loud, and not worry about what was out there listening. But I could scream and kick and cry and even fire a gunshot out here and not even the sharpest clickers would be able to hear me unless they were right there with me, which, as far as I could see, they were not.
People used to say they were afraid of space, because, "In space, no one can hear you." Ellie had said she wouldn't be afraid, because she loved space, but I would. Not of no one hearing me, but, the sound of eternal and infinite silence.
