The Rain is Helpless

Prologue

It was a dark alley. It was a dark night. It was a cold night.

I was alone. I was walking. Still. Walking.

There was laughter. Laughter in my head, laughter in the street, laughter in the skies. Flash! The sky thundered its humor.

But the rain was on my side. Yes, the rain saw the anguish of my situation, my lonely, desperate situation. The rain cried with me, though it sobbed like I could not, and it poured in sheets instead of trickled. But I guess you could say the sky cries in its own way.

A dark night. My eyes constantly shifted, straining to see in the lack of light.

Echoes.

Deep, dark, ominous laughter.

Far in the distance. Up ahead. Behind me.

Closer. The cackling approached.

Wait. This wasn't my imagination. This was real. REAL.

There it was again. The laughter. If I listened, very closely, I could distinguish two, maybe even three sets. And they were all male.

And I was alone. Just me, and the rain. And the darkness. Alone.

Suddenly my footsteps seemed to echo like the thunder, louder than the thunder. Thud, thud, thud. Slosh, squish, thud. I was alone, in the vast darkness, with the melancholy rain. And the laughter had stopped. The three men had stopped laughing.

But I wasn't comforted. The emptiness felt full. Of eyes. Of minds. And thoughts. I didn't want to see those eyes, or hear those thoughts. I didn't want to see what the hidden stalkers were thinking.

And then, just like that, they weren't hidden.

And then, though I fought --

The rain was my witness.