~Rain~

Chapter Two

Chapter two

 

Thunder rolled around the skies, as if the heavens were tossing around an iron ball, which crashed and boomed whenever it landed. The lightning that accompanied the raging winds of the storm was brighter than reality, as if it were super-imposed. Everything was louder, brighter, stronger than normal, which gave the storm certain essence that made those still alive wonder if it was truly real.

Willa was running, and Miles didn’t know why. He shot after her, forcing his legs to pound on ahead as his sister raced off into the night.

‘Willa?’ he called through the ragged breaths he was forced to take.

‘Willa, stop!’ Miles panted, but his voice was carried away with the wind, ‘Wait for me, Willa!’

His sister glanced back over her shoulder, feet still pumping as she shot down the road. Without a second glance, Willa shot side-ways into a small alley and leaned back against the wall, breathing heavily.

When Miles finally reached her, looking back over his shoulder for signs of the owner of the voice, she had calmed herself and slowed her breathing, however the look of panic and fear than played in her big brown eyes was enough for Miles to know that whatever she had seen had been worth running from.

‘What was it?’ Miles breathed, still trying to catch his breath.

Willa closed her eyes, as though trying to remember what it was that she had seen, before opening her mouth and starting slowly, ‘I don’t…I don’t know,’

‘Well, what did it-‘ Miles began, but before he could finish, the skies opened and the rain began to pour down upon the two children. Fat, heavy drops rolled down Miles’s face, and he squinted his eyes, trying to see his sister through the torrent of water.

‘Come on! We’ve got to get somewhere dry!’ Miles called, grabbing his sisters wrist and heading back out into the rain, hoping against hope whichever shop they stumbled into didn’t have it’s dead occupants lying across the floor for his little sister to see.

They tried the first shop door, but it was bolted shut. The second, Miles bolted past determinedly, hands over his head, as he knew the couple that had lived there. The third door was open, although the sign on the front read Closed in loopy red font.

Miles pushed his way through entrance, pulling his sister behind him. They stood for a second, in the darkening and deserted shop, dripping onto the carpet. It took Willa just a second to realize that it was a newsagents, and the headline of every magazine, every newspaper, was the same.

The End of the Human Race.

Willa gulped, her eyes scanning the shop for an exit into a room with a perhaps less obvious reminder of their current predicament. There was a small, hardly noticeable door to the left of the room, behind the counter. A large, velvety curtain covered the door, but Willa pushed it aside and turned the handle.

‘Willa, no! You don’t know what- who could be up there!’ Miles called after her, as he attempted to pull his soaking hoodie from his head. Willa didn’t hear him; she was already gone, up the stairs and into the upstairs room.

Miles had no choice but to follow her, so, begrudgingly, he scrambled up the steep carpeted stairs and into the room above.

Willa was sitting, grinning, on a large beanbag and staring out of the large window that had a view that must have spread for miles on a good day. Today, however, the sky was dark, the rain so heavy that he could barley see three feet in front of them, and the mist was beginning to linger as night closed in.