Soul Water: Power Down {Rewritten}

Thunder and Lightning, Very Very Frightening Me!

Amidst the cold and dark night, a wretched crack of lightning lit up the pitch-black of the outdoors just a few miles off of Death City. The thunder, preceding the arrival of the incoming storm, sounded eerily similar to the noises of a stampede of angry chimpanzees without bananas. There wasn't much longer before this storm was going to hit in full force, tumultuous conditions and all. Maka, curled up in a blanket reading a book on the couch, was anticipating the storm anxiously while Soul, her roomate, was making some "chicken kaboodle soup" in their small, dorm-like kitchen.

Without warning, a flash of lightning lit up their whole window. The bright flash startled the both of them, their faces illuminated with the light, and Maka shivered as she looked at the glass panes. Too on edge to read, she slowly closed her book, keeping her space with a book mark.

"Are you sure we're safe from the lightning?" Maka's voice quivered in the eerie silence. The sky was an abyss of darkness, and the rain was going to come pouring down any second. In the time it took for Soul to answer, Maka was already chattering her teeth ever so slightly, a nervous habit she picked up back when she was fourteen. Now sixteen, she couldn't seem to let the nervous tic go. 

"Yeah, we're fine Maka," Soul responded while still at the stove waiting for his soup. "Don't worry about stupid stuff like that."

Maka was one of the strongest and most skilled meisters at the DWMA, but even after having wielded Soul as a weapon and making him a death scythe, her haunting fear of thunderstorms ruled her thoughts while curled in that ball. Nobody knew that she was so scared of them except for Soul, who usually ended up having to coerce her out of the corner and hold her for a minute until she calmed down. She could face a Kishin, but not mother nature at it's worst? Any time there was even a small chance of a storm occurring, she carried with her the famous "I'm not going to die today pack". It consisted of water bottles, a lighter, some fire wood, a blanket, food, and a tent. Soul told her it was childish, but Maka just responded that she's ready for anything. Even a herd of angry chimpanzees without bananas.

It finally started to rain outside, the water pellets hitting the roof like bullets, and Maka made herself smaller, and wrapped herself tighter in the blanket. She was trying her best to be brave, but the buckets of water hitting their roof made it impossible for her not to get worked up.

Soul came to the table and started eating his soup. He had put in chunks of chicken, celery, carrots, and noodles, all in a lovely broth. The steam poured out from it, warming Soul's face on a particularly cooler night in Nevada. Maka was amazed he could be eating at a time like this. The lightning could come down on their apartment complex at any minute now, and all he could think about was his soup. It seemed preposterous to her that anything could seem more pressing in this moment than the brewing storm outside, especially soup.  'What an idiot,' she thought as she opened back up her book tentatively, trying to distract herself.

After twenty minutes, Soul was done with his soup and the amount of rain outside increased dramatically. It was really coming down hard tonight, and it looked like it wasn't going to stop for hours. Most of the time when it did rain (which was quite rare), it would usually just come down at a steady pace, but this time, it was plummeting to the ground in sheets of water. Soul got up from the table and observed the streaks and droplets hitting the windows. Turning his attention away, he noticed the spot on the couch his roommate once occupied was now empty. Instead there was a shadow in the corner, rocking slightly. 

"Maka are you okay?" Soul asked, concerned as he looked at Maka who was trying to calm herself down with some breathing exercises.

"Yeah... haha... I'm just fine..." She looked up at him and laughed nervously, noticing there was no crooked smile on his face. He was genuinely concerned, and looked worried. Suddenly, another bolt of lightning hit the ground and the roar of the thunder clapped, shaking the floor Maka was sitting on.  She yelped, and her breathing quickened.

  "Here, eat this," Soul remained calm and handed her a cup of his chicken soup. Maka took it from him gratefully. She sipped from the cup as she shivered in the corner. She was very frightened by the storm and could hardly speak. Soul sat next to her for a second and gave her a toothy, reassuring grin, putting his hand on her shoulder. In that moment, she was keenly aware of his thumb on her collarbone, briefly pulling her thoughts away from impending doom and instead hyper-focusing on the amount of their skin that was in contact. They made eye contact, and he patted her shoulder again.

"It won't last too long, hang in there." He said in a low voice before getting up to go put away the rest of the leftover soup.

Maka sat in silence for a while and sipped the chicken kaboodle soup, her book in hand as she tried to concentrate on her reading. Suddenly, the lights flickered, and then the entire apartment was cast into darkness. The thunder rumbled on, and the only visible things were the lightning strikes hitting the town. Maka felt as if she were in peril.

"Soul? Soul?!" Maka shouted, needing someone next to her to reassure her everything would be okay.

"Yeah, I'm here." He yelled back from the kitchen. "It's just a blackout, don't worry Maka." He shuffled around and opened the refrigerator. "Damn it, that means the fridge isn't working either! Where else am I going to put all this stupid soup?"

Soul set it on the counter, and at Maka's request, went searching for a flashlight when they heard an all too familiar yell from the outside of their apartment.

"YAHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

A/N: So I have almost doubled the word count from the original! Hopefully this quick project turns out good. Let me know your thoughts, or don't, but I appreciate your outside opinions.