Rainbows after Hurricane

26. |p r e s e n t|

>>c h a p t e r  t w e n t y s i x<<

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The wind howls outside Asher's window, and he can hear the branches slapping against one another disturbing his sleep. Once again, he forgot to close the window, he thinks sleepily as he lazily rubs at his eyes and opens them to close the window, but to his surprise, he finds himself in the middle of the woods.

Scrambling up to his feet, Asher looks around frantically for any sign that'd let him to know how he got in the place from his bedroom. Then, in the distance, a glowing light appears, making it difficult to see momentarily. Using his hands to block the light, he squint his eyes to get a better look of the thing behind the light that's approaching him.

As the light draws nearer, the vision gets clearer, and Asher can identify the incoming source to be a person, and not a thing. Looking closely at the person, he makes it out be a girl. His posture stiffens when he recognizes the figure standing in front of him. It can't be, he thinks staring into those grey eyes similar to his.

                "Ashley!" the name comes out as a whisper from his lips. "Ashley, you're alive." A relief sigh escapes from him, and he rejoices in happiness. He takes a step toward her to get a closer look of his beloved sister, but all of a sudden, she takes a step back, moving away.

                "Ashley, what happened?" he inches closer, and she inches away, without any word. "Why are you moving away?" he asks, then, notices the tears spilling down her eyes. Panic arises in his chest as he stares at her worriedly. "Why are you crying? Tell me what's wrong, Ashley?"

She doesn't speak anything, and continues to cry staring at him through her tear stained eyes. Then, the wind starts out of nowhere, giving a hint of the upcoming storm, and he cranes his neck upward to see the cloud turning black. He returns his gaze back at Ashley. "I think it's going to rain, and from the looks of it, storm is coming. C'mon, let's get back to the house."

He goes to take her hand, but once again, she moves back, shaking her head. "I can't come home, Asher. You know that." For the first time that night, she speaks.

He looks at her with confusion clouding his mind. "What are you talking about? Why can't you come home?"

                  "You know the reason." She replies instead. He stares at her with the same confusion, when all of a sudden he notices the red water on her dress. Upon inspecting it a moment longer, he realizes it to be blood. "Ashley, you—you are bleeding." The panic and worry is evident in his voice.

To his utter surprise, she smiles. "It's ok, Asher. It doesn't hurt."

                 "What do you mean it doesn't hurt? You're fucking bleeding. We need to get you to the hospital. Right now."

                 "You are in the hospital." She says with a forlorn expression.

                "We are in the middle of the woods and I don't even know how, but we are and you're bleeding, and I can't understand why you're behaving so calmly about it but we need to hurry to get you—" He trails off when he notices another dark figure hovering over Ashley's. "Who is that?" he points out, fear sipping inside him for an unknown reason, and he wants nothing more than to get away from that dark figure.

Ashley turns back to him with a strange expression on her face that he's never seen before, and with a rueful smile, says, "I am sorry it had to be this way." Then, she turns to the dark figure which after trying hard he notices it to be a girl, but couldn't exactly makes out her face.