Burning Daylight

Chapter Two

In the dead of the night, a loud thundering roar is heard from outside. It rattles the entire house, shaking the interior inside, causing me to open my eyes hastily. Only to be greeted by the pure darkness and the heavy breathing of Luke who’s beside me, who’s somehow still sleeping through that horrible violent tremor equivalent to an earthquake. My head still pulsates with a vengeance, causing me to tear up a little, forcing me to stay awake.

My head hurts, I can't stop this on my own, I need to ask Carlos if there's any pills left from when Rebecca had the flu months ago.

That thought slipped my mind last night while we were eating. Hopefully I can catch whatever I have in time before I get really sick and slow our group down, or else we’ll be here longer than we planned.

Once again the destructive thundering noise rumbles overtop of the cabin, Luke stirs around beside me; still not waking up. The lightning strikes a tree nearby outside causing it to fall over and sizzle in the down pouring rain.

That’s not good.

My heart pounds again, Carlos was onto something when he said ‘the calm before the storm.’ It’s like a hurricane out there.

It's still dark outside, meaning I most likely got a couple hours of sleep before the pain came back and that violent thunder. The wind is still as strong as it was when we all went to bed too. The room is silent, except for a steady deep breathing and the lump of blankets moving right beside me.

'l will protect you, Clem...'

That sentence alone echoes through my mind constantly. Clinging onto each word he said, and how he pronounced it.

I feel a small, tiny smile spread across my face.

He said a lot to me last night, Nick too. I'm starting to think this is more than what it seems…

The rain hits the cabin with enough force to chip away the wood, there’s a leak in here somewhere because I can hear the water dripping in a corner in this room.

Nick sometimes gives me a hard time. He tries not to, that's easy to tell. But it still happens. Once in a blue moon he'll freak out and find a problem somewhere in the group, but Luke told me that's just who he is and he can't help it so I shouldn’t worry too much.

My head suddenly splits in pain again, even when there's no light it's still affected by something, causing my temples to pulsate even harder and my sinuses to swell up again.

I knew it... It's the flu. I'm the luckiest girl in the world. Just make it stop!

I lay there sprawled out in total silence and darkness, eventually my eyes grow used to the dark and I can see vaguely around the silent room.

The table that’s against the window and has a bunch of stuffed animals piled on top of it, and a busted lamp that’s on the floor. The ceiling is a little bit slanted on my side of the wall where the bed is so I know the leak isn’t anywhere along this wall.

The water drips again, it sounds like it’s in the corner beside the doorway that leads into the hallway but I can’t be too sure.

Luke shifts his weight around on the bed and mumbles a few words to himself before the steady, continuous deep breathing begins again.