Until the Sun Falls

Chapter 3

Mikah

Rain was pouring relentlessly outside the window I was staring through. Not that I was seeing much of anything. Even if it wasn't dark as hell outside with the storm and the approaching night, my mind was too consumed with worrying thoughts to register much else. Despite my daze I can still hear the sound of my father's footsteps pacing heavily across the kitchen floor, and the sharp sound of my mother's fingers rapping against the collapsible table that sat in the middle of it. The house we were renting this time around was smaller than I am used to, but on short notice it was all that could be found. We wouldn't be here long, so what did it matter anyway?

Aside from the sounds of my parents' anxiety and the rumbling thunder from the unseen sky, the room was quiet and tense. No one had said much since my grandfather's visit three days previous when we were told the news. After years of searching we were finally given a glimmer of hope, which meant the possibility of another move; a transition I hated.

Between the heavy silence and the uncertainty of my future scratching on the surface of my sanity, I was barely hanging on. I consider going to my room and writing my thoughts down in a journal, or losing myself in one of my books, but they are all still neatly packed away in boxes.

I press my hand to the cool glass of the window in an attempt to ground myself, and my eyes search through the darkness. What I was looking for I wasn't sure. An answer? A means of escape? Such thoughts are stupid, I know that. I know there are no answers, no escaping this life. The realization only makes the bitterness rise in my throat like bile.

Swiftly I clear my mind the way I taught myself to, and I walk over to my mom. Her head is bowed as if in prayer. She doesn't seem to notice me so I gently put my hand on her arm. This snaps her out of whatever deep thought she was in and her fingers stop rapping. She looks up at me, her auburn hair falling away from her round face. I see her eyes are bloodshot from stress and strain, just like mine. We should have been working on new leads, but none of us would have been able to focus.

Mom tries to smile at me, but it's a weak one and she sighs, "I'm sorry Mikah. I just want to know if this is merely another false alarm or if..." She trails off and glances at the door.

"If it is really her." I finish.

She nods, and I withdraw my arm to return to the window once more. A bright flash of lightning lights the world for a moment before darkness returns. I feel a surge of anger course through me all at once, white hot and ravenous. Every aspect of my life up until this moment has revolved around these storms...around her. In these tortuously slow moments with so much at stake I feel the heat rise higher from within me. A flame that pulses through me so violently I begin to shake. I close my eyes and block everything out for a moment. The storm outside has nothing on the storm that threatens to rage inside me. I clench and unclench my fists, breathing slowly to keep myself from getting carried away.

One day you'll be free, I remind myself, This is the price for freedom.

Another arc of lightening crossed the sky, and in the few seconds of light it gave off I saw a figure walking through the rain towards our house.

"He's here!" I exclaim, and when I try to inhale my next breath it catches in my throat. "He's..."

My dad immediately stops pacing and my mom leaps to her feet just as my grandfather steps through the door.

"Alamander!" My mom breathes his name in a relieved sigh.

Alamander shuts the door quickly to quiet the howling wind that burst into the room along with him. His long salt and pepper hair hangs loose and dripping around his face, undone from its usual ponytail at the nape of his neck. The large black leather jacket draped around his shoulders is beaded with raindrops, and it seemed to the driest article of clothing on him.