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Chapter 8

I wonder how cavemen explained rain. How does one so uneducated explain a feat of nature?

Sometimes rain comes at the most inopportune moments, in the moments where everything and anything else would be better than drowning in droplets if the atmosphere. It washes debris onto roads, flooding homes and soaking skin, it slivers down coats sending shivers up backs. It's malicious and cruel, how bitter cold seems to fall down with it. Any heat from atmospheric winds lost in a mist of an attack.

The atmosphere.

A collection of glasses making up ours. Our what? Our bubble of solitude upon a giant floating rock on the vast expanse of space?

When taking a look at the big picture it seems pointless to reminisce, or dwell on what has happened. Because it's significance is minimal. A single spec in a galaxy of stars waiting to fall. A story of indifference waiting to disappear into oblivion with the rest of us.

Maybe God is watching over me or the Gods perhaps if there are multiple, or maybe no one at all. Maybe the omniscient figure that holds an ear down to all the world's problems just ceases to exist, maybe we're all speaking to no one, to nothing. Another reason insignificance and the dire want to be extraordinary radiated through us all is because the impossibility is compelling..

I close my eyes, the thin fold of skin acting as a barrier for the fragile of my iris'. Blocking out the faint stinging sensation that came when carbon dioxide infused downpour seeped in through my tear ducts and swam down my nose, causing me to gag at the bitter of toxins.

The water floats through me, until I am the epitome of the school boy paradox "if everything is wet, is anything wet at all"

Maybe it's the same with blood. Were my hands merely blood soaked that night or had they passed to point of soaked progressing into 'are'.

My hands Are blood.

Maybe it doesn't translate that way, but the thought pulls me back down into the horror of recollection I'm trying to escape. It grabs me face first, plunging me deeper, into reliving my hell.

"Simple rules" he had hissed, dancing his eyes between me and her. He stepped back and his cronies seemed to understand instantly what he meant because then there I was. And there she was. I was pushed to be face to face with my mirror image while the matriarch of my household was being gripped by her hair and a knife was being help pointedly at her throat. "you kill you or I kill her" his fingers danced between my sister and I. And then it all clicked into place.

The knife in my hand had begun to shake, the subtle realisation of what he said sinking deep into my bones in a way that rain wouldn't be able to brush off. For some reason I was able to summon the slivers of strength with in me and shout. Albeit timidly, but shout nonetheless, a small resiliently haunting "no"

The word echoed around his skull and caused the cruel smile to halter for a moment, just a second, before the face of impertinence fell back in him again. "no..." he mused light-heartedly. "I don't think you understand sweetie" he bent down stroking a stray hair from my face then turned and lay his wrath back in my mother. "this is what happens when you say no" he took the blade and rather than going for the neck cut, a deep gaping slash digs into her arm and a vermilion ocean spilled out, causing a wrangled gasp to fall from her lips.

It was then that it had clicked; the finality of it all. there was no way out. What followed still blurs in my memory, hidden beneath red. Tinted blood grazes at my vision as I strain for more and more recollection. My palms sweat nervously at the effort this has on my body and something slips through. A single string unwinding from the previously balled tangle of consciousness.

My hand stabbing forward, marvelling at how easy the flesh sliced, at how quickly death seemed to fall. Then horror struck once more when the deal was rendered void and a knife closed those brilliant green eyes and then black.

Endless blurry, incomprehensible black. Followed by my mind repeating the horror again and again until the only stain on my eyes is the moment.

I wrapped my arms around myself, hugging my stomach, the bare skin on my forearms the final shield between my actions and my sanity. The knife brushing against the side of my clothing and my eyes locking on her. Joe.

Sweet Joanne, who was wielding the weapon with both arms, glassy pits replacing her eyes as survival unleashed within her. She moved first.

Joe had always been the dominant one. It was always her games, her toy, her turn. But the benefit of living in the shadows is that you learn to survive in the cold. You learn to savour that short moment in the sun, and you learn how to move quickly and instinctively. You learn to anticipate a strike. And you learn to dodge and stab first.

You learn to be quicker.

Warm blood had spilled into my hands, and she let out a cry, icy and so tormenting that it rattled the room. Her small figure had doubled over, and her tears spilt. A clang following her hand uncurled and dropped. She clutched her stomach, a red sea staining her clothes and an ice falling over her body.