The blistering flames that crackled with a bold citrine blaze, threatened to extinguish the waves of cold impenetrable blue, as Thomas Shelby's eyes stared blankly into the fire. As though the softly swaying blaze might just douse the battling currents of cerulean that consumed his orbs, sizzling until the running streams were evaporated into a vapor of nothingness.
For the light of the popping embers, that bathed the surrounding walls of the Shelby's front parlor, nearly blurred his rightful vision. For he stared into the flames, feeling the way the heat of the saturated light burned away at his retinas, all the while, feeling utterly numb as though nothing in the world could ever awaken his bones again.
The night was a stark contrast to the warm and eerily silent interior of the Shelby home, for a storm raged on. The twilight hour had shrouded the land in an impenetrable layer of darkness, as even the sliver of the crescent moon and the presence of a thousand twinkling stars refused to be seen, as though they knew their efforts were futile in illuminating the blanket of ebony washed indigo. And so, they hid. Disappearing into the universe as though not a tinge of light resided above those on Watery Lane.
For even the lightening, that crackled like it might just split the foundation of worn brick and coal coated cobblestone in half, could not be seen by those who peeled back their linen curtains. It snapped through the thunderstorm infested sky, but it appeared in the far-off distance, that not even the sharp evidence of electricity descending down from the heavens could be witnessed by those in the whole of Small Heath.
Thunder shook the house like it might just rip it from the Earth, the strength in which it rattled the sky above, feeling like it had the power to lift each and every stone of cobble from the street and rip every piece of plywood from the Shelby home. For it shook with a mighty fury, that no soul was left unscathed to the way it jostled their bones, nearly threatening to send them tearing through flesh as each clap engulfed the land with a single daunting sound.
The wind howled like it too, were afraid of the clambering of trombones and tubas warming up. For it battered against the aged brick like it might just seep through the cracks and find mercy amongst the living, but it beat against the windows and whistled like a siren down the empty streets. The night felt eerily empty and yet, all the while, there wasn't a breath of silence to be heard.
The cold engulfed the land without warning, for just that very morning the sun had made a rare but welcome appearance. Bathing the cobbles in a warming marigold glow, as dawn broke over the factories and smoke stacks, absorbing into the shoulders of those who walked gleefully below its kind beam. It was an exhale of summer, blowing over the cobbles, as though God had forgotten about the rightful season and thought he might just lend an extra day to those in need of its warmth.
But as dusk rolled around, taking away the sight of marigold and the faintest of peony hues from the once warm and gentle sky, night replaced it with the very essence of winter, as though it had skipped autumn all together. But even as the cold swept into town like an outlaw no one desired to mess with, the precipitation that fell from the bleak and shadow obscured sky, was not in the form of sparkling flakes of pearly white. But that of torrential rain.
It soaked the streets like it might just flood away the very existence of man, it pelted down with such a force that it was bewildering to wonder if it's heavy droplets could leave behind bruises in the light of morning. But it whipped with the wind, swirling about until visions were blurred and not an inch of skin was left dry. It was a cold rain, for it could've surely fallen that morning amidst the sunlight and still, it would've penetrated clothing and skin like it could very well freeze the underlying bone.
It was unlike any rainstorm Thomas Shelby had ever endured in his life, for there was something hidden amongst the evening's dense and all-consuming darkness, within the rain and thunder that consumed the land like a war ensued within the heavens, that was intangible. It wasn't something that could be felt against his skin sodden with the bitter rain or even heard through the echoing chamber of haunting thunder and howling winds, but something he could identify tugging at his chest. It couldn't be described, it couldn't be felt, it couldn't well be stopped, it just simply filled Thomas's veins with a sense of overwhelming unease and trepidation.
