Rainbow

II

☁︎

I'm turning 18 next week.
When I finally reach Tempestas, I'm gonna prove to the Helios how wrong they are.

Unless I get chosen on storm duty.
Storm duty is every Sinvulas pride even though it portrays us as monsters. They're proud that they were the ones to create a phenomenon so big and mighty.
Storm duty is hard too.
You're going have to produce thunder and lightning out of thin air.
It's also going to make my job to show the Helios how not-scary rain can be a lot harder.

I'm walking home after school is over with Audra, my best friend. She's very talented in thunder making class, she's almost better than the whole class combined.

"Soo," she drags out, "We're turning 18 next week!"
I chuckle at her making a fool of herself in front of the whole neighborhood.
"Yes Audra, I'm aware."

She doesn't say anything else, she just looks up with a grin on her face. I look up with her, and just barely among the white fluffy clouds of our town, I see Tempestas.
The highest building in Veritas.
The place every Sinvula and Helios my age dreams of going to.

I look back down and see Helios about my age walking down the street reading a book. For a brief moment, she looks away from her book and makes eye contact with me.
I wave to be friendly but she quickly looks away, buries her face in her book and speed walks away.

I sigh. I was expecting that.

I say a quick goodbye to Audra who happily skips away to study more about thunder. I don't know why, she knows she's gonna make lightning on storm duty when we go to Tempestas, she's the STC's most promising lightning maker.

I walk into my house and I'm bombarded with questions about how my studies are going by a bunch of people I barely know. I wonder if I walked into the wrong house at first but I see my mom talking to an old man.

"Mom! What is happening?" I scream over the music playing in the background.
It takes her a while to notice me screaming but when she does, she leaves the old man mid-sentence and comes over to me.

Poor fellow.

"Hi honey! How are you?" She asks me as if this is a normal day after school.
"Mom, who are these people?"

She looks back at our mess of a house and looks back at me, "They're the people I work with at Tempestas. They're here to celebrate you graduating!"
She gives me a big smile so I give a forced smile back.

I run up the stairs to my bedroom and lock myself in there, the music downstairs pulsing through my floor.
There's no way I'll be able to study in this house.