A Dark and Stormy Night (Origins, part 3)

Monstrous winds soar by my window. Rain splatters the glass until all I can see is a blurry, watery swirl of city scenery. The apartment rattles. I shiver. 

“You cold?” asks May, my best friend. Recently she moved in with my dad and I, since she didn’t have anywhere else to go. She tosses me her fleece. I catch it and throw it back. 

“I’m not cold,” I say. “It’s just freaky out there. I’ve never seen a storm like this before.”

She shrugs and sinks into my beanbag chair, munching on apple slices. I lie back in my bed, shutting my eyes briefly as I try to calm myself down. I can’t shake an uneasy feeling, however hard I try to push it away. Why does the weather seem… angry today?

A boom of thunder shakes the room. My cat Clem whimpers, and I scoot to the window and peer through the glass. A lamppost leans heavily to the left, its bulb showering sparks. It crashes to the concrete with a moan. I cringe.

“That’s unusual,” May notes, from over my shoulder. She’s not fazed by much.

Then the glow of electricity flickers. My clock, lamp, and ceiling light quietly shut off, leaving us in complete darkness. May and I freeze.

“Dad?” I call. 

“I’m here, girls!” he yells back, his words distant. He stumbles through the apartment, his footsteps punctuated by frequent mutters and yelps as he bumps into furniture. I hear him rummage through a drawer for a flashlight, then another for batteries. 

Eventually, he appears in the doorway, the grainy light of the flashlight washing over the floor. He tosses two smaller ones our way. Clem hisses and shrinks into the corner.

“Hey, the storm stopped,” he says. I grope around for the flashlights and shine one out the window. Sure enough, the wind is still, and no rain falls from the clouds. The thunder and lightning seem to be catching their breath.

“Thank goodness,” May says. My stomach churns, the anxious feeling ever present.

“Well, if you two are good, I’m going to bed.” Dad sighs and scratches his beard. “Long day.”

He looks tired. “You okay, Dad?”

“I’m fine, Amelia,” he says, casting us a small smile. “Don’t stay up too late.” Then he leaves, tripping over various objects as he hobbles to his room. 

“Your dad’s nice,” May tells me.

“Yeah,” I say. “Should we go to bed?” 

“Nah. Ever been camping?” She grins and unlocks my window, wrenching it open. 

“What are you doing?”

“Let’s go camping! My family used to do this whenever the power went out. Where’s your sleeping bag?”

I laugh. “I don’t even own a sleeping bag. And isn’t it wet outside?”

“Bring a towel then! Come on, the storm stopped, let’s go!”

Shaking my head, I head to the bathroom for a stack of towels. May hoists a pile of blankets in her arms. 

“We’re kind of high up.” I poke my head out the window and look straight down. “I don’t know if we can make it. What if the neighbors see us?”

“It’s not like we’ll use our powers down there. The least that’ll happen is your dad yells at us for climbing 10 feet down onto a fire escape.”

“Ten feet?”

“Well, unless you want to use your powers and teleport.”

I think about that, and shake my head. “I’ll take my chances.”

May and I aren’t what you would call typical. Thanks to several experimental serums and a mad scientist’s attempts to create super-people when we were young, we have… unusual abilities. It’s a weird story. Anyway, I gained the ability to teleport anywhere, though the farthest I’ve ever dared to go is a few stories downstairs, and May can travel through time and space.

I exhale slowly and crawl out the window, my fingers gripping the rain-soaked windowsill as I lower myself down. I manage to land on my feet, a metallic crash vibrating through the air. No neighbor throws open the curtains. Nobody yells from down below. The streets are empty, the people washed from the city. No one wants to be caught in a storm.

May tosses a bath towel out the window, soft white against the velvety midnight sky, where pinpricks of stars poke through the atmosphere. The air is heavy with the smell of rain mixed with city grime. The towel falls into my hands.

A second after my fingers touch the cloth, and May begins her climb, I feel something strange- in the air, in the dull rattle of the fire escape, in myself as the uneasiness I’d felt earlier tenses. May freezes, her upper body leaning out the window. 

A droplet of water hits my foot, running down to my toes. Lightning illuminates the darkened buildings around us, and a booming thunder shakes the world. 

“Amelia!” May’s voice is barely audible. The rickety floor I stand on shudders.

Torrents of rain splash from the sky, loud and stinging. The whistle of wind becomes a hiss, becomes a roar, becomes a scream. I grip the railing of the fire escape, the towel flapping away in the gale. In seconds, my clothes are drenched. My hair whips about my face. 

“HELP!” I stumble and scream. Sheets of water crash onto my body, relentless and cold. I stumble. My bare feet skid and my ears ring.

A gust slams me to the ground. I gulp air, rainwater trickling down my windpipe, choking me. I cough and gag, groping for the railing, trying to stand. Trying to survive. Trying to teleport, but I can’t think, can’t focus on the location. It’s too loud. Too afraid. 

Somewhere above me, May is shouting my name. I can hear my dad too, his voice cracking as he tries to be louder than the storm. I have to get to him… 

But I can’t. It’s all I can do to stay flat on the ground, but the wind finds me. Lifts me. I’m trapped in a whirl of rain and sound, with no floor beneath my feet. I can’t fight it anymore… 

And then it stops. 

The wind drops me harshly to the fire escape, thrown onto the cold metal. May drops down beside me, my father not far behind. “Amelia? Amelia, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

I don’t answer her, because I’m distracted by something else. Someone else. 

A boy stands there, his back to us, his breaths as shaky as mine. Like he’s also recovering from the storm. 

Dad helps me to my feet, wrapping me in his arms. “Oh, honey,” he whispers.

I pull away, my legs wobbling beneath me. I support myself by holding onto the railing. The boy turns toward us.

His gray eyes are wide and dark. His hair is buzzed close to his head. He wears what looks like a uniform- a gray, plain shirt and matching pants. His feet are bare. He shivers, staring at me, looking like a young ghost. “Amelia Murphy?” he asks. 

I shiver too, not only because of the cold that chills over my drenched clothes, but because of the fear in his face. 

His gaze drifts to May. “And… May Jackson.” And over to my father. “Mack Murphy.” The boy bites his lip, his eyes darting between each of us. “I came to warn you. Of what’s happening now.”

Dad puts a hand on my shoulder, squeezing tightly. “Warn us of what?”

“I-” He hesitates. He levels his gaze above me, to Dad. “It’s him. It’s Leos.”

I crane my neck to see Dad’s face. He looks stunned, though it's hard to tell in the dark.

“How?”

“I’m not completely sure. It all happened kinda fast-”

“How many has he got?”

“Three so far, including me. But I got away. With the, um, storm.” 

"Excuse me, what? How did you get up here?" May asks, glaring at him. "You just... rode the wind?"

To my shock, he nods. “I can, um...”

"You... control the weather." May and Dad blink at me, but the boy nods. A smile appears on his pale face, quickly fading to a grimace. “Can we go now?” 

“Go where? Why?” My head is buzzing.

“Oh. Um…” he stammers, looking sheepish. “I’m… I’m probably being followed. We should go. Now.”