The air around her felt sticky, yet cold. Dirty clothes clung to her skin from the humidity. She just finished a shift from her meager retail job and couldn't wait to get home. Dark clouds hung thick and heavy above her, threatening to release rain.
The exercise was a sweet welcome to her troubled mind. As if reading her mind, the clouds seem to shroud her with a sense of dread and mocking. Mocking the bleak life that was her existence. Paige's life was lacklustre at best, lacking in passion and purpose. She was a drone, among many in today's world. Hiding behind the façade of positivity. She at times thought about taking her own life. She failed to understand the meaning of life. When all things would eventually come to their demise.
Paige watched the foreboding sky through her transparent umbrella. Lightning shot down from the sky, and then she heard it. Deep bellowing erupted from within the helm of the dark overcast vessel. Followed soon by a loud crack, which echoed through the core of her body. Shrivelling into a small being at once, she headed for cover under the nearest tree.
Paige had already opened her umbrella in preparation for the rain. At first, it came down in a light drizzle as strands of long dark hair blew across her face. Her surroundings became all the more beautiful. The greenery shimmered before her within an infinite curtain of tiny gemstones. How she loved the rain, in its quiet cold distant beauty. The smell of rain delighted her simple desires in life.
Nobody was out this afternoon, especially in the rain. The path to home was part of a bicycle trail, surrounded by parkland and river streams. The rain grew heavy and she struggled to hold her umbrella. Now a wind teased her, trying to pull the shield from her grasp. The storm was in full force within a matter of minutes. Rain pelted her unprotected legs. Wind pulled and pushed her. Thunder and lightning closed in, growling and snapping at the trees around her.
She saw lightning strike a huge tree in front of her and she screamed. This terrified her and she bolted into a sprint along the trail. Paige ran only a few metres before she slipped and fell straight onto her face.
'What a lousy day', she thought succumbed to misery upon the pavement.
A sudden flash of light took over her vision, then boomed a sound so loud she thought her eardrums had popped. Lightning surged through her body and it stunned her entire being. Before she could brace for it, the pain came and nothing else. A pain like hot lava radiated from her heart to her stomach, to her extremities. She was bound, and couldn't move or scream.
After a moment of hearing nothingness, she finally heard her own weak guttural cries. She regained movement of her limbs, even if it was to quiver uncontrollably. She couldn't feel rain anymore. The pain was subsiding from sharp, to one that was pulsing and lingering.
The senses were slowly coming back to her. She took a moment to focus on her breathing to calm herself down. Skin felt burned on random patches of her body. She still struggled to open her eyes. She could make out a sound that was different from nature sounds, it was a person's voice. Under the muffled sound of pulsing blood, she could hear the voice of a man. His tone was somewhat annoyed. Polished with a sophisticated accent from somewhere she couldn't tell.
"Tell me who you are!" the elegant voice demanded.
