There were more sounds from above…
With only the single beam of the flashlight to show her the way, Emily climbed the stairs… When she managed to turn the key, the door opened a fraction. Suddenly the wind caught hold and wrenched the door from her hand…
Through the noise of the pounding rain, Emily heard other sounds…
As she strained to listen above the terrible weather, she was sure she could hear whining, or the sound of someone or something crying out in pain…
Emily felt the flashlight trembling in her grasp. "Hello?"
More whining. It seemed to be coming from… the roses?
Emily slowly approached the offending bush, leaning out to poke at the thorns with the baseball bat.
A sharp whine was conjured from the movement. The sound was definitely human.
"Who's in there?" Emily demanded. "Come out!"
The bush was silent.
Emily pulled her raincoat hood tighter around her face. "Who's there?" She tried again.
Her flashlight swept the severely overgrown bush again, and Emily gasped when her light crossed a limp hand peeking out from the thorns, her already shaking grip on the flashlight failing, and the weight of plastic tumbling to the rooftop.
Emily scrambled to find the light and, now on her knees on the wet concrete, aimed the dull beam back to the bush.
She crawled slowly to the hand and stretched out an arm to poke it, immediately pulling away as if the appendage might lunge at her - which, thankfully, it didn't.
But the touch did conjure another whine of pain.
"Hello?" Emily called.
Another whine.
Emily licked her lips worriedly as she studied where the rose's thorns dug into the deathly pale flash of the limp wrist, red tainting the puddle that was sloshing beneath it.
"H-hello?" Emily called again.
The index finger of the pale hand twitched, and Emily sucked in a scream at the sudden movement.
The hand didn't move again.
Emily must have knelt there, shivering, wet, rain pounding on her back for at least five minutes.
She wanted to call her dad - something was wrong, very, very wrong. How would a person even get onto the roof, and in turn tangled in her mother's roses?
Maybe she was dreaming. Maybe she would wake up to a house with full power, no storm outside, and no person tangled half dead in her flowers.
Half dead… half alive. But… for how long?
Emily found where she'd dropped the baseball bat beside her and used it to push herself to her feet.
If she called her dad she doubted he would believe her. He would probably demand she get off the roof and stay safe inside. She'd probably be grounded for "putting herself in danger…"
Not that it wasn't dangerous up here…
Emily jumped as another bolt of lightning hit near, and that CRACK! of the hit vibrated her very bones.
The rose bush groaned pitifully.
It was bad enough now - Emily didn't want to have to come back in the morning to find a corpse on her roof. The last thing she needed was a dead person…
Cautiously grasping the hand, Emily stepped on the branch it lay on, prying the row of thorns from the skin.
A high pitched whine cut through Emily, much louder than before, and much more pained as the hand weakly tried to pull away.
"I'm trying to help you." Emily said, tucking the flashlight under her arm. "Please hold still!"
Emily followed the arm back to its body, carefully lifting branches out of her way - and out of the skin.
It was a boy, about her own age, lying on his stomach, his head turned towards her slightly, enough that she could see the blood trailing his face came from more than the pricks of rose thorns - there was a shallow gash above his right brow, and though most of the blood was washed away by the rain, red still stained his eyelid.
"My god…" Emily breathed.
The blood-stained eye flickered slightly, yet one more pathetic whimper escaping the boy's bloody lips.
Emily swept her flashlight over him; he was wearing some kind of tunic, which was ripped in the back… no, not ripped… burned.
It looked like some giant creature with claws of flame had raked it's paw down his back.
Despite the rain the fabric around the holes still managed to smoke a little.
"My god." Emily said again, staring at the blackened skin. "This is… this…"
The bloody eye flickered again, holding its ground halfway open, soft brown irises studying her through tears of pain.
The world seemed to hold still - even the rain seemed to pause for that moment.
Emily could see everything in his eyes - his pain, his emptiness, his fear… he thought she was going to hurt him.
"No," Emily choked on emotion that wasn't her's - or was it? "No, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to get you out of here, okay?"
He didn't trust her. No, how could he? After all… after all what? Emily had no idea what she'd been about to think. She wasn't even sure she was the one thinking it.
She watch the boy as his eyes failed him and fell back closed with a whine.
Emily worked her arms under his, and in one, strangled heave, dragged him up.
He let out a pained yowl, and then went completely limp, his face lolling against Emily's stomach as she struggled to shuffle backwards, out of the roses.
Thorns scraped her own legs through her jeans, and Emily could only imagine the bright red that was now mottling her wet jeans and boots.
As soon as the boy's feet cleared the flowerbed Emily collapsed onto the watery concrete, the boy lying unconscious across her.
He didn't weigh much, but it was enough to make Emily's breaths come in short. She gathered her strength and shoved him off of her.
Emily didn't know how long she lay there, head to the side to keep rain from hitting her in the face, the boy's limp, bloody hand still draped across her abdomen, the small touch a reminder that this was anything but a bad dream - that touch was real.
Emily finally forced herself to her hands and knees, finding the flashlight in a puddle and shaking it to rid the lens of water.
Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but the rain seemed to be lessening up.
Emily crawled back to the boy and skimmed the beam over his front; bloody, as expected from the thorns, but there didn't appear to be any more burns or gashes.
A thunderstorm was no place to deal with this, and Emily seriously doubted she could drag him all the way down to her apartment.
The next closest thing was the garden shed…
Emily was cringing even at that distance, but she knew she had to try.
She wriggled her arms under his once again, and, slowly but surely, started towards the shed.
A good eight minutes later she had settled him down among the fertilizer and rusty tools. There was a leak in the roof, but it wasn't too bad.
Emily plopped down beside the unconscious boy, panting and drenched.
She shoved down her hood and wrung out her hair.
The boy let out a soft whimper, and Emily crawled to lean over him, searching his face for any sign of lucidity.
When nothing else happened she shook his shoulder. "Hey. Wake up. Please wake up."
His eyes fluttered weakly, lids hanging half open, and again Emily saw the pain, and the fear, the latter of which severely increased when he focused on her.
"P-please…" He choked.
"I'm not going to hurt you." Emily promised. "I'm scared too, you know." She shook him again when he started to drift off. "Hey, can you tell me how you got on my roof?"
"Your… roof?" The boy mused.
"Yeah," Emily said. "My roof. And what the heck happened to you? You're all… burned."
"Burned…" His eyes were trying to close again.
"How about something simpler?" Emily tapped his cheek lightly. "What's your name?"
"Hmm…?"
"Name." Emily said. "Do you have a name? Tell me you have a name."
"Paelen." The boy managed. "Who… are you?"
"Emily." Emily sighed. "Oh god, this is so wrong. How did this even happen?"
"Do… not know…" Paelen's eyes closed before Emily could say anything else, and no amount of shaking him would wake him.
"No… no no no!" Emily shook him harder. "I will not have a dead kid in my garden shed! Wake up!"
He did not wake, but she managed to summon a weak groan from him.
At least he wasn't dead… yet.
Emily could feel the panic asserting itself in her chest. What was she going to do?
Burns. He has burns.
Emily knew where her father kept the burn cream, and she focused on that in a vain attempt to calm herself. This boy would not die in her garden shed.