Disclaimer: Don't own any of that stuff you see there. Yeah, all that. Not mine.
AN: I originally wrote this for a college essay. *laughs* I'm terrible at that kind of thing. For dana, who asked that this be posted.
It was always raining.
A half-working streetlight flickered overhead, sporadically humming as the orange bulb drunkenly wavered, shadows dancing across the sidewalk and buildings with each dull flash. Rain drove down from above, collecting in the gutters as it whooshed into the sewers, forming lakes on the roadsides that flew with each car that drove through the large seas, and in the alleyways, which were always flooded on stormy nights such as these. Little light shone down on the street, as heavy clouds blanketed the skies, crying for an an unknown wrong, punishing the mortals below.
It had rained on his funeral, despite what others had said.
I was always useless on nights such as these, when the heavens – if I had believed in them, that is – punished me for past doings that I strove every day to correct. To no avail, of course, otherwise it would rain no longer. All that I could do was turn up my collar and slosh through the puddles with an agitated growl and curse for anything that got in my way.
I hated the rain.
The light flickered out again, sighing as it died for good, and something glinted in my peripheral vision. Stopping, I lifted my head slightly. To my left was a shaded alleyway, nearly pitch-black from the disagreeable weather. Poking out of the shadows was a glass bottle, diluted alcohol dripping out of the open neck. I could go in there and give up: shrug off all my responsibilities and expectations and live however I wanted, forget the consequences. Or I could continue onwards and continue my life, my struggle to repent for all the lives I had ruined.
I was useless in the rain.
I looked at my hands – my life-stealing hands – and clenched them. It was tempting to surrender to the unknown and allow myself to be forgotten. Perhaps then I would also be released by my past sins, and allowed to live. A terrible life, sure, but one that would be my all. But how could I also let down those expectant on me? I did not have a spouse or children, but there were people reliant on me. They expected me to do the right thing, and I couldn't bear to let them down.
The skies never cried in the desert; the bodies did all the weeping for them.
I could still remember their faces, the people I had killed. We were all innocents in that war, until we had murdered. A little girl had been killed and it drew two violent sides together, screaming and biting for payment in blood. I had been a casualty and a survivor, a sinner and a saint. The victim and the warrior. But that meant I couldn't forget the dead, either.
It was always raining.
Slowly, reluctantly, I turned away from the alleyway and its half-exposed bottle, resisting the siren's song that urged to turn around and run back to a coward's way out. It was not my way to go. I had other plans in store, and if I needed to bear with my personal nightmares a little longer, then I would. People were waiting on me, and I could not ask them to keep patient any longer.
It was always raining for me, but above the clouds, it shined.