A/N: The newly editted version of this short story. Let me know what you think. :)

A Different Kind of Rain

“Hey ma, I’m headin’ to the movies!” I yelled as I slipped on my new but not practical boots with their three inch heels. What heels where ever practical? It’s not like it really mattered anyway since I maxed out at 5’3” on a good day and the friend I was meeting was an impressive 6’6”. He wasn’t in any danger of being overshadowed. Besides, I loved those boots, and they made blue jeans and green sweater that set off my eyes far more fashionable than they actually were.

I heard my mother’s customary “Drive safe,” and smiled as I pulled my overly large purse onto my shoulder. There was no point going to a movie without snacks, so I always made sure I was prepared no matter how heavy and awkward my purse ended up being in the end. It sure beat paying outrageous prices for typical movie fare. The only thing I ever bought there was popcorn—no one made popcorn better than the movie theater—everything else, including a bottle of water was stashed in my purse. The ‘no outside food and drink’ was a stupid rule anyway, and there was no point following stupid rules.

I grabbed my car keys out of the small basket hidden among a collection of framed family photos on the credenza by the door and had just moved to turn the doorknob when what sounded like an explosion rocked our solid brick house ever so slightly. I held back a startled scream and scooted past the table to get a look out the bay window in hopes of finding the source of that God awful noise. Of course my mind was expecting to encounter some kind of innocent explanation for the sound like a bad car wreck or something along those lines, but that wasn’t the case.

When I parted the blinds and peered out the window, the sight that greeted my eyes was almost beyond comprehension. Past the stump of an old palm tree just outside the window and the fat, rounded pine that stood at the end of our driveway sat a huge smoking crater in the middle of our once quiet subdivision street. I closed my eyes in disbelief, thinking that somehow reality had lost touch with itself for a moment, but nothing had changed when I reopened them a few seconds later. That ten-foot wide hole was still sitting there, acting like it belonged when I knew the exact opposite was true; no hole was going to deceive me. Something was dreadfully wrong. I backed away from the window and another explosion sounded through the air. The repercussions of the second blast were hidden from my sight, but that didn’t really matter. Something within me snapped and the scream that I’d cut off earlier ripped out of my throat.

My mother’s feet pounded down the hall seconds after the second explosion. “What’s going on?” she cried, stopping dead when she spotted my surely pale face.

I could hear the fear in her voice; it was the same fear that ran through me. And when I tried to explain what I’d seen, my voice failed me so I lifted a shaking hand and pointed at the bay window, hoping she’d get the message and look on her own. I didn’t want to see that version of reality again for awhile.

She laid a comforting hand on my arm as she brushed past me. I didn’t track her movements, but that didn’t stop me from hearing her gasp when she saw the same sight that had so unsettled me. Another explosion, the third so far, sounded from somewhere farther down the street, and my mother let out a small shriek as she hurried back to where I stood in the middle of the dining room.

“What’s happening?” she muttered, maybe thinking that in doing so she’d find some kind of answer. Apparently nothing came to her, and it was then that she decided to take matters into her own hands by going into tornado mode. That was the only kind of disaster she was prepared to deal with, and since what was currently happening appeared disastrous, it was the only thing that even began to fit the new situation. She grabbed my arms to get my full attention and caught my eye, “Get the cats.” Getting the cats and getting to a safe place away from all windows was a routine we’d had to frequently use when we’d lived in Minnesota, a place notorious for its nearly annual tornado warnings.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but any sort of direction was much welcomed at the moment since I didn’t have any idea what I should be doing otherwise. I hurried through the living room, my boots rapidly clicking on the tile as I ran out to the family room to fetch the pet carriers. My eyes remained fixed before me as I went, avoiding the three huge sliding doors that served as windows for the back room, unwilling to see what other damage may have occurred in the backyard. It only took a moment for me to grab the carriers and with them in tow, I shut and locked the door that separated the back family room from the living room before dropping the two carriers by the green lazy boy and setting off to find the cats.

I moved on autopilot, going from room to room looking for our two cats, one a seal point Siamese and the other a blue point Himalayan, but not fully seeing anything else. My mind was determined to find the animals and that’s all my eyes were willing to register; I was floating on a cloud of disbelief and was unwilling to let my senses accept more than I was willing to take in by that point. Before I knew it, I’d caught the cats and wrestled them into their respective carriers. I’m sure I’ll never know how I managed to do that so quickly given that they were both as scared as I was, but it was done and I brought the two carriers into the guest room.

The guest room stood at the very center of our house. Its only window faced out into the back room so even that was insulated by another wall. It was the place we’d always planned on going if there ever was a tornado warning in the Valley, but so far, we’d never had to put our plans into action. Well, until now that is, but this wasn’t because of a tornado. I would have been relieved if it had been, but sadly the world doesn’t constantly aim to please me.

I set the carriers down by the closet door and sat down on the floor beside my mother at the foot of the double bed, facing the closet and the two very frightened cats. A stack of photo albums and various other things my mother and I cherished most stood by the closet and the nearby dresser and upon seeing them, I began to cry. This was real. My mom pulled me into a hug and told me everything would be fine, but I knew that she was just as scared as me; she was just better at holding back tears than I’d ever be.

Yet another blast went off nearby and made us both jump, but we held our tongues. We were past the point of screaming; it felt more like numb shock now. I closed my eyes and drew what strength I could from my mother, but that was hard to do. It might have been easier if we’d had any idea what was going on, but we were in the dark. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Sure, I’d heard stories on the news about people bombing and shelling other towns and the like, but that all happened in faraway lands, not here. Not ever here. This was my home, my life was here—it couldn’t be happening here. Even after seeing the crater that had claimed a section of the street, I felt that there had to be some other explanation.

I clung tighter to my mother as another explosion rocked our house, only this time it was followed by the strangely comforting screech of approaching fire trucks. My eyes flew open and I allowed myself a small smile; the end of this maddening terror was in sight. But that hope was soon dashed when successive blasts silenced the beautiful wailing of the sirens, and for a moment, everything went deathly still. It was in that stillness that I heard a high pitched whine drawing nearer followed by a sound that surpassed anything I’d ever heard before. The very ground seemed to heave upward and then there was nothing.

I woke some time later and found that the world around me had been utterly devastated. The once clean, albeit dusty, guest room was gone and in its place was a pile of rubble made up of parts of the roof, ceiling, and insulation. Everything familiar was gone, even the wall that had once held the room’s one window; it had all been blown away in the blast. It was the falling debris that had knocked us out, and I looked around, thankful that the worst of the damage was in the back room. It’d been a hit, but it’d been just far enough away to spare us from the worst. The guest room truly had been the idea place to be, insulated by walls all around.

A cough dispelled some of the dust that had gathered in my mouth and lungs, making it considerably easier for me to breathe. With that out of the way, I focused on more important matters and reached to wake my mother; we may have survived the worst of it, but we still needed to get out of there as quickly as possible. I grabbed her shoulder, intent on waking her, but my plan was foiled when my hand encountered a wet warmth that I wasn’t prepared to deal with. It couldn’t possibly be what I imagined, yet I had to know for sure. I lifted my hand into my field of vision and felt my throat tighten when I saw dark red blood staining my fingers. My body twisted out from beneath some scattered debris as I leaned over for a closer look, praying that my worst fears had not come to pass. We had survived; this really couldn’t be happening. Unfortunately, the warped reality I was currently living in had decided to deal me another brutal blow. My mother was—dead.

The sirens once again picked up their distant chorus. My mother, the one rock in my life, was gone. The unwelcomed rain had not only destroyed my home, but my life, my everything. I sat there, staring incomprehensibly at the blood on my hand, wishing for a moment that I too had gone with the blast. What right did anyone have to destroy another’s life so completely? I still had no idea what had happened, but that didn’t lessen my pain. Why had I survived? Why had my mother been so wrongfully killed? I distantly felt tears streaming down my dirty, dusty face and hoped another explosion would come and seal my fate. Then I heard a soft meow from beneath a pile of rubble a few feet away where the closet had once stood. That first sound was soon followed by another, louder cry that could only be attributed to my Siamese. The cats were… I grabbed my mother’s lifeless hand and screamed.

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