She ran.

The sky opened and growled at her panting figure. A taxi drove by, its lights flashing on her and over her, not really seeming to light her face. As she neared the end of the block she began to slow and stopped, the toes of her sneakers over the edge of the curb. Another car passed, its lights reaching the vague outlines of her face. For the brief moment the lights hit it, a look of intense longing was visible. Her body leaned forward slightly, as if she yearned to continue to the next block. Then the lights passed and the sky grumbled. She turned and walked back down the block, looking back over her shoulder occasionally. Suddenly she spun and took off, back to where she had stopped before, except this time she didn't slow down. She ran, limbs flying, head held high, knees practically hitting her chest, at the curb.

Suddenly she was stopped.

She just...stopped, like she had hit a brick wall. One knee was high in the air, her opposite arm was flung back; even her hair had stopped, mid-flight. If one looked closely, little tendrils of water from the rain were holding her limbs. If one cared to look close enough, you could see how she strained against those tiny bonds. The sky snarled fiercely, sounding suspiciously like it had said 'no', and she was flung back. She flew halfway down the block and hit the ground with a wet thump. She sat up, holding her side tenderly, and shook tendrils of wet hair out of her face. Still sitting, she glared up at the falling rain and grumbling sky before she opened her mouth, letting the most earsplitting scream out. The houses which had been dark, lit up.

As one, the thirteen babies on the block died.

Their mother's wails joined the girl on the ground.

The promised lightning flashed as the girl's scream grew in its fearful intensity.

The nine grandparents died also, their last breaths seeming to fuel the girls never-ending scream.

The lightning flashed brighter now, lighting the girls features. Her pale skin and fearsome blood-red eyes were unmistakable; the Banshee screamed at the sky.

The sky growled threateningly, but the sound was drowned out by the Banshee's scream. The sixteen males on the block died also as her scream grew louder. Lightning flashed again as she stood, raising her arms above her head and continuing her defiant scream. The sky snarled sharply and all the women of the block began to die as well. The lightning flashed and raced to the ground, to the Banshee that defied it. It struck her and the scream grew in intensity until it stopped.

She dropped, dead, but a pleased smile covered her face.

If humans could see the soul after its body died, they would see the Banshee's walking calmly to the end of the block and looking both ways before entering the crosswalk. They would see a man begin to appear, a man who had died six months ago, when she had become a Banshee. They would see a smile cross her face as she embraced him in the middle of the crosswalk. And they would watch as the pair crossed to the other block and slowly disappeared, staring intently into one another's eyes.

The rain tampered off and the sky stopped its fearsome roar, letting a blue full moon poke through the heavens, its rays caressing a young woman who lay dying from the Banshee's scream.

Her last breath left her and the moon's rays intensified as her eyes turned blood-red.