The rain came suddenly; it always has. Drenching downpours of near-freezing water, serve to wake me from my tired daze, and submerse me in another. The rain always brought forth its cold memories, with its frigid drops. Memories of another time when I stood, as I do now, in a deluge. I can almost hear the raindrops making their subtle music on the hood of the car that was parked here all those years ago, the night I last stood upon this dirt. The night my life changed.

This was not the first time that I had visited this place—I frequently quit my urban abode for the country out here—nor would it be my last. I had been driving down this dirt road, not for much reason, other than to not be driving somewhere else. It was raining then, too, and my windshield wipers were not doing their job all that well. I couldn't see three feet in front of the beat-up hunter green Grand Am I drove. I suppose if I could have none of this would've happened.

The rain was almost suffocating. It seemed everywhere. It seemed the deluge that covered my car so completely was trapping me inside, immobilizing me, keeping me from leaving my newfound rubber and metal prison.

Granted my horrible vision, I have to wonder if hers was any better. She was in the same situation as I was, I suppose—the same trappings that held me in the seat of my car held her in her place as well. Still, the curve that I could not see, that bent before me invisibly was one I could not make. The hypnotic rain had lured me into a kind of stupor, not unlike the one that I stand in now, remembering this. I went careening off the lonely road and into the wilderness, until I was stopped by the tree that Anna had sought refuge under. I hadn't seen anybody, and didn't even notice that she was there until I got out. Then I saw her, laying there face down, her blood flowing out from under her, mixed with the clear purity of the rain falling around us both. I knew then that I had taken a life.

I have not lived a day since, not in all these years.

I affectionately named her Anna in my head; I don't know who she really was, but I have perhaps spent more time with her than I have anyone else of this earth. These memories that I have of her are both painful, and elating. Over these years, I have grown fond of her, and our conversations we have had from my bed—from my dreams—from my nightmares. I doubt very seriously she thinks the same of me as I do her, but she is not to be blamed. She hasn't forgiven me, even after these torturous last five years of living on my part. It is fitting, however, as I have not entirely forgiven myself, either.

Staring at my boots, the rain pooling at my feet takes on a crimson tint—a tint that I am not entirely sure exists anywhere but in my own demented mind. My eyes follow its trail, to the tree I stand beneath, where I stood in the rain five years ago—and every year since—only to be plagued by her spirit again. No matter; I will never feel this guilt again. Never will I feel as hollow inside as I did that rainy night, when I cradled her mangled body in my arms. I couldn't have gone to the police—they'd have put me in jail—and I didn't know if she had a family, so I did nothing, and Anna hates me for it. I know she does—she's told me, on several occasions. Soon she will be rid of me; she will be left to her gently innocence in the kingdom above us, while I descend to the burning depths underfoot.

It is after this long, drawn-out thought pattern that the gun in my mouth begins to make its presence felt in the aching of my jaws which it held apart. A smirk finds its way to my tortured countenance then, the pain reminding me of the suffering that I had put Anna through. I remove the gun from my mouth with a small laugh. There is no way Anna would be satisfied with my death that way. I moved the metal thing in my hand to my stomach, just below my navel, pointing up—and I pull the trigger.

The pain was too much for me to stay on my feet. I felt the bullet rip through me, in and then out, taking with it pieces of my flesh. Such as what leaked through the massive hole in my lower back, as I lay in the rain, smiling, embracing the pain that was now all I could feel. As I lay dying, reveling in the pain that settled this debt that I had held in my bosom's core for these five haunting years, I found solace in the rain that fell around me, washing me away from the embankment I lay on, bit by bit. I knew that it wouldn't take long before I was forgotten... Just like Anna.

The rain stopped suddenly. The abrupt silence pulled me from the trance that the sounds of the rain on the hood of my beaten car had mesmerized me into, but even though the rain had stopped, and I could see the road, I could not correct my path. As I went careening into a tree that stood on the side of the road, I thought I heard a small, muffled scream—then I heard nothing, save for the rain that started again, only seconds later.