The rainy days dragged on, and on, and on... Days, months, years blurred together, seeming to form one dark, rainy night. Waiting for day, at times, seemed like torture, but sometimes one forgot that there was such a thing as day, for it came but once every seven years.

Margot had gone eleven years with no sun by the time it made its appearance again. During these years, she had assimilated. She was no longer cast aside as an outsider because she remembered the feel of warmth on her face and the light the noon-day sun gave. After so long, eleven and fourteen years of darkness held little difference. Despite this, she sometimes thought she saw one of the others glare at her, or walk away when she came near, though she did not know if she was simply being paranoid. Margot was still not the most well-liked, the most popular, and she knew this. She often thought that she would rather the children not like her but act like they did than be openly hated by everyone she met.

As the “day” approached slowly and snail-like, the children, who were no longer children, but were now around the age of sixteen, became antsy and impatient, not caring that they were acting like their former nine-year-old selves. They began to sneak peeks out the windows every chance they got, as if the sun would magically come out before the seven year mark, like maybe the scientists were wrong and they would get to feel the wonderful summer sun a bit longer, or maybe a bit sooner.

But the sun didn’t come until it had been exactly seven years since the children had previously seen it, since they had locked one unfortunate girl in a closet for remembering the sun and the joy it brought, since they had deprived her of this joy. And when the sun finally came out, they ran and played in it as if they were young again, and they didn’t care for a whole two hours of light and warmth. They didn’t care until the clouds started making small shadows where sun had once been, and until they felt tiny drops of rain fall first on their heads and then the rest of their bodies, just like it had always been.