The Rain

Erik Masters

Ó 1999, 2000

The air was chilly, biting cold as such as the breath from one’s mouth was instantly frozen. Clouds and tendrils of fog deeply contrasted white against the soft stars of the black night. A soft wind blew, and the fogs slowly drifted across the rain-wet alleyway, slowly darkening to reveal a single figure, standing, form obscure until a sudden gust of wind revealed him.

The wind brought with it rain, at first a drizzle, then pouring down in mere seconds. Sheets of rain slammed into the ground, making all who stood between it and the earth fearful and sorry they had interrupted its course.

All, that is, except the figure who stood revealed. A dark aura surrounded him, cloaking him in shadows, even in the faint light from a distant lamppost. The ground moved live with water ankle-deep, gushing into storm-drains, crushing all sound in its roar of anger. The figure’s boots stood black and dry, darkly covered in a smoky-black cloud and shining from the shadows.

What it had not already driven away, the rain forced away, all except the figure who stood hidden. His clothes were strangely fitting a time they had long seen past. The rain covered all, even that under cover, with water that clung and stuck and bit viciously, that wanted them out of the way of its rule. All, except the figure who stood revealed. The shadows and darkness surrounded him, long black cloak swirling and flapping around the rock-still figure as a swirling wind rose upward from the figure. Slanting rain that came too near this unnatural tornado was swept upwards and around, spinning in a rapid cyclone that kept all at it’s center dry.

All was fearful, all was running, all from the rain, except the figure that stood hidden. His shirt and pants all rippled and tore violently in the wind, but the figure was still, unaffected. The ground and the figure were dry, but all was moving, even the rain moving down and up into the rotating air. His column drove upward, spinning like a drill bit into the clouds above, visibly parting and swirling the clouds away, letting a single, golden ray of sunlight shine down upon the figure.

All watched as what seemed impossible and an angel was there, all watched in amazement, except for the figure that was revealed. The shadows cloaked him in a veil that could not be seen through, even in the bright sun that was surrounded by dark. At his side, a long, curved katana rested completely motionless in its sheath, one hand resting on it’s hilt, a hand that was clad in a black, fingerless glove. All of him was black, except for him, all that he wore and used and controlled, but not him. His hair was black, and long, and his eyes glowed a ferocious, fiery gold, but he was not. His face was clean-shaven, and straight and handsome, and still.

The air and rain and will shifted all, changed everything, cloaking the sunlight that burned all in shadows and light, cloaking the figure in a shadow that lit up his features. Shadows covered all, and all were drawn into the golden eyes, all were captivated and lost track of what they were thinking, what they remembered, what they had seen, except the figure that was hidden. The figure that was gone.

The rain fell in sheets. All was wet. Nothing escaped the torrent. Nothing remembered what had not happened, what was most important.

The rain fell.

Suddenly, a blasting whine, a needle-thin beam of the purest white light emerging from a burning white sphere where the figure once stood. The whine grew, the sounds clashed, the energy of the long-forgotten mystics and that of nature grew loud and roaring in the battle.

The beam thrust up, up into the dark storm clouds, clearing a space straight up a dozen times wide as it was thick, and then stopped, shooting off to a place to be discovered later in time.

The sphere lessened in intensity, as such that some could look upon its gleaming, gaseous white surface that seemed to be writhing in unreal white flames. The figure hovered within, obviously controlling the events as they occurred to destroy all.

Then, in a sudden, insane climax, the sphere burst into a larger sphere that spread, spread, encompassing all except for that figure in a burning white plasma that leapt and destroyed all within a circle of death.

For a mile ‘round, all simply ceased to exist, the ball of flames gone, only the figure who lay unconscious at the bottom of a perfectly semi-spherical crater, half a mile deep, breathing softly the non-existence of those who perished for their wrong deeds.

The rain softened, and only poured silently upon the figure who was revealed.