The rain drummed down on the road, a rapid tattoo on Jeanne's nerves. She pushed sodden black hair out of her icy face, her brown eyes glaring at the world indiscriminately. It had been one of those days. Her alarm clock was broken so she overslept. Her boss at the gas station called telling her she'd had her shifts switched. Nearly every customer had been troublesome, angry, drunk or high. To top it all off she'd missed the last bus and now it was raining. Jeanne stomped angrily through a puddle, frigid dank water sloshing into her purple Doc Martin boots.

The girl that Jeanne saw crouching under a tree was... different. She was bedraggled as anyone would have been out in that rain, that much was true, but she was lovely. It was eerie, she shouldn't have looked beautiful enough to shatter a heart with mud in her hair and bloodied hands. Still her skin seemed so soft under the grime, and her eyes glowed silver despite the darkness. Jeanne could have dismissed the oddness of the beauty in favor of first aid for the girl's hands...but for one thing. When the girl turned towards Jeanne, as startled as Jeanne was, Jeanne saw her ears. They were pointed.

Jeanne blinked, and blinked again. It was a faerie. In 2016. Um, what? Jeanne knew herself to be sane and rather down-to-earth. She wasn't imagining this. Ok, she could deal with this. I mean what's dealing with a wounded member of the fae compared to facing down a meth-head ex-boyfriend? Jeanne squared her shoulders and tried to relax her shocked expression into something comforting.

"Hello. I'm Jeanne. Are you alright?" Jeanne asked quietly "No." The girl sniffled holding up her injured hands "I displeased one of the Gentry." Jeanne nodded as if she understood, "Come with me? I'll get you out of the rain and help your hands." "You can heal?" the fearie girl perked up. Jeanne snorted "No, but I do have bandages. Come on, it's too cold out to have this conversation here." The girl shivered and nodded too "Agreed. Lead on, human."

Jeanne always knew she was a sucker for taking in strays (her previously rescued three legged cat and blind mutt were testament to that) she just never realized she'd end up with a stay faeire. Who knew one of those crappy days could end up with the start of a whole new adventure?

My shoes ooze mud with every step I take along the highway. I’d be better off in the street than in the grass, but the last thing I need is for some asshole to come speeding down 926 and send a tidal wave of road water my way. Besides, the trees provide at least a bit of coverage from this monsoon-wannabe. Until the wind blows. Then it’s a fresh heaping of H2O to the face. Like now. As if I weren’t soaked enough from this storm. If what they say about April is true, May better turn this trash heap into a fucking garden.

I try wiping my glasses off on my shirt, but both of them are too wet to do any good. Instead of attempting to look out the world’s blurriest window, I fold them up and put them in my…”Shit!” I feel them slip from my fingers and the word is instantly out of my mouth. Before I can even attempt to catch them, I know they’re gone. Still, I drop to the ground, blindly sorting through grass and dirt in the hopes of feeling something plastic. It’s useless. In this rain, they’ve already been carried off further than I can search.

Blind in a rainstorm—sounds like either the title of some bullshit modern art piece or Velma from Scooby Doo’s autobiography. Or even worse, an art piece based on Velma’s autobiography. Nevertheless, I plunge blindly into the gray nothingness that is this town anytime it rains. Besides the whizzing of passing cars and the soft roar of the rain, the town is dead silent. No children screaming, no cursing in five different languages, no car horns, no… birds. And that’s when it hit me, the slow realization my mind was piecing together this whole time; Yes, it is possible for this town to get even more lame than it already is. In a little over a year I’ll be outta here for good, but until then… Well, until then I guess I’m just gonna get wet.

Aside from my glasses, this rain’s about had it with the rest of me as well. My shoes are long soaked through, and my pants might have had a chance if I was a little taller, but lucky for me, jeans soaked to the knee is a luxury handed out only to the shorties. Call it my birthright.

In any case, I’m still a mile out from home and the rain’s not letting up. The trees get a little thicker further from the road, so I decide to venture into the woods. I know I should just keep heading home, but I’m tried. This weather just drains it right out of me. I find a suitable tree and pop a squat on its lowest limb, just high enough to get me outta this mud.

“Hell yeah,” I mutter, as body finally feels a breeze that doesn’t bring a gallon of rain alongside it. My voice isn’t the only thing to break the silence though. The first one was low, subtle. Just a simple pop, could have been anything. Tree branch maybe? There was some rustling in through the trees, but there it was again. Pop! Pop! Two this time, in rapid succession, followed by a soft, but undeniable thud.

Eyes squinting, I tried looking for the source of the noise, but without my glasses it was a hopeless effort. I could sense the general direction, but there was no way of knowing what was happening without getting closer. Like picking at a scab, this was one itch that just had to be scratched, damn the consequences.

I felt something, something warm. My body tenses and I stop, clutching my breath, trying not to make a single sound, and praying that the sound of my heart rapidly trying to power a jet engine is all in my head. I turn slowly, but recoil immediately at the sight.

It’s an arm, most definitely human. As my breath struggles to catch up to my thoughts, I look at the body it’s connected to. Male, young. Maybe 15? And fuck, yeah, and a hole right through his brain. No amount Law and Order could have prepared me for this. Shit. Fuck shit goddamned expletive, what am I gunna do?

My head turned around rapidly, looking for anyone else. Who shot him? Are they still there? Can anyone help?! Nothing. Whoever it was, they must have left as soon as the deed was done. I know I need to check to see if he’s somehow still alive, but I can’t. My hands are shaking and if I have to look at him again I won’t be able to hold the vomit down. It’s not what it looks like on TV. It’s not clean, it’s not… it’s, it’s more spread. Internally too, like his blood vessels just shattered and the pieces rippled throughout his face. His face, I can’t… I just.

I have to stop. I have to get control of my breathing. I’m in the woods, I can’t see, and there’s this…

I take off. I don’t even know where I’m going at this point, I just keep running towards what I think is the highway. People, I just need to be around other people and tell someone, and it’ll be okay. I’m slipping all over the place like a drunk puppy on ice, but I don’t care. Scraped knees beat a bullet in the back any day.

Lights! I see lights. I must be getting close to the highway. My feet pound into the dirt as I try to outrun this day, outrun this rain, outrun this fucking little town. Tires squeal to a break as my feet hit the pavement. A car fishtails out in front, stopping a few feet in front of me.

“Hey, the hell ya think ya doin’? Watch where-“ The man pauses as he sees me, a young girl, scraped, soaked, and covered in mud, no doubt my face dripping in desperation. “Get in, I’ll take you into town,” he says solemnly. No questions, just the silent recognition that something has happened and a foreboding sense of obligation on both our behalves.

It was perfectly fine this morning. 75 degrees and sunny.

She had gone home to find her boyfriend, Alexander, sitting in the living room, high, with drug paraphernalia everywhere. She tried to get him to clean up before the Sentinel came by on their patrol, but he suddenly got angry. He started shouting about how she was ruining his “good time” and hit her across the face. He paused for a second with a blank look on his face. Lorena hoped that was all that was going to happen this time, but Alexander proved them wrong. He kept beating her until she was on the floor, bruised, broken, and bloody. It wasn’t until he saw her this way that he realized his “good time” wasn’t over yet. He picked her up, almost gently, and carried her to the bedroom.

After Alexander’s “good time” was over and he had passed out, Lorena limped to the bathroom. She stepped into the shower, but she could barely feel the water on her skin, which was already starting to bruise. This had happened so many times before, that she didn’t feel anything anymore. All she felt was numb. She got out, put makeup and fresh clothes on to cover the bruises, and left the house heading for the same bar as always.

“I wish I could get a new life. One without all this pain.” Lorena thought, while staring into her almost empty glass and not noticing her death-like grip. Her misery had started long before she met Alexander. Ever since she was six years old, her father would hit her every time she did something wrong. Her mother died while giving birth to her, and he blamed her for it. By age 10, he started taking her into his bedroom. He would say she looked like her mother and even called out his late-wife’s name. Lorena shook her head to rid herself of her thoughts and finished her glass all at once. She sighed and internally fought with herself. “I should probably go back home. Alexander should be awake by now and all evidence of what transpired should be gone. But, I really don’t want to go back to him just yet. I could take the long route, but it has started to rain and that would definitely not help my current condition.”

After mulling it over in her head, Lorena decided to take the long route home. She found that she was not ready to go back to Alexander just yet.

As Lorena slowly walked along the side of the road, staggering here and there, the landscape went from urban to greenery. This, along with the constant tapping of the rain, helped her to relax. She always loved being out in nature. It made her feel free and she was able to escape her miserable life, if only for a little while. The smile on her face suddenly disappeared as she heard a sound. She stopped. It sounded like rustling. Something was in the trees next to her. Lorena stood as quietly as possible, hoping that whatever it was would go away. The rustling stopped, but before she could do anything, a fox appeared. But, it wasn’t just any fox. It had nine tails and was translucent. Lorena sighed in relief. This nine-tailed fox gave off a calming aura so she knew it wasn’t going to hurt her. It stopped in front of her and stared intently at her for a minute. Slowly, it began to turn towards the road. It looked back towards her once before it darted across the road, where it sat and watched her. “Does it want me to follow it?” she asked herself. She tentatively took a step forward. The fox didn’t move. She kept walking, but as soon as she got to the middle of the road, there was a brilliant flash of light.

Once Lorena reached the other side of the road, she was surrounded by strange creatures. Small, skeletal-like beings shaking their heads with rattling sounds appeared in the trees. Large rabbits with facial markings and dragonfly wings attached to their head were flying around. Whales were also floating in the sky and moving like they were swimming in the ocean. All of these creatures were translucent, just like the nine-tailed fox sitting next to her. All of a sudden, Lorena realized that she no longer felt numb from pain. She felt lighter like a massive weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She looked around again, this time in awe. “Is this a new world that I can finally escape to?”

The fox waited till Lorena had overcome her shock, then started walking further into the forest. Lorena followed, excited to experience this new world.

———————————————————————————————————————————————— The next day, a body was found. It was a female about 26 years old. Her body was covered in bruises and she had several broken bones. A car hit her while she had been crossing the road and kept going towards its destination. A wallet was found in one of her pockets and it identified the body as Lorena Grey.