Ginger never got the chance to exhale, nor to blink again. Where Precipitation stared from an innocent room, she stared back. When it twitched, the pressure on her arm was instant. The next time she closed her eyes, the world exploded.

  The boom behind her was intolerable. Ginger couldn’t pinpoint why it was behind her at all, nor what it consisted of. For at least a fraction of a second, she thought she’d died. Every sense she possessed surrendered instantly, overwhelmed by too many flavors of devastation. The horrid crack to her right was impossible to miss. The blinding white behind her eyelids was inescapable. Her nerves functioned, for sure. With every fiber of her being, she wished that they didn’t.

  She landed atop something soft and hard all at once, wrapped in arms she knew too well. Those, in turn, brought her crashing to the floor. Had Ginger not plunged into Hell in the span of one breath, the sharp splinters that rushed to pelt her calves might’ve made her yelp. She surpassed that much immediately. Her eyes flew open, she looked to her right, and the hand that clamped over her mouth held on for dear life. She desperately, desperately needed it.

  She’d been longing to scream since a storm had first started to swell. This wasn’t at all the context she’d been considering. Her agony had been confined to her heart, once. Now, it was localized, pumped into one arm and aflame thousands of times over.

  There was no point in looking, at first, given a world that spun too fast and useless vision that blurred in seconds. Ginger was shocked she hadn’t fainted yet. She wished that would’ve happened, too, if it kept her from drowning in a Hell that stretched to her elbow.

  Screaming wasn’t working. She tried. She tried harder, fighting to tear her vocal cords from her throat and shred her lungs to pieces. The palm atop her lips did much too good of a job, and the voice in her ear was the worst medicine she’d ever received. “Don’t!” Ezekiel pleaded in a crackling whisper. “Please, please, don’t! Please!”

  Ginger did anyway. She didn’t get far, granted. Screaming became shaking, and shaking became convulsing. When the haze that smothered the world began to part, she had only red to contend with. She’d forgotten it was there at all. She’d been in the very same place not so long ago, if memory served.

  Where once had stood a door now stood nothing, chunks of wood littering the floor and spilling over the railing. She should’ve been grateful for the reprieve between agony and a second assault, maybe. Right now, she couldn’t think. She couldn’t move in the first place.

  Ezekiel did that part for her. It was the first time she’d dealt with the horrific speed of scarlet forms. Had it not been for distractions and incredible luck, Ginger doubted they would’ve made it off the hardwood. She was amazed Ezekiel could find the leeway to scoop her into his arms while barring her from screams. Curled tightly against his chest, she should’ve felt safe. Her own arm pressed against him, aflame in every way and burning hotter as he jostled her. Ginger doubted he had a choice. Wailing behind his palm, too, wasn’t optional.

  She couldn’t see past his shoulders, nor check on the Precipitation behind him. If it saw fit to give chase, it wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. Ginger could, at least, see Ezekiel’s face--whether or not she wanted to. So recently, shimmering eyes and prickling tears had sufficed to break her heart. Now, she envied him for sobs he’d stolen from her. He was quieter about it, granted, and he might’ve had the right. He finally wept as he sprinted, cradling her in his embrace and covering her lips all the while. “It’s gonna be okay,” he choked out.

  It wasn’t.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” Ezekiel insisted, his voice wobbling relentlessly. “It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay. I’m sorry. Don’t look at it, alright? I promise we’ll take care of it later. We need to go right now. Please don’t look.”

  Ginger honestly didn’t know what he’d expected. The urge was destructive. She didn’t bother fighting it, and his concern only made it worse. The visual matched the sensation, in the end. She could hardly recognize it as an arm, short of the placement and shape. She’d fallen from the porch steps, once, and she’d broken her wrist.

  She’d been granted permission to cry as much as she’d wanted, at the time. Now, burdened with the same tenfold, her suffering was sealed away. Her limb was utterly mangled, if she could still call it that. Crushed bones surely sat in pieces beneath burns she’d never seen. Between the two, she couldn’t decide what hurt more.

  She was fairly certain they were burns, at least. Splotchy and suffocating along too much flesh, all that peeled from her arm bore the wrong colors entirely. Enough of it was outright stripped that screams of misery turned to horror. It wasn’t supposed to glisten, darkness be damned. It wasn’t supposed to give quarter to wood so recently shattered, splinters lodged in muscle that shouldn’t have been free. There was blood. Mom had washed this dress yesterday. She was going to be furious later.

  Ideally, Ginger could cut the entire thing off and keep it from melting further. Whether or not she was still alive, all that was aflame had her second-guessing the benefits. Angry or not, she desperately wanted Mom. She wanted Dad. She wanted Anabel, even, if it meant seeing her face again. She wanted to be anywhere but here. This was awful.

  She had Ezekiel. Again, she was probably supposed to be grateful for that. When he slowed to a stop and kept her close, it took effort to pry her eyes from a ruined appendage. Ginger wondered if he’d call her out for staring anyway. She wondered if he’d been staring himself, in truth, and she saw him look away from the same. He cast his eyes past her shoulder and over his own exactly once. If they’d made it this far, then she had a strong feeling as to what wasn’t there.

  Ezekiel turned forward again. Ginger did the same, steady sobs and whimpers be damned. She hadn’t been to the attic in at least two months. She hadn’t planned to go up there any time soon, either. Dark and stagnant as it was, she wasn’t thrilled about the idea. Ginger deeply appreciated that the door still existed, let alone that it was attached to the hinges.

  Ezekiel was more than likely satisfied by the same. The heavy sigh of relief against her body was palpable. So soon after, he looked down on her. His eyes still glistened, and Ginger half-expected stray tears to plop onto her clothes. “I’m gonna put you down,” Ezekiel began softly, “and I’m gonna take my hand off. I need you to stay quiet. I know it hurts, but I’m begging you. Please. Can you do that?”

  Ginger had surpassed pain. For the most part, she was starting to lose feeling in her arm altogether. She dreaded the idea of surrendering function permanently, if the universe saw fit to torture her more. Fatigue took priority, as did dizziness she couldn’t dispel. She wondered if she’d be passing out shortly, dazed and disoriented. She had plenty of reasons. She did her best to nod.

  “Promise?” Ezekiel pushed.

  She nodded again.

  He hesitated regardless. He did, finally, hand over his trust, lowering her to her feet with slow care. Ginger hoped he appreciated her lack of screams, bravely swallowed on his behalf alone. The whimpers were involuntary, as were hiccups and shudders she couldn’t hold back. It wasn’t her fault. Even as Ezekiel pulled his hand away, he didn’t scold her about it.

  Ginger straightened up with the softest gasp, struggling to keep a destroyed arm as still as she could manage. Ezekiel handled everything else--as always. He laid his palm on the frame and cracked the door open cautiously, dodging so much as the tiniest squeak. In truth, Ginger was impressed. “I don’t know how long Tempests last for,” he explained in a whisper. “I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be a while. They didn’t talk about that part a lot in class.”

  He motioned for her company as he peered up the stairs. Ginger came to his side and mirrored the same, peeking into the endless dark. The pitiful light they had served to illuminate ten steps, at most. Beyond that, they’d be swallowed by shadows. She wasn’t sure what her scariest problem was anymore.

  Ezekiel wasn’t helping. “We’re…definitely gonna be up there for a bit,” he muttered.

  “I want Mom,” Ginger breathed, fighting to keep her voice from crumbling.

  The rest of her was just as compromised. Ezekiel had his turn with mirroring her. “I do, too,” he breathed back.

  He smeared wet eyes on the back of his hand. “Come on,” he said quietly, tilting his head towards blackened steps.

  Ginger had no room to hesitate, really. Scarlet paranoia was chronic, and she still hadn’t shaken the idea of a form that had barely abandoned them. Careful as Ezekiel had been, he was probably fine with Ginger’s own flavor of caution.

  She tossed her eyes over her shoulder. To her knowledge, so did Ezekiel. Ginger earned nothing, in terms of pursuing Precipitation. She didn’t particularly want to know where it had ended up. Now, more than ever in her life, she was grateful for a home filled with corners. “I don’t see it,” she murmured.

  “I know,” Ezekiel said.

  He turned towards the attic alongside her. “It shouldn’t be able to follow--”

  He didn’t need to finish. Ginger knew his line of thought, more than likely. Precipitation so far behind wasn’t her greatest concern. Where she’d been grateful for corners, she’d surely loathe shadows for the rest of her life. She really, truly had no idea how long it had been there.

  It couldn’t have been long at all, if they were still standing. The worst reds Ginger had ever seen didn’t make it up the stairs, nor did they need to. It wasn’t as though they’d gotten that far, either. The form on her right declined to lunge, nor twitch, nor move in the slightest. It did, if nothing else, stare in the way she’d learned them to. Ginger had no door to interrupt her view, for once. It was taller than Ezekiel, too.

  Their gap couldn’t have been more than four feet. She had a feeling it wouldn’t matter, in a minute. They’d outrun one, granted, and it would’ve been splendid to do it twice. Ginger only had two arms. She desperately didn’t want to use the same tactic again, if it was even an option. Given the choking dread on Ezekiel’s face as he trembled, she doubted it had even crossed his mind.

  She might’ve been in denial. The origin bothered her more than it should’ve, at first. It took her precious seconds she didn’t have to track down the study, buried in darkness all too near. The attic had been spared of broken hinges to an innocent door. That room hadn’t. Ginger had her explanation, for whatever it was currently worth.

  She really did wish the Precipitation would make noise. Her breaths were loud. Her heartbeat was five times louder than that. If Ginger strained, she could possibly make out Ezekiel’s. She wondered, briefly, if time itself had stopped.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  She considered holding her breath outright. It was almost definitely too late. For at least three seconds, she did. Precipitation was still there. Ginger exhaled, and she gave up on the idea.

  Ezekiel had the capacity to speak, somehow. She couldn’t fathom how. “Ginger,” he murmured shakily at last, “go inside, shut the door, and run up there. Don’t look back.”

  Ginger had the luxury of blinking. He didn’t try. “What?”

  Ezekiel found his tears again. The rest of him shook, too. “Whatever you do, don’t look back,” he reiterated.

  The thick esua that rolled down his cheeks didn’t make sense. Ginger pushed, for better or worse. “What are you talking--”

  “Please run.”

  “What--”

  “Please, please run, okay?”

  “Ezekiel--”

  “For me,” he insisted atop quickening breaths of his own. “For me. I need you to run.”

  Ginger really wished he’d blink. She wished he’d let her speak. She wished he’d stop, beyond that. Either it wasn’t clicking, or she refused to let it. “No,” she said simply, bluntly.

  Maybe she was numb in other places, too. Ezekiel carried enough agony for both of them. “I’m begging you,” he pleaded. “I won’t ask you for anything else, okay? Just this.”

  Ginger had wondered how long it would take a red form to twitch. Jolting fingers were enough. Quick breaths evolved into gasps. “Just this!” Ezekiel repeated, louder.

  He never tore his eyes from the Precipitation. Ginger never tore her eyes from him, then. Even so, she took precisely one stumbling step towards the stairs. “Come on,” she argued, her own voice wavering. “We need to go.”

  She wasn’t sure how many more steps she’d need to take, on further thought. It was definitely more than a few. There was still a door to close. Her gap didn’t mean much. Stubbornness was as permanent as it was necessary. “Ezekiel, we need to go!” Ginger almost cried.

  She hardly cared who heard anymore. Ezekiel didn’t scold her. He stammered, mostly. “I-I love you,” he added. “I love Mom, and Dad, and Anabel, and I need you to tell them--”

  Ginger was tempted to grab the collar of his shirt and drag him along anyway. With certainty, she knew what would’ve come of it. It was better than leaving him to collapse into sobs, trembling hard enough that she expected his knees to give out. Not so long ago, the world had blurred over physical pain. She couldn’t stop it from flickering again.

  “Ezekiel, stop it!” she shouted.

  “Tell them!” Ezekiel wept, each syllable dissolving instantly. “I love you! I love all of you!”

  The second twitch of false fingers was beyond Ginger’s control. Everything was beyond her control. She had too many arguments to make, shoved into her throat by a palm that wasn’t there. Ezekiel had more to say, too, probably.

  She’d never forget the look on his face for as long as she lived--if she did. For all they’d lost to a hellish storm, Ezekiel stole the right to lunge.

  Terror was an understatement. Ginger didn’t want to label whatever was in his eyes, nor could she if she tried. He wailed all the way there, strangling dread fueling a broken promise. Ginger had her turn with quiet, between the two of them. She spun on her heel the second he took off, and she refused to watch any of it.

  He’d made her swear she’d do that much. Were she to disobey him, after all of that, she may as well have turned around and flung herself at Precipitation in turn. Ezekiel gave her so many blessings in the form of spare seconds, by which the stairs were hers to claim as she bolted. He gave her so many curses, too. Even with her eyes forever forward, the sickening crack behind Ginger would be burned into her ears for life.

  She’d long since burst into tears. It was a miracle that she could fumble for the doorknob at all, let alone close the door itself with a shred of quiet. As to how long the Precipitation would leave her be, Ginger had no idea. As to whether or not locking the door would do anything, she was just as clueless. She fumbled for the same lock in pitch-blackness, shaky fingers securing a soft click at last. She preferred that sound to all else. She still couldn’t wash out the others.

  The second Ginger had isolation and smothering darkness, she nearly lost consciousness. She was, without a doubt, moving on instinct. If it weren’t for a promise that echoed far too fresh, she wouldn’t have bothered with stumbling, nor scrambling, nor clawing her way up stairs lost in shadows.

  Ezekiel had been serious about the lack of light. Ginger couldn’t make out a shred of it, left to ascend in utter Hell. Scraping at the wood hurt her nails as much as it did her arm, shooting pains leaving her ablaze with every motion. She wished she cared more.

  She was convinced the stairs were endless, honestly. Ginger could fault the dark, if she wanted to. She could fault an attic she’d neglected for too long. She could fault death, if she’d been sentenced to a special kind of agony. She would’ve matched with four more people so beloved, probably. That might’ve been for the best.

  It wasn’t that she was ignoring Ezekiel, nor that she didn’t care. In a way, she was jealous. He’d gotten to go with them. She was stuck with whatever this was. Ginger could hardly tell up from down anymore. Still, if she really gave her best effort, she could likely find her way to the bottom of the stairs again.

  Tracking down Precipitation wouldn’t have been hard, at that point. It was better than being alone. Ginger wondered if it hurt.

  She estimated at least two eternities before she staggered her way onto solid flooring. Where the air opened above her and the room widened at last, she still had no light at her disposal. Again, Ginger kicked herself for not coming up here more often. All that she remembered was outdated, to some degree. Dad had just rearranged the attic two weeks ago.

  In that way, the tiniest crack in the ceiling--stray Rain be damned--might’ve been to her benefit. To be fair, the sun had long been robbed from Raverna at large. Ginger had as much Rain as she wanted, in terms of the sound. A Tempest that raged forever beat against the roof violently enough that she was convinced it would cave. She’d get her sporadic sky, possibly.

  At least it wasn’t utterly silent, lest she lose her mind for the next who-knew-how-long. It was her own fault for begging. If there was Precipitation up here, somehow, it had spared her for the ten seconds she’d stood idle and melted in place. Ginger bet on further loneliness. In that case, she fumbled yet more.

  She went with the arm that hadn’t been annihilated. Given how much Dad had messed with, there were fixtures that she recognized by the feel alone. The dresser had stayed. Mom’s old chest was there, likely still stuffed with clothes too small. They hadn’t set up the pots yet, nor the seeds that went with them. That was Ezekiel’s job, if he’d wanted his internship so badly. Ginger had meant to scold him for procrastinating. She had no one left to scold.

  She didn’t recognize whatever cabinet she managed to squeeze herself behind, nestled far in a corner and lost to the world. If she could’ve made herself smaller, she would’ve. If she could’ve crumbled to ash altogether, that was just as much of an option.

  The soft clump of linens Ginger bumped into on her left didn’t smell wonderful. She doubted any of it was clean, and she questioned how long everything had been up here. Should the Tempest last for the rest of the day--or longer--at least she’d have a place to sleep. In the worst-case scenario, she’d have somewhere comfortable to curl up and die.

  The pillow was helpful, unsanitary or otherwise. The size was decent, although pulling it into her grasp with one functional arm was tricky. She so desperately needed it, and the effort was essential.

  In truth, Ginger couldn’t decide whether she needed to muffle anything, at this point. She hardly cared. If she really wanted to be safe, her best bet would’ve been holding her breath again. As to how long she’d need to, she couldn’t begin to guess. Instead, she slammed her face hard into filthy fluff, and she screamed.

  And screamed.

  And screamed.

  She screamed harder.

  She screamed louder.

  Ginger screamed until her throat ached.

  She screamed until she was confident it was bleeding.

  She choked on air she didn’t have, suffocating of her own accord. She screamed anyway.

  Her vocal cords hurt as bad as her arm. She didn’t know which one was worse, actually. She screamed.

  Between her arm and her head and her heart and her entire existence, a swirling pool of pain caught on the winds of a storm, Ginger had given up on choosing which one would kill her first. She screamed.

  She had school tomorrow. She didn’t have clothes left to wear to school. She didn’t have a brother left to walk her to school. She screamed.

  Ginger didn’t have anyone left to come home to afterwards. She screamed.

  She couldn’t see her arm in the dark. She didn’t want to, necessarily. It had taken long enough to consider the consequences of a dirty pillow scraping against a wound much too vulnerable. If she got sick, she got sick. Ginger screamed for two reasons.

  At what point she’d ended up on the floor was beyond her. The linens really were a plus, cushioning what was left of her as she shuddered and burned to cinders. Ginger ran out of screams, whether or not she wanted to. They collapsed into sobs, eventually, heavy and broken in line with everything else in the house. She had agony for company. She had a storm for company, screaming overhead on her behalf.

  If the roof caved, that would no longer be a bad thing. When the world grew soft, Ginger was convinced she’d died.

  She’d been waiting for a ruined home to give way forever. Distant banging, cyclic and endless, hurt her ears. If it was inevitable, she wished it would just happen. Waiting was a chronic torture. Ginger had long since lost the energy to scream, let alone sob. Unconsciousness had been her next option. There was a non-zero chance she’d already ended up there once.

  If she strained, she really had run out of pounding noise overhead. Whatever it was, it was forward. She couldn’t reach it, nor did she try. Choking in the dark was easier.

  “Dispatch division!”

  It was muffled. It was still far. She was, possibly, hallucinating. Even if it was real, Ginger didn’t care enough.

  A bang much louder than the others didn’t scare her as much as she’d thought it would. She had little interest in living anymore, fueled by instinctive self-preservation alone. Ginger had never stopped to consider her luck, as to making it up here unscathed. Locked door or not, plenty of others had been broken. She’d never formally blamed a storm. At this point, it didn’t matter, and she was all but positive a door once sealed burst clean off its hinges.

  Mom and Dad were going to be angry about that part. There might not have been anyone left to be angry. Never had Ginger wished so badly to be in trouble, nor privy to screams of a different kind.

  “Dispatch division!” she heard again, louder.

  The footsteps were louder, too. She was confident there was more than one set. Precipitation didn’t make noise--the red kind, if she’d learned anything today. She could rule that out, then.

  “Is anyone up here?”

  Ginger had been trapped in the dark for so long that light had become a foreign concept. Brilliant beams swept into the room, one after another. Even scattered as they were, crawling along the floor and prodding at dusty fixtures, they sufficed to hurt her eyes, instead. For at least a moment, she squeezed them shut.

  They wouldn’t stop saying it. She’d already gotten the idea. “Raverna dispatch division,” she heard yet again. “Is anybody in here?”

  Ginger cracked her eyes open at last, struggling to adjust to the array of flashlights besieging the attic. If she kept her mouth shut, she wondered if she could die in peace. Still, their steps echoed plenty, and those scattered in turn. She doubted she could hide forever.

  She gave in, and she accepted salvation she wasn’t sure if she deserved. Crawling out was harder than concealing herself had been. “I am,” Ginger barely croaked, clawing her way up the back of the cabinet.

  She pushed her way through tight spaces and stumbled out into stray beams, leaning against the wall for support. The glint of light along sheathed enathium was even worse. Overstimulated and exhausted, her head was pounding harder every second. Ginger shielded her eyes with one weak hand.

  She didn’t want to know what she looked like. Enough eyes snapped to her arm in unison. Of the four men who’d invaded her home, one turned towards the steps and sent his voice tumbling down. “Unaccompanied child!” he shouted. “Alive! Injured! Call for the medics!”

  “Where?”

  The voice that screamed back was far from professional. It was raw, desperate, steeped in panic and immune to further enathium. Where each unit had climbed the steps with care, a different woman sprinted up the stairs fast enough to stumble. False rays blocked her, somewhat. Her tone was unmistakable, beautiful in every way. Ginger was officially positive that she was dead.

  She got her own name the moment their eyes met, carried on frantic shouts and sobs. “Ginger!” her mother screeched, bolting into the attic. “Ginger! Ginger! Ginger!”

  It was the first time she’d heard it in a while. She tried not to remember the last. Ginger didn’t have a choice, really. She wondered if Mom had already found him.

  She appreciated that Mom was careful with her arm, whether or not she understood the context. She threw her own arms around Ginger with care, clinging tightly as she pulled her daughter’s head to her chest. “Oh my God,” her mother wailed, shaking all the while. “Oh my God.”

  She alternated, in terms of panicked sentiments and misery born of relief. Ginger had asked for this much, granted. It should’ve felt better. She should’ve returned the gesture with what working limbs she had left. She should’ve cried, maybe, if she could find any more tears to offer.

  The same panic, then, painted a picture she loathed. Ginger had already known about Ezekiel. She no longer needed to ask about Dad and Anabel, apparently. Again, she was tempted to join them. She wondered if Mom felt the same. She wondered if she could ask the Tempest to come back. Supposedly, they were rare. God couldn’t have hated her more, in that case.

  Wounds were irrelevant. In saving Ginger, Ezekiel might’ve punished her, instead. Survival, too, was a punishment of its own.