She couldn't decide whether the sirens were louder than her own heartbeat. She hated both. She was powerless to stop the former.

  She was amazed that the Rain hadn't started yet, in truth. She was used to it being quicker, and she was used to running slower. It wasn't that Standard gave no cause for concern. Ezekiel wouldn't tell her what Tier Four meant.

  No matter how many times Ginger had begged for an explanation, he'd only pulled at her wrist and yanked her around so many corners. She would've run home on her own, with or without him. It might've been by sheer luck that Ezekiel was there, lest her urgency suffer. Panic on every side helped. She had no idea why people were screaming.

  He didn't release Ginger from his iron grip until he'd dragged her to their porch, practically kicking the door open on his way in. Mom should've yelled at him over it. Mom was, for sure, yelling. It had nothing to do with aggression.

  "Ezekiel!" she shouted, unseen.

  Ezekiel still found room to usher Ginger indoors, fast enough to nearly trip her. Even as he slammed the door shut behind them, the sirens still bled through the wood. "I'm here!"

  "Where the hell were you?"

  "I have Ginger!" he called across the house instead, flicking the lock shut. "We were playing down the road with--"

  "Is that Ezekiel?"

  "Bolt the windows!" her mother cried.

  Dad wasn't much better. Between the two of them, Ginger wasn't sure which one was louder. "It's not going to help!" he argued.

  Ginger was afraid to take her shoes off. She didn't. The furthest she got was scuffing them against the mat as Ezekiel dashed into the kitchen. "What's going on?" Ginger asked aloud.

  She didn't care who answered, at this point. Anabel was crying, somewhere, and she considered crying, too. "Ginger, come here," her mother demanded. "Now."

  She hadn't thought she'd done anything wrong. The sirens had started up. She'd run home. That was the deal. Short of not being minutes earlier, Ginger wasn't sure what she could've done differently. She still took tentative steps into the kitchen anyway, and she tried to ignore the first taps of Rain against the panes.

  She couldn't even watch. Ezekiel slammed the curtains shut, for whatever that was worth. Why he was rushing towards the spice shelf was beyond Ginger. She never got to ask, and hands clamped down onto her shoulders first. "Ginger," her mother said, softer, "I need you and Ezekiel to go into the basement. Your father will take Anabel. I’ll be down there as soon as I can."

  "But tell me what's going on!" Ginger whined, her voice wobbling.

  Ezekiel had thrown his entire body weight against the shelf, on further inspection, shoving it across the tile inch by inch. Only when he brought it to a stop in front of the window was he satisfied, fighting to catch his breath. If there was anyone Ginger was tempted to beg for an explanation, it was him.

  Mom finally tried. "Ginger," she began, "do you remember your tiers? From school?"

  Maybe that was why she was in trouble. Bubbling esua was beyond her control. "I don't know," she confessed. "I know Standard."

  "This is a different one," her mother insisted urgently, gentle or otherwise. "This--"

  "Tier Four," Ginger said through a sniffle. "Ezekiel said it's Tier Four."

  She still wasn't actually sure what that meant. Anabel's wailing was stressful. This whole situation was stressful, and the panic on Ezekiel's face was starting to terrify her. Mom wasn't immune. No amount of delicate explanations served to hide dread. "That's right. Good job. Tier Four is really dangerous, okay? We have to be--"

  "Naira, we need to go, damn it!"

  "I'm coming!" her mother snapped towards the salon.

  Ginger didn't even register the Rain as Rain, once it swelled. Whatever was hitting the roof was awful, violent to the point that she wondered if it would give way. It was to say nothing of wind she could hear. There had been a Thunderstorm on Mom's birthday, once. Even that paled in comparison to the howling outside. It paired horrifically well with sirens.

  Ginger still had hands on her. "We have to be careful," her mother insisted on a jumbled breath. "We have to hide, and we have to let the dispatch units do their job. It's not like the Thunderstorm. The Rain is--"

  For a split second, the kitchen flickered into black. Ginger found light, and she lost it just as fast. Thrice over, the power flashed. It died when it died. She wondered if Mom could feel her shivering in the dark.

  "Naira!" her father screamed.

  Ginger didn't get to object. Ezekiel was there, too, and his own palm landed on Mom's shoulder in turn. "Let's go," he practically begged.

  "Take Ginger!" her mother begged back, pushing the girl towards him accordingly. "I'm right behind you!"

  The world was spinning too fast for Ginger to walk straight, let alone run. Had Ezekiel not thrown his hand around her wrist again, she surely would've stumbled and collapsed for good. She wasn't sure at what point she'd slipped into tears in earnest. Ezekiel was the one to clue her in, steeped in his own fear or otherwise.

  "Don't cry," he said softly, dragging her along all the while.

  Ginger didn't bother wiping at her eyes. "I don't know what's going on," she complained again.

  "Where's Anabel?"

  "I've got her! Come on!"

  She was hard to miss. She'd never once stopped crying, and Ginger couldn't blame her. She couldn't see Dad across the salon, nor down the hallway. Black as the sky was outside, she could hardly see anything in here at all. Ezekiel was her lifeline. Ginger nearly tripped over the rug anyway.

  "The sirens said it's Tier Four," he himself offered. "They haven't had that in hundreds of years. It's really, really rare. Nobody's gotten to study it much."

  Ginger followed him past her bedroom. "Why is it rare?"

  That might've been a silly question. It came out anyway. Whatever got Ezekiel to talk made her feel better. "It just is. It's strong, and it lasts a long time, and the records say that the Precipitation is horrible."

  Something was rattling. Ginger couldn't tell what, nor where. It was loud enough to make her feel sick. "When was the last one?"

  "170 years ago. In Kovire. A bunch of researchers got to see it by the ocean. Not a lot of them survived. The ones that did said it was the worst Rain they ever saw."

  There were a lot of things rattling, actually.

  Anabel was a waypoint, and following her cries was easy. Ginger still hated that she hadn't laid eyes on the baby since she'd gotten home. The same went for Dad. At the moment, she could hardly lay eyes on anything. "How do you know all of this?"

  It would've been a miracle if Ezekiel managed a smile. The pride in his voice was enough. "I nailed that test," he bragged. "Highest score in the class. History isn't even hard. I have more trouble with--"

  Bang after bang after bang was explosive and synchronized. Ginger screamed, screeching to a halt alongside her brother. Whether or not she knew the origin, Ezekiel reached to shield her head in an instant. Somewhere far off, Mom screamed, too. Ginger was terrified to look up.

  Ezekiel's room was on her right, if she found the courage. He hadn't had the chance to shut his door, either. Glass littered his floor in excess, and the curtains had outright torn from the rod. Ginger was amazed the latter had even stayed up.

  Impossible gusts terrorized all else, as did the Rain that soaked his carpet. She immediately mourned the medical books at his bedside--let alone the rest of his mattress. Already, everything had grown drenched and stained in the time it took her to blink.

  For that, she also wanted to cry. Ginger wondered if she was currently suffering the same in her own room. She'd had a report due tomorrow, penned with love in careful handwriting. She couldn't remember if she'd put it in her drawer. The concept of starting over was incredibly frustrating.

  "Ginger!" she heard from afar, desperate and frantic.

  "We're okay!" Ezekiel yelled back. "The windows blew out! We're fine!"

  "Where's your father?"

  Seeing Mom would've been a good start. Ezekiel pushed, anyway. "I think they're in the basement! I don't hear Anabel! Are you okay?"

  Ginger hadn't even realized the lack of a baby's cries until after the fact. For as grueling as the sound had been, silence was worse. Mom's hesitation was unnerving in and of itself. "I'll be fine! Just...keep going! Something hit me when the windows burst!"

  She saw Ezekiel wince. "Do you want me to--"

  "Take Ginger!" she shouted. "Now!"

  "Be careful!" he shouted in return, pulling at Ginger once more.

  If Ginger had had her way, they would've gone back. Being separated was crushing in general. She considered pleading, and yet she doubted Ezekiel would oblige her. Ideally, they'd be together soon enough. She swiped at her eyes again with one feeble palm, and she tried not to choke on pressure that slowly seeped into a broken home.

  She thought about hunting for comfort from Ezekiel again. Even his voice would've been plenty. True concern made for a solid excuse, in the end. “Dad doesn’t have his medicine,” Ginger whimpered.

  If Ezekiel realized the same, he didn’t panic. He only tugged and ran, now and forever. Ginger couldn’t fathom his calm--if that was what she could even call it. “He’ll be fine,” he said. “He took it this morning. He can get it later.”

  She struggled to peer over her shoulder and up far-off stairs. She failed, and she did little more than strain her neck. “The windows,” Ginger protested. “What if all of it gets ruined? He’s supposed to take it tonight, too.”

  And still, Ezekiel wouldn’t indulge her fears. He wouldn’t do anything more than drag her down a darkened hall, bound for one basement alone. “Then we can tell one of the dispatch units. They should have medics on standby after this. They’ll be able to help.”

  She wasn’t sure what “after this” consisted of. She was afraid to ask, and protesting further was a reflex. “If we go check on the--”

  Ginger got as far as one vague gesture towards a distant bedroom. When Ezekiel screeched to a halt, she had no choice but to do the same. With her hand locked tight in his own, it was a miracle Ginger didn’t lose her balance altogether. Focused as Ezekiel had been, stillness was ten times more unnerving. Red was one thousand times worse than even that.

  For the briefest moment, she thought Dad had given up on the basement entirely. Logically, there shouldn’t have been more than five people in the house. None of them should’ve lacked a face, let alone skin, let alone any color adjacent to natural flesh.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Ginger had seen Precipitation in passing, on unluckier days. She’d never witnessed it up close, and she’d never personally laid eyes on forms that weren’t brown. At least it was easy to keep track of, versus shades that could’ve blended into the shadows.

  In the strangest way, it was almost fascinating to watch. It moved like a human, although she was positive it wasn’t. Her intruder had the capacity to round a corner she’d been headed for herself, slow steps just barely unnatural. Ginger couldn’t pin down precisely why.

  She didn’t get to try, nor did she get to inspect it further. Again, the hand glued to her own tugged harder than she could resist. For once, Ezekiel led her anywhere but the basement, dashing the way he’d come with a terrified sibling in tow. The second time around, Ginger really did stumble.

  She had too many questions to ask him. She was mostly concerned with not crashing to the floor, her shoes crunching over cracked glass that lay scattered below. She almost hit the wall as Ezekiel pulled her around the corner, whisked into shadows and scraping the masonry along the way. On the cusp of darkness, she had the leeway to look back.

  Ideally, nothing else had the leeway to look at her. Ginger wasn’t ignorant to a faceless gaze that snapped in her direction, scarlet glaring her down from afar. It hadn’t cared several seconds ago, to her knowledge. If it was still staring, she never would’ve known. She didn’t want to.

  Ominous as shade was, she at least had company. Ezekiel led her as deep into pitch-blackness as he could manage, his shoulders heaving with something more than exertion. Where Ginger had rescinded her attention, Ezekiel’s own darted behind him too many times over. It took her a moment to pin down why.

  She hesitated to ask, regardless. “Did you see--”

  “Hush,” Ezekiel hissed in a whisper, lifting one stifling finger to his lips. “Keep your voice down.”

  The implications were enough to make her heart pound just a bit harder. Ginger still obliged, and she finally found the courage to press. “Can it hear us?”

  Again, he tossed his eyes behind him. They kept muffled shadows alone, free of red and home to two siblings. “I don’t know.”

  When Ezekiel inched his way along the wall, bound for a hallway more than compromised, Ginger was beyond tempted to drag him back into darkened safety. At the very least, he didn’t object to her companionship. “I’ve never seen it before,” he went on, just as terribly soft. “Barely anyone has.”

  Double-checking was a huge risk in and of itself. Ginger had no idea where Ezekiel found the bravery to do it. Somehow, he managed, and he peered beyond smothering shadows into the depths of the corridor. He stayed silent all the while. In that case, she felt justified following suit. Squirming between him and the masonry was difficult, and yet she managed anyway. She tossed her gaze down the hall in turn, stinging red she prayed wouldn’t sting her back.

  It never turned towards them again. Ginger earned only the figure’s back, if not aimless steps to match. As to where it was headed, ambling deeper into a broken home, she couldn’t tell. That it would look to her was bad enough. The concept of Precipitation blighting those who’d already run was even worse.

  It took effort to slink back into her corner-turned-shelter. To her immense relief, Ezekiel came along, and he never strayed more than inches from her side--nor did his hand unfurl from her own. Ginger repaid him in quiet tones. “How do we get to the basement?”

  “I don’t think we can,” Ezekiel confessed.

  “Dad,” she tried instead. “What about Dad? And Anabel?”

  Ginger couldn’t fight the tiniest wobble in her voice as she said it. Ezekiel squeezed her hand reassuringly. “They’ll be okay. They went before us. They’re…already down there.”

  He couldn’t stop the tremble in his tone, either. It was new. Ginger didn’t like it, and she didn’t enjoy the same against her fingers.

  Ezekiel inhaled slowly instead, his breath rattling in the process. “Take off your shoes,” he finally said.

  She tensed. “Why?”

  Already, he was shuffling his way out of his own. “I don’t want us making more noise than we have to. Just…watch your step. There’s stuff all over the floor.”

  Ginger wasn’t thrilled about the idea of glass through her skin. Given the alternative, she doubted she had a choice--provided he was onto anything. She swallowed her protests and kicked off her shoes one by one, resigned to socks against wood too dirty. The concept of splashing through Rain, possibly, was deeply uncomfortable. Dark as the house was, she wondered if she’d even notice the puddles.

  Mom had just bought those two weeks ago. In a perfect world, she’d be able to get them back later. The minute Ginger was liberated of flats she’d miss, Ezekiel tugged at her hand yet again. He shunned a barred basement altogether, dashing down halls they’d just sped through. For once, he declined to look back, his eyes cast only forward into the dark. If nothing else, it was all he had to contend with. Should she have seen red twice over, idle before paths they so desperately needed to take, Ginger’s heart would’ve exploded.

  Watching her step without guiding lights was nigh impossible. Speed didn’t help. Prayer was the best she could do, and she hoped she didn’t end up with sharp objects spearing into her feet. It was one more fear she had in a home flooded with the same. Muffled footsteps or not, she dreaded the idea of an audible sprint. Beyond that, she dreaded the idea of anything else that could hear her. Raising her voice as she ran was a gamble. “Are there more of them inside?” Ginger asked anyway.

  Ezekiel never slowed his pace for a second, nor did he turn to face her. “I don’t know,” he admitted again, “but we need to stay away from the windows.”

  The tears were instinctive. Ginger never set them free, and yet they swelled anyway. At the very least, there was little that could blur in the dark. “All of the windows already broke,” she whimpered. “I don’t think it matters.”

  She almost wished Ezekiel would argue with her. When he didn’t object, it took everything Ginger had to swallow a bubbling sob. Finding the will to run was already hard enough. “What are we supposed to do?”

  In motion, it was difficult to tell if he was actually shaking. Ginger could’ve sworn she felt his hand trembling around hers again. If she caught sight of his face, it would’ve answered plenty. In truth, she didn’t want to know. “We’re gonna go to the attic,” Ezekiel offered at last. “There’s no windows up there. And we can barricade the entrance after we get inside.”

  She didn’t hate the concept. It had just as many holes in it as everything else. Ginger burst free from a cramped hallway and into a salon equally dark. In the time she’d spent bound for a basement, the winds of a Tempest had laid waste to too much. She was amazed the curtains were still attached to the rung, and she was amazed that rung was still attached to the wall.

  They’d fared better than those in Ezekiel’s room, then. They’d been colorful, once. Now, splattered by soaking Rain, Ginger doubted she’d ever be able to wash out the worst of stains. The carpet wasn’t much better off. If the house withstood the storm, Mom would come back to destructive filth. Ginger absolutely hated the idea.

  She hated a ruined couch. She hated frames that had long since fallen from the wall and shattered to pieces. She hated a clock cresting noon forever, broken and frozen in time. She’d already given up on counting her way through an awful storm. In truth, she wondered what she’d give up on next.

  There was no real reason to head for the kitchen, short of hunting for a missing mother. Socks that slowly grew soggy against a wet floor were her one reminder of volume concerns. Even so, Ginger was tempted to shout until her lungs burned. She was tempted to check, at least, in quiet or otherwise. Twice over, scarlet didn’t belong.

  She only caught it for a moment, the faintest flash of red tucked behind the dining table. The second time around, it didn’t see her--fleetingly or otherwise. Her gasp was still instinctive, as was the way her grip tightened around Ezekiel’s. She mentally thanked the distance, and she thanked a banister that served to obstruct her view. Ezekiel almost ran into it himself as he bolted right, dragging her along and sweeping her towards the stairs.

  He clamped one hand over his mouth. Ginger still couldn’t even prove this was a problem. She was pretty sure Ezekiel’s shoulders weren’t moving at all, short of whatever came with running. Still, she held her breath, too.

  One form at her far-off back was bad enough. Two was damning. Ginger officially feared existing, and the same went for ascending. Ezekiel refused to surrender the steps, regardless, practically shoving her onto the wood. She stumbled, she smacked her knees against rounded edges, and she stifled a yelp of pain. She couldn’t afford it, and it floated somewhere in a breath still stowed. The same, yet again, went for miserable tears.

  It was, possibly, cruel of her to object any further. Ezekiel was doing his best. She couldn’t decide when she was supposed to exhale. In the end, breathing out was a gamble. “Mom is--”

  “She’s fine,” Ezekiel whispered.

  He’d done the same, at some point, with or without red possibly at their back. Ginger felt justified, then. “She didn’t make it to the basement,” she whispered in return, sharper. “She was behind us.”

  “She’s smart. She found somewhere to hide.”

  A whisper became the quietest shout she could manage. “You don’t know that!” Ginger insisted.

  She deserved the same. “Yes I do! Focus on us right now! Everything’s fine!”

  So near to Ezekiel, borderline prone on the stairs, light was irrelevant. For the first time in the sickest Rain, his eyes shimmered to match her own. “Everything will be fine,” he reiterated, softer.

  It was one of the only times ever, really. Ginger could count the rest on her fingers, if she sifted through his entire life. In the worst possible place, she finally found something more terrifying than Precipitation.

  He didn’t bottle it up and stuff it into his heart so much as he did hold it back. Ginger wondered if he’d crumble to ashes before she did. For now, Ezekiel rescinded his hand from hers, and he laid it to rest atop tethered hair demonstratively. “Keep your head down.”

  It took her a minute to put together his logic. When he started to climb, Ginger did as she was told. Crawling her way up was difficult, nearly bound to her hands and knees as she scaled the steps. Given her position, she had no leeway to peer behind her in the process. She wasn’t sure if Precipitation could climb stairs in the first place. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

  Each and every time, Ginger hated the way Ezekiel took the lead. He made it to the top before she did, pressed flat against the steps as he peeked at the second floor. It took a moment for him to gesture for her company. “Come on,” he murmured with a tiny wave.

  She obliged. Ezekiel found his footing, he pulled her along, and he steadied her as she arose. Throwing her gaze down the stairs at last was a reflex. Even now, Ginger was free of pursuing red. She inched towards the railing, then, and she silently pleaded for the same. His advice might not have translated to the second floor proper. For what wandered far beneath, she declined to take her chances. She kept her head low.

  Ginger was vaguely aware of Ezekiel’s presence at her side, if not his focus on the same intruders. Between both of them, she wasn’t sure which one was strangling the wood harder. From here, she couldn’t make out the figure that had claimed the kitchen. Ginger was shocked she’d evaded the others on the way up, twofold and aimless. If they were new, freshly invasive through windows long gone, she would’ve believed it. Absent eyes scanned only the floor below, by which neither of them looked to her. Hopefully, they hadn’t heard her in the first place.

  If they’d had a set path, they might’ve been less intimidating. The opposite could’ve been true. She had no clue anymore. If nothing else, it was the best look she’d gotten so far, and Ginger had all the time she wanted to drink in foul scarlet.

  Ezekiel did, too. Elevation be damned, they weren’t invincible. He said as much. “Stay quiet,” he reminded.

  Ginger had no plans otherwise. There was something deeply unsettling about forms that wouldn’t make noise. She wasn’t sure if that would’ve made her feel any better. She still had the ruthless rage of Rain, and she still had winds that howled hard. All of it was preferable to silence. “Okay,” she mumbled.

  Ezekiel gave up on ogling Precipitation eventually. Ginger pried herself away from the same, lest he leave her behind. Where his steps were soft, she fought to keep hers gentle in turn--soggy or not. “As long as the door didn’t break off, we should be fine,” Ezekiel reassured. “If it did, I can probably still block the entrance once we get up the stairs.”

  The floorboards were kind to her. Not so much as a squeak caused a problem. The closest she got to unfamiliar noise was voices she couldn’t make out. They were buried under sirens, mostly, if not muffled by walls lucky enough to stand. Ginger blamed the windows that sat annihilated behind closed doors. Whatever screeching cursed Raverna managed to break into her home, too.

  Too many times over, she lost it as soon as she’d found it. Ginger wasn’t sure if she’d ever heard anyone scream that hard in her life. Even through a bedroom door sealed shut, she earned plenty of opportunities to listen. She didn’t want any of them. They weren’t optional.

  There came the temptation to cover her ears. That would’ve meant forsaking Ezekiel, if not anything else she was supposed to be focusing on. She pinned her eyes to his back as she trailed close behind. “If the door already broke, what happens if the Precipitation got into the attic?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Ginger clenched her fists at her sides. “What if we get up there and--”

  “There’s no power,” Ezekiel said sharply, his voice tinted with a different poison. “And there’s no lights. You need to watch your step on the way up.”

  Had he not peered over his shoulder at last, Ginger would’ve pushed. Ultimately, his gaze was every bit as toxic. It stung much, much harder than she’d expected it to. Where scream after scream still echoed in the town beyond, Ezekiel managed the same with his eyes alone. She wished she could scream, too.

  For the thousandth time, he shoved Ginger’s objections down her throat and into her soul. At what point she’d finally choke was debatable. She tore her eyes from him and let them drift along the walls while she still had them. She really was amazed that the bedroom had stayed intact, although she dreaded the mess that surely awaited inside. Anabel’s room was probably ruined. At least the door was attached, swaying amidst horrid gusts or otherwise.

  Ginger was deeply tempted to salvage what she could, although she doubted they had the time. If she asked Ezekiel, she wondered if he’d indulge her for a moment. The baby had been swept into the chill of the basement without her blanket, and it had been bothering Ginger for the past twenty minutes. She had the warm arms of a father, at least. She was supposed to be asleep, if the clock had been honest. The longer Ginger thought about it, the more miserable she became. She was surprised that that was even possible.

  She never opened the door in full. She succumbed to an aching heart in the slightest, regardless. Either curiosity or sisterly distress sufficed to draw her closer, and she strained to peer inside. There, too, Ginger had no light to work with. The mental imagery of a room so gentle shredded by a storm was enough to leave her nauseous. It wasn’t as though they owned a spare crib. It wasn’t as though Ginger could see it in the first place, nor could she make out a Raverna drenched in agony. She had her screams back, clear as ever through a ruined window.

  “Ginger.”

  She really did consider begging Ezekiel for the chance to save anything at all. She never felt his warmth at her side, in the end. Gazing into the broken dark was terrible. Blinking was a mistake one thousand times worse.

  Each and every time Ginger had laid eyes on red figures, they’d just barely stood out in the shadows. By no means was she lucky. She wasn’t even sure where it had come from, at first--short of the obvious. She lacked the time to cry out, let alone to be afraid. In the sickest way, she was curious about that, instead.

  Someone was shouting her name. They weren’t supposed to, more than likely. Ginger couldn’t tell if she’d slowed time of her own accord, or if time had been kind enough to let her breathe. This was the closest she’d gotten. It was taller than she’d thought it’d be.

  She inhaled once. She held it. It hardly did her any good.