As omens go, a blood rain isn’t as impressive as a rain of slugs, or the appearance of two moons in the sky, but it’s still important. Omens of any kind usually mean someone is pressing their finger against a supernatural iron just to feel the burn.

  Uncle Doom once told me of an omen he saw where children in a remote village started bleeding from their eyes. Every object that touched the blood ignited at dawn, nearly burning down the entire village.

  He never said if there were any survivors…

  I step out the back door, and Wrath very helpfully pops open an umbrella as we head out into the late summer morning. The umbrella, like most things in the Morecroft home, came from a Victorian era fever dream. It’s a black monstrosity of a parasol with a polished wood handle made of intertwined serpents that ends with a bulbous snake mouth that has devoured the other.

  Though the fabric looks to be black lace, once opened the shade underneath is absolute, blocking all light from coming through. We walk out into the garden, which is a bloodbath of verdant crimson, but both of us are easily covered by the huge canopy.

  The garden opens out to the western side of the house and I head in that direction.

  “What do you think prompted this?” Wrath asks, peering up at the sky.

  The greenery of the garden already has a somber appearance before being splattered with a watery red not unlike rust. Even the dirt begins to transform, as though soaking in the tint and casting a reddish hue. The side of the house gives a clear shot towards the street, and down into Hollow Hills from there. I can’t tell whether or not the city is experiencing this, too, but it’s a safe bet. At least the constituents of Hollow Hills know better than to be alarmed by a dark omen or two. They’ll probably shrug it off before lunch.

  “Are you seeing this?” a voice calls, and Wrath immediately vanishes from my side. The umbrella is suddenly thrust into my hands, and I wobble with the weight for a moment to keep it upright.

  Nico, in a white teeshirt runs up the side of the house and towards me, his shirt stained red and soaked through. By the time he makes it to me, his shirt is plastered to his skin. He has more muscles under his shirt than I probably have in my entire body. He ducks under the umbrella, pressing into my personal space, and I immediately suck in air and stop breathing.

  “It’s raining blood,” Nico says, like I can’t see that for myself. Like I’m not standing outside with Tim Burton’s Nightmare Parasol witnessing that exact same thing.

  “Mmmhmm,” I manage.

  Nico laughs. Laughs! It’s a wondrous sort of bark. “I’ve heard of the sky raining blood before, but I never thought I’d see it for myself!” He holds a hand out from under the umbrella and allows some of the blood to collect against his skin.

  He looks delighted, and again I start to wonder about who this boy is that moved in across the street. A boy who is renovating a haunted house, knows a bit about the supernatural already, but also ran from my house the moment he could escape.

  “Say something,” Wrath whispers invisibly in my ear.

  “Does this happen all the time?” Nico asks.

  “It’ll taper off in a few minutes,” I manage.

  Instead of dying down like I promise, the blood storm picks up, forcing Nico closer. The downpour is a funereal melody against the umbrella, a steady marching beat that matches the thrumming of my heart in my chest. I’m close enough that his body is warm against my side.

  “Lucky I saw you outside,” he says, bending down enough so the umbrella doesn’t brush his head. I blush, then raise my arm higher, but he grins and takes the umbrella from me.

  “Lucky,” I repeat. It’s easier to notice just how broad his shoulders are compared to his waist.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “I knew things were going to be a bit unusual here, but this is something else,” Nico continues. “You didn’t say if this is normal or not.”

  I clear my throat. “It’s not normal. It’s happened before but usually only because something else went wrong first.”

  “Went wrong like a Doom Clock waking up in your basement.”

  “Not like that. It’s usually a warning. Someone’s about to spay a hellhound without asbestos gloves.”

  “So you can stop it?”

  I look at him blankly. The question was automatic, and it takes me a long minute to parse what he’s asking. “Why would I be responsible for stopping it?”

  “I didn’t mean you specifically. More like the general ‘you’. But sure, you too. You know it’s a sign, so shouldn’t you do something?”

  “When you see a house burning down, do you fight it yourself, or wait for the firemen?”

  He holds up his hands and chuckles. “Touché!”

  Maybe it works like that in other places, but Hollow Hills has its own rules. And I always seem to get tangled up in it. Have been ever since I was a little kid.

  I didn’t even know kids around town were disappearing on Halloween night. I only snuck into Mrs. Ashdown’s house because she gave me dental floss instead of candy. Wrath dared me to do it. I accidentally smudged her magic circle, she got sucked into a hellish inferno, and the other kids were freed.

  “It’s more about when someone holds back the good candy.”

  “Huh?”

  I shake my head. Mrs. Ashdown shouldn’t have played favorites, that’s all I’m saying. If she hadn’t, she’d probably still be snacking on second graders with no one the wiser. “Besides, it’s not like the blood rain comes with a forecast of ‘imminent cataclysm on Dover between Clark and Ambrose. Your morning commute may be in trouble.’”

  His lips curl upward in a momentary smile before his eyes widen. “Commute. Oh shit. First day of the semester!”

  I blink in surprise. “You enrolled at HHU?”

  “Obviously. It’s one of the reasons I moved here.”

  “Boy next door and the hot guy on campus,” Wrath whispers in my ear. “He’s just checking all the boxes.”

  “Shut up,” I whisper, and Nico quirks an eyebrow.

  “Sorry?”

  “Not you,” I mutter, but don’t explain.

  The blood storm grows even more severe, and I realize we’re still standing in the yard, under the umbrella, and as the rain begins coming at us horizontal, I gesture Nico towards the front of the house and we walk in tandem until we can climb up onto the porch.

  Once we’re under the porch roof, I let the umbrella fall to the side, but I don’t close it. I just set it down and stare out across the valley and down at the town.

  “And no one freaks out?” Nico asks, coming up to my side. “I thought I’d hear sirens or see people fleeing the county.”

  “To them, it’s just another Monday.” I nod towards the town. “Once the rain stops, it’ll be like it never happened.”

  “But they know it happened.”

  I don’t respond.

  “Fascinating,” he says under his breath. He actually sounds like he means it. “And it’s always like this in Hollow Hills?”

  I shrug. “Bigger things to worry about, I guess.”

  Finally the rain begins to let up, and within a minute or two, the sky lightens and the ground begins to dry.

  “See?” I point out. “Just like I said. By the time you get back to your house, it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

  “If this had happened back in Busan, everyone would be losing their minds,” Nico says.

  “Is that where you’re from? Busan?”

  He nods. “Busan when I was little, and then we moved to Seoul by the time I went to high school.”

  So he’s Korean. I can imagine how much different life was for Nico than it was for me.

  “I’ve lived in Hollow Hills for as long as I can remember. Hiking in the woods, playing tag with the ghosts on Halloween, avoiding the noisy neighbors. Y’know, normal kid stuff.”

  He quirks a brow at that but doesn’t question it. I can see him studying me speculatively again, but he presses down on whatever curiosity is apparent in his eyes. “You have class today? Need a ride?”

  It startles me, and the idea of getting into Nico’s Jeep with him is suddenly an apparent reality hurtling my way.

  “Tell him yes,” Wrath whispers urgently when I fail to respond right away.

  But I shake my head instead and back up towards the front door. “No, no, I’m fine. I prefer getting to school on my own. I cut through the woods. It’s faster.”

  “Than a car?”

  I pretend not to hear the question. “Anyway, looks like it’s lightened up, so you should be able to get home now.” Even Nico’s shirt is starting to fade - both the blood soaking down to his skin, and the moisture itself. Even before he starts to walk away, I lose the view of his torso but the image is still burned into my mind and I want to scream.

  “I’ll see you at school, maybe,” he says, and then heads down the steps and jogs all the way back up to his house.

  “Chicken,” Wrath says, materializing at my side, holding the abandoned umbrella. He folds it up and leaves it leaning against the front door. He disappears, leaving the door open so I can follow.

  Miserably, I head inside.