The Storm by Pengi
Summary: One couple waits for the end of the storm.

Categories: Original Fiction, Fanfiction > Backstreet Boys Characters: Other
Genres: Angst, Science Fiction, Suspense
Warnings: Death
Challenges:
Series: None
Chapters: 1 Completed: Yes Word count: 830 Read: 562 Published: 03/18/13 Updated: 03/18/13
Story Notes:
This was just a dream I had that I thought I'd transcribe into a short one-shot. It's not really an OF or a FF, it just is. I suppose it could be either, it's up to you who you imagine the narrator to be.

1. The Storm by Pengi

The Storm by Pengi
The storm was loud outside the window. Cold air poured in through the screen. We lay on the mattress, flat on our backs, staring up at the ceiling, watching the shadows move across it like people sometimes lay on their backs in the grass and watch the clouds shift in the sky. She held my hand tightly and I let my eyes close. "Are you afraid?" she asked.

"No," I answered. But secretly I was. Secretly I could barely breathe, the weight of fear was so heavy on my chest that I thought I might explode from it, thought my heart might stop and that maybe I'd crumble to dust.

"I'm excited," she admitted. I opened my eyes and turned my head to look at her. She was staring at me, wide eyes and soft lips, her nose slightly flared, like she was holding back emotion. "I think it'll be an adventure at least," she said, "I've always wanted an adventure like this to happen to me. Ever since I was little and read Tolkien."

I squeezed her fingers. "This is more of a Douglas Adams moment," I said.

A smile threatened her face, her cheeks twitching by the very corners of her mouth. "At least we're together," she said quietly, "Through this."

I nodded.

She closed her eyes and rolled her head back to face the ceiling. "At least we don't have to die alone."

The storm was crashing, thumping, breaking the earth apart. The sirens wailed through the thundering noise of it, warning everyone it was coming, though it had already come. Nobody was there to turn off the sirens, I suppose. We'd go out with them blaring, a last cry of humanity echoing throughout space and time. I imagined the earth spinning through the atmosphere, that tiny siren's wail bouncing off the stars that were pushed out of its way as it went.

"Does it feel colder to you yet?" she asked.

"Not yet," I lied. I didn't want her to feel afraid like I did. Maybe she already felt it, under everything she was saying, under the acceptance she pretended to have. I pictured her putting on a mask, like I was doing, facing me with bravery when really she was trembling. Maybe we were both being brave for the other, neither wanting to be the one who needed to be told it was okay.

I did see her lip tremble, though she probably didn't know I was looking.

"Maybe it's all an elaborate joke," I suggested. It was, after all, April first.

She shook her head. "It can't be a joke," she said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Who would joke about it?" she asked. She opened her eyes again and looked into mine. I was glad because for a moment I'd thought that maybe she wouldn't look at me again, that I'd seen the last of her eyes.

"I don't know," I replied, "Maybe they just wanted to test how we'd react. Like a fire drill."

"That's stupid," she replied.

"No more stupid than the thought of it all being real," I answered. But really it was. She was right, nobody would joke about the end of the world. Nobody would joke about gravity letting us go, about the universe spitting us out like we tasted poorly.

I would've thrown us all away, too.

Outside there was a particularly loud strike that shook the building, rattled the walls, made the glass in the window shatter. She squeaked and laced her fingers through mine, tucked and rolled into me. I wrapped my arms around her. "Oh God," she choked. She sounded strangled. Now that she'd shown her fear, I couldn't show mine no matter what, so I tucked her under my chin and I closed my eyes and I felt my heart pound against my chest and breathed in the smell of her. The sirens wailing stopped and my vision of the sound echoing off stars faded off.

I felt her fingernails dig into my skin.

There was a roaring, like wind, but much louder, and a whistling. It was coming closer. The shadows shifted across the ceiling, like the sun was disappearing. Outside it got darker and darker, the noise louder and louder.

"This is it, isn't it?" she yelled to be heard.

"Maybe," I replied.

"I love you in my soul," she choked.

I couldn't muster words. I couldn't get them to my mouth.

Even if I had by that time the noise was so loud that she would never have heard it anyway. There was a bright flash, a blinding light that illuminated even the darkest corners of the room. I held her so tight against me so that if someone out there, somewhere not on this earth, one day found the wreckage and our remains that they'd know we'd been in love because the way we were intertwined around one another, the way our skeletons were tied in knots when we died.




End Notes:
Maybe one day I'll develop this into more. Probably not, which is why I'm posting this: I thought this one shot came out interestingly enough to share it. I hope you enjoyed it.
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