A WOMAN IN A WHITE bloody cloak stood atop the summit of a mountain, looking down at the lands below her.

She was able to discern tall infrastructure made out of glass and concrete and wood and brick.

Long-pitched paths weaved and meandered around these structures. And moving objects zoomed up and down these pitched paths. The hooded woman's cloak whooshed continuously as gusts of strong winds brushed past it.

She lowered her hood; a serene deliberate motion, slivers of relief. "Earth …" she trailed off.

***

It rained heavily: raindrops shooting down from the misty, dark sky.

Bran sat on a chair on the front porch with newspapers in his hands. It was almost seven in the morning and he was awake despite getting close to no sleep in the night at all.

He wasn't reading the newspapers. With his horrible eyes, you couldn't read. Not without a pair of glasses. But Bran … he broke his glasses so he wouldn't see certain things. Things that had been haunting him for months on end.

Jessica threaded through the space in the door, and entered the porch upon which her husband loitered. She plopped down opposite him on a blue, wooden lounger.

"I didn't expect to see you here, Bran," she said, looking at him.

He folded the newspapers and averted his eyes.

"Shouldn't you be getting more sleep?" She looked out at the sky. "I know you're an early bird. But the doctor said you should start getting more rest."

He sighed. "The pain … I couldn't sleep because of it." He knew it wasn't just the pain. It was something else entirely.

"You love it when it rains. Said it makes you sleep better," she said.

"Yeah," Bran said.

Jessica frowned. Although they slept in the same bed, she hadn't been talking to him recently. She'd snap at him in a fight they had concerning their grandson.

"I'm sorry," she said.

Bran glimpsed at her. "For what?"

"I was horrible last week. Very hor—"

"C'mon, don't fret now, Jess," he interjected. "That was a long time ago. You're forgiven. I'm sure Aran forgives you too."

"I was horrible to him, Bran. Pessimistic." She licked her lips. "I told him he would never amount to anything and that he was a 'stubborn little dependent slack'." She shook her head. "I spat on his future too—along with ours."

"You spoke the truth," Bran said. "I didn't like your words but that was because they were so … true. You're right … we'll die soon. And when we do, our grandson will be left alone. You were also right when you said he might join us in heaven shortly after our deaths."

"No," she shook her head, "the last part I regret a lot. Sure he's naive and dependent but I have faith in him again. He'll survive."

"Yes, he will."

"I'm really sorry about last week, Bran. I can't say it enough. I'm sorry. It's just that I've been getting," she shifted her eyes to the wrinkled, calloused hands on her lap, "nightmares."

Bran looked at her with subtly widened eyes. "Really? Nightmares?"

"Yes, Bran," she said, "and they were horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible. I know it's ridiculous that an old woman like me should be haunted by dreams. But it's true. Rain. Storms. A monstrous sky. Monsters. Grief. Tears. Death. I saw all these things … and more.

"But the thing that concerned me most was the fact that it was all," she looked up at Bran with stern eyes, "centered around our grandson."

Bran's eyes locked with hers. They both had terrified looks on their faces. After momentarily staring, he looked away and frowned.

"I've been having nightmares too, Jess," he balled his fists, "and they were all centered around our Aran as well."

***

Aran was walking through the rainy streets without an umbrella. He had a poignant expression on his battered face. His lips were bleeding and his wet jet black hair—dripping water—was wild and disheveled.

He had three fiction books jammed against his chest, stacked atop each other. Though he had six before. Before he'd stumbled across Frank Mill.

Frank Mill was nothing short of a bully. He was once Aran's friend when he had first moved and joined the school but as time went by and he gained sheer popularity, he quickly took a separate path. A path that made him a drug addict and a highschool bully.

Only after Aran ran into him a couple of times, did he realize that he wasn't the only one skipping classes in the last year of highschool.

"At least the rain's gonna wash up some o' this filth," Aran droned. He then touched his face and winced. "Still, it's not gonna do much. Y'just couldn't see me and leave me alone at the cafe, huh, Frank?"

He'd hidden marks and scars and even two tattoos from his grandparents before. A few had gone under the radar but he wasn't so lucky with others.

It was the detected few he had to unearth explanations for. Albeit he had told tales rather than facts, his grandparents mostly believed him … somehow.

When they didn't, they were often frightened to the core—assuming someone was hurting their beloved grandson. Spelling scars, cuts and swollen skin. Little did they know Aran was responsible for the majority.

Aran looked down at his stacked books. He'd left three of them behind which meant he was indebted to the library again.

Given it rained relentlessly, the three he had against his chest were already in horrible condition. He frowned. He'd have to pay for these too and his grandparents' pensions could only do so much.

The Librarian had been growing quite resentful of him recently. After all, he'd been owing, stealing, and destroying books. She was his friend's aunt but she too seemed to grow loathe for him.

Fiction was his only escape. People just didn't understand this.

'Where should I,' he thought, 'go now? Can't go home—they'd kill me if they know I haven't been at school. I'm also lucky the school can't contact grandma since she lost her—'

He knocked shoulders with a passer-by. At that moment, he felt colder. His skin tinged and the books fell and scattered upon the wet, concrete pavement.

"Watch where you're going, dammit!" He snapped, quickly crouching down to pick the books up.

'One.' He picked up the mystery book.

'Two.' He picked up the slice of life.

But there were no more books—just these two.

Aran furrowed his brows and spun around. "He stole my erotica…" he muttered in disbelief.

The thief rounded and disappeared into the corner. Aran hurried down the pavement. He almost slipped on the wet surface but steadied and continued forward.

He meandered round the corner and entered an alley. But from time he did, someone grasped at his clothes.

His assailant slammed him into the brick alley wall.

He dropped the books and raised both his hands in forfeiture. "I just wanted my book!"

The thief released him. He fell to his feet, watching as the figure edged away.

They were in a cloak. An anomalous white cloak. Fantabulous, thick and … white. White as snow. A paradigm of the color.

The figure raised their hands and slowly lowered the hood on their head such that it was at the back of their neck.