It was raining cats and dogs that day, Josie woke up to this dankly and damp day feeling crappy as ever. Josie was the most ordinary person in the doomed world where everybody sought refuge in lunacy. Her beauty couldn't be covered by the shabby clothes she was wearing, with her long silky hair braided in one ponytail. Her eyes were so deep as if they would never spit out the person who dived into them. The world was a lot more different than the one she used to know in her teenage days, buildings destroyed beyond recognition, a desert in the middle of the city, fewer people on the streets to avoid the scorching sun and, likewise, the few people left on the world she was without her loved ones. She waiting for a rainy day for almost a year but it wasn't as refreshing as she thought it would be. She felt as if the rain would wash away whatever was left inside her like magic but that wasn't the case. She was spacing out when she noticed that the rain wasn't just the rain she expected after all.
"Hey, wake up. Wake up!!!", she screamed at the top of her lungs to the little boy who was sleeping next to her. "We have to move.", she started packing their stuff or whatever was left of them in this world.
The boy was very young around ten. He was looking at her with the most shiny eyes looking like a little prince when she first saw him, with his round pale face. When she looked into the kid's eyes, she felt like her soul was melting.
"Jo…", he was confused as she was packing hastily.
"The storm is coming, it's very close. I was, I was...Just get up, will you?" she was rambling.
"Sure, you are the boss.", Liam answered with his half-closed eyes. "OH MY GOD!!!", Liam saw the storm approaching their hideout.
"Yeah, we should move now, NOW.", he joined Josie in panicking. They have been staying in the basement of a half-destroyed building for the past three weeks. This was the longest they stayed in one place. Every time they find a place to settle down, they run into someone trying to kill them to take whatever they have food, clothes, or water. It wasn't a matter of affordance to get those things anymore, it was finders, keepers.
Josie was agile, her father started teaching her boxing when she turned ten. She knows how to defend herself but with Liam on her side; it was always better to avoid that kind of situation.
"The water…", Liam watched the buckets full of rainwater as they started to leave, thinking it could get them through months.
"Yeah, well. Better luck next time.", Josie smiled to make Liam feel better.
"There might not be next time."
"You know, you are too pessimistic for a kid.", she was teasing Liam.
"And you are too bright for this world.", Liam never backed down in their fight.
They started walking in the rain towards God knows where. They couldn't recognize any of the places they had been to, nor where they were now. They walked for about three hours without a destination until they couldn't see the storm. They were both drained especially Liam with his asthmatic condition. He was slowly falling behind.
Josie came walking towards him, "Hey, kiddo. Are you good?", she sweetly looked down as he flopped down on his knees. "Yeah, I feel like the cargo of osmium is pressing my lungs.", he answered while gasping seeing the uphill ahead with daunting eyes.
"Keep your science class out of my life, Liam. I think we have to rest here for a few." They were in the middle of nowhere they couldn't find a single place with shade, and the sweltering heat of the sun was eating them. "I can't believe, it was raining just a while ago, how come there is no middle for this weather?", Liam was almost at his limit.
"Wait here, I will look for a shade.", Josie started climbing the dune. Reaching the peak after a few minutes, she started looking for a place where they could catch their breath. But before she took out her binoculars, she was already smiling.