Young Writers Society

Rain is a bad guy. Through unforeseen circumstances, she is forced to survive with Sarah, a girl who is suffering from a serious illness that causes her to collapse when she exerts herself. Rain is currently attempting to save her through a dangerous procedure that could kill both of them. I must emphasize that Rain is a bad guy, and has shown that through doing some bad things. Keep that in mind. 

The rain outside slanted with the howling wind and smashed against the rock walls of the cavern’s exterior. Lightning illuminated the night and thunder roared. Power beasts screamed in the distance. Gigantic machines crunched stone and melted pure metal with a sizzling hiss. Inside the cavern, blue light suffused the walls and the people inside. Rain stood with her hand on Sarah’s chest. Sarah’s back arched with incredible pain, as Rain blasted her body open with a brilliant flare of color and ecstasy. Tentacles extended from Rain’s hand, squelching out of her palm and injecting themselves into Sarah’s flesh. Sarah’s mouth flipped open and red gas diffused out of her throat, intensifying until the entire room was bathed in deep, blood-colored ochre, the flashes of lightning and the explosion of light bursting from Rain’s hands basking the room in stilted shadows. A burst of energy slammed Rain against the granite wall, so hard that her bones shuddered down to the marrow. She slumped to the ground, her body shivering, her skin icy cold.

Sarah coughed up orange blood with vicious force. The surface of her chest undulated like an egg about to hatch. After a tense moment it settled down and Sarah’s breathing returned to normal. Her body lay still, silent, without any modicum of motion to bring life to her face.

Was Sarah dead? Rain could not tell, for Sarah’s mind-light was dim and hazy, not enough to tell her anything about her connection between the soul and the body. The procedure was one of great danger, a severing of the soul and a reconnection of the body with the mind of the alien, the worm, the great being who lived within the river of time and life and commanded all through his great, omnipresent gaze. Had he spoken? What was the verdict?

Sarah sighed, and her breath came forth normally once again. She breathed slowly, carefully, her entire body moving with each individual rise of her lungs. Her eyes were peaceful, as opposed to the feeling of dread that had cursed her appearance just a minute before. The pain had been great. The ordeal was over. Now it was time for her to recover, and hopefully she would be healed from her sickness.

Rain’s body shimmered with a glazed light, a sheen of luminescence that coated her skin and reflected the flashes of lightning which came at irregular intervals to interrupt her passion. She felt as if a being was speaking to her, telling her something, something of great importance that she must not ignore. She was powerful, she had always been powerful, but she knew she must become more powerful to survive the next couple of months. She knew this now, that she would never return to her old age. She was free and she did not want to change that.

Her strength had been puny. It had been tiny, marvelously inept and unimaginative. Just the strength of body and of skill. She knew she had passed a test, that the powers above were watching over her and had passed a decision on her behalf. She had helped another at the expense of her own safety and her own life. The procedure she had put herself through had torn her body from the inside out. She was losing blood, and fast. Though she had not expected to die, she had expected to lose much of her own power through this process.

Instead, she found her life circuits rewiring. Her body dissolved, slowly, the glossy exterior of light eating her skin and then her muscles until they reached the bone, where instead of dissolving them they replaced them entirely. Rain was now a disembodied soul staring at her own skeleton, formed entirely out of light. Then her flesh began to return. It was not flesh, in the bodily sense, but flesh in the heavenly sense, the meat of the gods. Her skin was placed on last, draped like a curtain over her tissue, covering everything with a silky-smooth perfectly-suppled leather that wasn’t quite living and wasn’t quite dead.

It was an evolution.

Her face and hair were reconstructed last. There were some tiny differences that only she could have noticed. Then there were the bigger changes. Her eyes had changed color, from blazing red to silver white. Her hair returned black, and then it slowly changed color from raven-dark to soft grey to the color of pure snow.

So this was the secret of the awakened ones. She had stumbled upon it. This was the achievement of Winter Shadows, the white Valkyrie. The natural state of October Autumn, daughter of the dawn. A sacrifice had to be made. A life had to be risked. And in the doing of such a deed, the very fabric of her body had been replaced with a new medium, a new vessel for her soul.

But her soul was not ready to enter her body that way. She needed to be prepared. The astral plane opened up to her, and she saw a vast landscape of barren crags and crevices, of ravines and dry riverbeds. The sky was pure black and yet there was a soft light diffusing across the ground, casting the mountains in harsh outlines against the horizon.

She walked. For days. Weeks. She did not know how much time was passing, but she knew it was long. She did not see anything. The world was calm. She had everything to herself. After half an eternity spent wandering she spotted a storm brewing in the distance. She decided to walk towards it, though she did not know why. She pushed through until she came to an opening, where she saw a phantasm of herself, and as their eyes met the phantasm bowed.

“Welcome,” she said.

Rain shook her head. “I do not understand.”

“The astral plane is the domain of starlight ones,” said the vision of herself. “You are one of us now.”

The vision of herself shifted until it was seventeen people, both men and women, one of whom was Winter Shadows, the others of whom Rain did not recognize.

“Did I die?” Rain said.

“Yes,” said her phantasm.

“Am I still alive?” said Rain.

“Yes,” said her phantasm, and then the vision shifted and the storm returned. Rain walked through the buffeting winds, pushing against driving rain, her hair flying out behind her, emphasizing the fact that it was cold as winter in color, no longer the black of her childhood and her memory.

She came to the next calm. It was a vision of a lake. It was verdant and green, rolling hills in the background, shimmering trees reflected in the water. She loved the sight. It was beautiful, to her. The first thing she had found beautiful in such a long time that she could not remember how long ago it was. Not only her body, but her soul, had been restored. She was aware of this now. She reached into the vision and touched the water, and she was out and in the scene. She saw herself, sitting alone on a rise of grass, holding a flower in her hands. Her dress was white, as white as her hair and as silver as her eyes. She reached out to touch herself, but before she could, a figure ran over and put her arms around her back. She stayed that way for a long time, the two of them nestled together.

The girl was Sarah. It was Sarah, yes, but there was something about her that was different. Rain could not tell. Her own differences were overwhelming her and clouding her vision. The lake shimmered, lost its color, and then disappeared calmly back into the violent storm.

There was one last thing that Rain needed to do. She knew it. She pushed her way through the storm, through the most violent part, and when she thought she was about to die a second time she came through onto the other side of the clouds. Overlooking a valley, filled with people. She recognized some of them. All of them. All of the people that she had killed.

And she broke down and cried. Cried for the first time since … Since that moment. When she had been stopped from crying for the rest of her life. She cried because she was sad, and then she cried because she was crying. She doubled down and began to sob, her cried echoing across the landscape. The people, thousands of them, looked at her with mixed emotions, pity, anger, hatred and strangely, love. Compassion. Forgiveness. Rain did not want it. She did not want to go back to the world where she was a monster. She did not want to be punished by her, the Queen, like she had been before. Many times before. The whips, the shocks, the knives and the needles. She had no scars, but that was because of her nature. The scars were on the inside. They were still there. She killed because … Because she had to. It was not her decision to know that, but she knew now. She did not want to kill. She did not want to cause suffering. Her host, the being inside of her, had been rebelling against her for her entire life. She did not know how to take it. And so she continued crying, for hours and hours, until she was so spent that she could not cry anymore.

A hand touched her on the shoulder. She looked up to see Rhythm, looking down at her. She had a smile on her face. She did not say anything, but Rain understood. She closed her eyes.

The next thing she saw was Sarah bending over her, holding a spoon full of porridge.

Sarah expressed her surprise by falling backwards, spilling the porridge over herself. “You’re … Awake.” She seemed too stunned to say anything else.

“How long was I gone?” said Rain, realizing the reason for Sarah’s surprise. She looked around herself, and found that she was not where she had been when she had gone under after the split and the healing. It was a small cabin, made of uncut logs, dilapidated and covered in creeping vines that constricted the walls and overclouded the windows. There was a single table and two chairs in the center of the room, and the bed in which Rain lay was against the eastern wall. She lifted her head.

Sarah placed her hand on Rain’s chest. “Stay down. I don’t know what happened to you, but you’ve been gone for a month.”

“A … Month?” said Rain.

Sarah seemed about ready to cry. “You … Healed me, and then you collapsed. And you never woke up.” She wiped at her eyes, seeming to push the tears back where they came from. “I never got to thank you. I thought you were going to be gone forever.” She took hold of Rain’s hand. “Thank you.”

Rain shook her head. “I only did it …” She paused. She did not know why she had done what she had done. She was a killer, a ruthless machine of destruction and death who had destroyed more lives in her existence than any single being in the history of beings. She did not deserve to be thanked.

Sarah placed her head on Rain’s chest. “We’re sisters now,” she said. “You and I.”

Rain shook her head. “No, I …”

Sarah closed her eyes. “I thought a lot while you were asleep. About what you did. About what you said. If that was true, then …” she drifted away, lost in her own thoughts. Then she returned. “I don’t think you’re a bad person. I just think you were born into the wrong circumstances. That doesn’t make your killings justified, but there’s no way …” She pulled away from Rain and lifted up a lock of her now pure-white hair. “There’s just no way I can hate a starlight one.” She let the hair fall away. “Because that’s what you are, isn’t it?” She turned aside. “A starlight one. I don’t know what you did but I know that you’re more important than I am, and that you’re going to do more good than I could ever know of or try.”

Rain understood. She understood why the Queen had kept her for so long under her rule. She understood why she had been tortured, why she had been whipped and kicked and destroyed to forge her into the person who she was. She understood her own folly. She let her head fall back to her pillow and closed her eyes.

Sarah took hold of her hand. “I forgive you,” she said. “I won’t ever forget what you did to Rhythm or any of the other girls that you killed, but I can forgive. Because … My life belongs to you now.”

Rain turned away. “I … Can’t …”

“You can’t what? Accept that you’re a good guy now?” Sarah laughed, full of emotion and sorrow. “Neither can I. But I have to. I have to because you showed me that you’re really a good guy. There’s no other way to interpret what you did.” She paused. “And … You’re a starlight.”

“Starlight …” said Rain. The word was vaguely familiar. If she had heard it before, she could not remember, but she knew that she should know what it meant. But she didn’t. She did not understand Sarah’s transformation, or her own.

Sarah touched Rain on the forehead. “You must be hungry.”

Rain shook her head. “I’m … Not.”

“Well eat something anyways. I’ve been feeding you nutrient water through a rag for the last month, and you have to be weaker than me now.”

Rain sat up in bed, knowing that the opposite was true. She was stronger. She had changed for the better. She may have had the same old skills, and she may have had her same old strength, but there was something to her that was more powerful than before. She got out of bed, throwing off the covers, and stood in her old clothing on the hard dirt floor. Sarah watched her, saying nothing, her eyes brimming with suppressed emotion.

Rain lowered her head. “I’m sorry.”

Sarah turned away. “Don’t say that now.”

There was a long, heavy, uncut silence that lasted for minutes on end. And then Sarah broke the silence, walking over to the table and placing some food on it, oatmeal and hard bread.

“This is all I could find,” she said. She shook her head. “I don’t know why I’m still alive now. The things … This world is crazy. This world isn’t good. I have no idea why I stayed alive while I was protecting you but …” Sarah paused. “I feel like someone wanted it that way. I feel like fate was … Asking me to live. And so I fought. And I hid. And …” She looked at Rain. “You’re finally with me.” She paused. “It’s like you said. We need each other if we want our lives.”

Rain sat down at the table and began to eat. Sarah sat down on the other side. “Let me tell you what I know so far. The Gothics, the organization you worked for, took over the world. That’s basically all I know of history. But …” she clenched her fist. “Everything that happened because of that …” She shook her head, her hair falling over her eyes. She brushed it away. “I can’t forget some of the things that I’ve seen.”

Rain finished her meal and pushed her plate away. “We’re going to stop them.”

Sarah jolted back in surprise. She held one hand up, over her face, her eyes filled with confusion. “Us? Stop them?”

Rain nodded. “We’re going to make this world a better place. We’re going to stop the Gothics, and return this world to its original state. Where humans aren’t slaves and power beasts aren’t used for war.”

Sarah blinked a couple of times, and then she grinned, big. She grabbed Rain’s hand and clenched it in her palms. “Let’s do it. Me and you. I know this is totally crazy but now you’ve said it.”

Rain was taken aback by Sarah’s reaction. “I thought you would …”

Sarah shook her head. “Let’s do it!”

Rain felt a peaceful calm growing within her chest. She knew, in her inner being, that she was going to cause great somethings to occur, somethings that would be grander than anything she could ever imagine. She felt good. Better than she had ever felt. The memories of her childhood, of her bondage, fell away. All at once. They were the last thing to be shed during her transformation into a starlight one. Everything clicked into place. Rain tried to smile, but she couldn’t remember at first how to do it. Her muscles wouldn’t respond. Then she managed something, and by Sarah’s reaction it wasn’t much—but it was a smile. Sarah smiled back, and took Rain’s hand in hers.

“I don’t know why I’m doing this, but …” She stood up suddenly. “Let’s go!”

Rain nodded, and the two of them left the cabin, walking through the dappled sunlight towards the cauldron of boiling smoke that was just beyond the tree line. It was their mission. It was their bond, and for once, Rain was finished having firsts.

Questions: 

The groundwork for the transformation has been laid in previous chapters, but is this change to sudden? Does it make sense from a human perspective?

Is the stuff about the childhood too heavy-handed? Should I leave that for the readers to guess at? It's kind of harsh, to be honest, and I wrote it while listening to sad piano music.

Does Sarah react properly to the change? I should note that Sarah was trying to kill her in the previous chapter, before Rain saved her life. Like, three times, so I'm pretty sure this change is justified. 

Is Sarah's exposition paced well?

Is the stuff about the starlight too cliche? If it is, is the name silverlight any better?

Do you like the part about dappled sunlight in the forest? Or is it a no-go?

Is the dream sequence choppy? 

Is there any point that is choppy?

That's about it. You don't have to respond to every question in your review, but I would appreciate any answers or all the answers.