Rain

• Jordan Mottershead, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2016

Some say that rain never hurt anyone, but they haven't seen what I've seen.
AUSTRALIA, 1987...
The rain hit the ground like bullets. It didn't stop.
The animals knew it was coming weeks in advance; they all began moving to higher ground. As for us humans, we all just carried on the weeks in advance as normal days, but then that all changed.
The rivers rose until their banks broke and then the water began to move, slowly, but then it began to increase in speed and it spread out into a giant carpet of moving water. This carpet of water directed itself towards the small township that I lived in. The people of the town had noticed that the animals had left but did to know why. When the flash flood hit the small town, it had already collected a large amount of debris. It crashed into the buildings, ripping them off their foundations and turning them into splinters that joined the torrent of death and destruction.
Days passed before the rescue teams were able to reach the once thriving town. They were looking amongst the ruins for any survivors, but all they found were the corpses of past townsfolk who had either drowned or bled to death from the torrent of water and the debris it held. Just as the rescue team started getting ready for their departure, one of the rescue team members heard a faint "HELP!" He listened again, and there it was. The rescue team followed the sound until they came across a pile of debris that was once a small house. The rescue team began clearing the debris to find a little girl who was badly cut and bruised. This little girl was a survivor, the only survivor.
The little girl soon grew into a young woman. She found herself to go on in life as a writer. Her work soon became published and she became famous for her amazing horror books. Her best-selling book was her life story. Once she became rich, she began to donate money to rebuild towns that were affected by floods and she also went on to teach children about how to see the signs and how to survive a flood. She found that if she had never gone through what she went through, she wouldn't be as helpful to the world as she is now.
The grown up girl is still haunted with the memories of her parents dying, her home being destroyed and the nightmare that she lived. I now wish that I could have seen the signs, the animals leaving, the rain not stopping. If only I had just seen the signs, I could have saved everyone. But I didn't. The thought of it still keeps me awake at night, but I've learned one thing from my painful past; never trust rain.