The Calm Before The Storm - Forecasted: The Rain Of Grey Clouds

• Rebecca Li, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2022

“It’s always you controlling the sky!” Storm laced each word with venom fueled with utter resentment. He weaved his sword of lightning through the air effortlessly, moving as one with the torrent of harsh wind. All the mortals below just saw the blows of power illuminated in the form of vicious lightning that burned through the castle of grey. Storm’s eyes pinned to an unscathed figure, her luscious golden locks crowning the lackadaisical expression carved across her face.

That roared Storm with boiling scarlet anger.

Impetuously, Storm thrusted his sword in hasty strides, throwing the piercing blade in reckless outbursts of rancour. He wanted to wipe that imperious, audacious smirk off of Sunny’s face. He was tired of her seeing him as woefully pitiful, as someone she could defeat in one whisk, and he was going to make sure that today, the reign of clear blue skies would be over.

Storm breathed in agonising short jabs, the atmosphere heavy and dense with his exhaustion as the bitter air clawed his throat raw as if he’d swallowed glass. But Sunny had remained unharmed, her glowing skin impeccable as if it was pure steel. Her palms were loose with no weapon, simply weaving elegantly through the deadly chaos of Storm’s attacks as if it was as uncomplicated as flicking her wrists. She watched him with dark stabbing eyes that froze Storm as if he’d just been impaled by a thousand needles.
Storm’s face hardened to match Sunny’s acerbic face. His fingers wrapped around the narrow body of an arrow. “May Storms live on.”

And he threw.

All Storm could hear was the shattering whistle of the arrow slashing Sunny’s skin ruby.
“Ow.” She dully wiped the nick of scarlet from her pale skin, a look of surprise and confusion moulding across her face. “That hurt.”
In a line of instant blurs, Sunny lunged weightlessly at Storm with the agility of a tiger, plunging her golden sunlight blade forwards, rolling through the air in one deft movement. Storm could only catch a brisk flash of the looming blade that promised to deliver more than a papercut as it severed the air into a thousand brittle shards and sharply flung him airborne, landing with a sickening thud as the impact violently reverberated his joints numb. He’d realised the mere line of blood he’d inflicted was insignificant compared to the aching agony Sunny had just ripped his body with. The searing pain ruthlessly devoured his head as the unbearable explosion of blistering white suffocated his throat, the intense metallic essence of blood palpable.
The thick air lodged in his mouth. Then he stared without seeing.
*Dead, again. I lost.*

The smoky clouds of the grey canopies clustered together to mourn their beloved leader, Storm. And how they bellowed, how their sorrowful weeps filled the air with sombre and raucous yells of thunder. How they had gloomed collectively above the mortals as one platoon. How their tears fell down neverending, raining down on the cities below.