Chapter 1

March 23rd || 58° and pouring rain ||Jace

The rain decides to be spiteful today. The clouds are bloated from their last meal, so they deem it a worthy evening to douse me - along with every other oblivious pedestrian - in bitter rainfall. With children yanked from playthings, jackets stretched over hairstyles, and electronics sheltered by insufficient clothing, the many people of Clarity Park become scarce. They don’t feel like becoming victims of the downpour anytime soon.

The last and only other storm I witnessed may have been a hallucination. Just after the incident, I remember snow coming down in painful sheets of ice. It slammed against the hospital window with a quick pitter-patter, and the fading anesthesia made it much more interesting than whatever was muted on the television.

For the longest time, I convinced myself that the snow was the reason no one came for me.

The storm today, however, isn’t intriguing, because I’m standing right in the middle of it. Any logical person would appreciate the dose of rainwater to the dry Colorado suburbs. Much like the rest, I don’t feel like being logical today.

I tuck my IPod beneath my shirt and bolt to the meager shelter of the nearest tree. The budding leaves, pushing outward like hundreds of green infants, hardly provide a canopy.

It’s strange how humans run from nature as if it’s out to kill us. It took everybody about thirty seconds to scurry away once the downpour began. Now that weather predictions are useless, no one sends an upward glance to the swirling skies. No one but her.

The sole upturned face shines out from the mass of hooded stumblers. While her surroundings are a blurry mess of coats, umbrellas, and puddles, she’s in crisp focus. She squints up at the spout of water with a growing smile -a weary, stretched grin, the type that relishes in its flaws. And she does the strangest and most vaguely familiar thing; she sticks out her tongue to sample the fresh rain.

Although I’ve never met the girl, my recognition is immediate. I begin to create excuses as to why I didn’t recognize her… Her sopping ponytail, clinging to her neck, looks much less wheat-blonde when it’s wet. And she looks older, more refined, more lost, more wild.

I meant to find her somewhere beautiful, and she’d smile at me in the sunlight. She’d cup her hand over her squinted eyes to buffer from the brightness, and her hair a would be a frizzy mess in the humidity. That’s just how it was in the dream; the sun that wouldn’t touch my skin tanned her freckles with alarming ease.

She never speaks in the dream. I could only assume what her voice is like: soft and slow like a spoonful of honey. I always imagine her explaining all the holes in my memory, or rather, the hole that is my memory... It’s an empty drawer, holding only a dream of a memory of her.

But here, in this dreary landscape coated in puddling rain, she won’t recognize me. The entire encounter lay in ruin; she won’t cup her hand over her eyes, she won’t say what she’s meant to. She won’t tell me how I ended up in the middle of a forest, naked and covered in my own blood, my wounds spilling my lifeforce into the snow. She won’t tell me why I don’t know my own name.

She turns and notices me. And somehow, past my crumbling plans, she makes this wretched moment beautiful.

She smiles at me in the same way she should’ve, her eyes instead squinting from the rain trickling down her forehead. All I can think is that she’ll never know me here, not with my hair hanging in my eyes and my mouth spitting out rain, and the thick, rainy mist filling the spaces between us. I feel it like an ache in my stomach.

At my obvious - although distant - adoration, the girl just laughs, a beautiful noise pilfered by the wind. With the glee of the storm burning in her eyes, she steps closer and hollers, “What a lovely day!”

No, she’s too wild to have a voice as soft as honey.

I open my mouth to reply, until I realize I have no idea what to say. And soon, my hesitation becomes regret, for she runs off in a way that invites the entire world to fall in love with her.

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Author's Note

Note character development, clarity, word choice, voice, etc.
Does this work as the opening to a novel? Do you want more?

Reviews

[Desert Rain]

WOW, may I just say. I've never quite encountered a writing style such as your own. your writing voice is Very unique. Wonderful character introductions.
Word choice stood out to me the most. This sentence: "She squints up at the spout of water with a growing smile -a weary, stretched grin, the type that relishes in its flaws." I loved the personality insightful description of her smile. Also about her voice being imagined like honey, and the -- nope, she's too wild! :)
Hook line and sinker for a novel opening. Can't wait to read more!