Story

A lot of tension was still lingering between Charlotte and Rain after their fight. Charlotte left the sleepover early just because she needed some time to herself, leaving Kaylee and Rain to deal with the tension Charlotte had created. It had been a month since all three of them hung out together since Rain and Charlotte couldn’t be together without both of them being uncomfortable. Kaylee, seeing that her friend group was falling apart, had pushed herself hard to keep the group together. She tried to hang out with them individually, however the awkwardness was loud and Kaylee was slowly starting to give up. Rain, realizing she needed to fix this, invites the two girls on a small camping trip, which Kaylee immediately accepts. Charlotte was hesitant, but Rain offered to bring along her old pals to ease the tension a bit and allow Charlotte to be able to talk with other people besides her and Kaylee; it was then that Charlotte finally accepted.

Charlotte drives through the thick forest full of tall trees and untouched grass as she focuses hard on the road, trying to think of anything else besides her urges to just bail at the last minute and go back home. Charlotte then spots Kaylee and Rain’s camping spot in a cleared out area and parks her car, slowly getting out while staring at the two but accidentally slams her door which immediately startles Kaylee and Rain who were setting up the tent. Even though everyone had been distant, Kaylee still called out for Charlotte in her same cheerful expression like she always did.

“Charlotte, you made it!” 

Kaylee runs towards Charlotte, giving her a hug before realizing she probably shouldn’t have hugged her without asking and looking at Charlotte worried, but Charlotte smiles at Kaylee and hugs her back. 

“I missed you too, Kaylee…sorry for not hanging out with you for a while.”

“Yeah…it’s been a while.”

Suddenly, Kaylee’s phone dings and a notification appears.

“Ugh, my dad keeps trying to turn on my location; I keep turning it off but he somehow manages to turn it back on!”

Kaylee walks away and leaves Charlotte standing by herself. Charlotte looks at Rain, seeing that she was looking back at her. Rain seems nervous to talk to Charlotte. Rain puts her hand on her arm while looking away and just tries to pitch the tent on her own to distract herself. Charlotte walks up to Rain and offers her hand for a handshake. Rain looks at Charlotte’s hand and shakes her hand before looking away once again, still trying to put up the tent all on her own, which upsets Charlotte a bit but she doesn’t fully mind since at least it was some progress. It was then that the blasting of rock music startled the quiet moment as a car crashed into a tree. Out tumbled a tall woman wearing a punk rock styled outfit. She stood up and dusted the mud off of herself.

“Somebody needs to move that tree.” 

“You can’t move a tree, Emily!” The other woman says, annoyed, after coming out of the passenger seat, looking like she was about to throw up before adjusting her glasses and dusting herself off, even though there wasn’t any dust on her. Charlotte and Kaylee stare at them in shock and confusion but Rain becomes super excited and runs towards them, giving them a hug. Emily is surprised but hugs Rain back. The other woman looks at both of them calmly before Rain lets go of Emily excited.

“Hey, Rain! It’s been what? A couple thousand years since I’ve seen you?” 

“It hasn’t been that long, Emily! You just overexaggerate.” The other woman nudges Emily’s arm. 

“Oh, umm, yeah, you’re right, Celeste, I definitely do that.”

Emily laughs nervously as Celeste stares daggers at her but is then startled by Rain suddenly placing her hand on her arm, causing Celeste to blush slightly. Emily then looks over at the tents and spots Kaylee and Charlotte just staring at them awkwardly. Emily squeals and runs towards them, excited to meet new people.

“Aw, you must be Rain’s little friends! She told me a lot about you.” Emily starts to pinch Kaylee and Charlotte’s cheeks. “Aw, you guys are just so cute!”

“Emily! We talked about boundaries!”

“I’m sorry! Humans are just so cute!”

Kaylee and Charlotte look at each other and then at Emily confused; Emily realizes what she said and backs off quickly.

“Oh, umm, that’s just something I say because I can. It’s nothing weird.”

Charlotte glares at Rain, her once calm impression of Rain now becoming suspicious once again, but Celeste quickly catches on and marches toward Charlotte. 

“You shouldn’t be glaring at Rain like that. Emily is just a bit weird sometimes and you’re blaming Rain for it.”

“But I wasn’t.”

“You better not be…because if you are then I won’t be afraid to-”

Rain grabs Celeste’s arm once again. Celeste looks at Rain surprised before her expression becomes softer with worry while blushing before calming down. Rain lets go of Celeste and she walks away but not before pushing Charlotte to the dirt and glaring at her one more time with a small blue glow in her dark eyes before continuing to walk away. Rain becomes shocked before extending her hand towards Charlotte to help her up. Charlotte takes Rain’s hand, her expression hard but not mad.

“Your other friends are a bit weird.”

Rain writes in her notebook, saying that Celeste was usually a lot nicer than how she was acting now, but Emily quickly reads the page and buds in.

“That’s because she’s only nice to you…anyone else and she goes full beast mode! The only reason she came was because I told her you invited her and she became all sparkles over the phone.”

Rain becomes shocked; she never realized that Celeste was only nice to her. The whole reason she invited Celeste was because she thought she would get along with Charlotte. Emily laughs and pats Rain’s shoulder as Rain places her head into her hands in disappointment for not realizing. Later on in the day, most of the girls sat down and talked at the table while Emily set up her fishing gear and Kaylee watched in awe.

“I’ve never gone fishing before. Is it fun?”

“Oh yeah, it is, especially since I’m gonna eat the first thing I catch!”

Celeste turns her head around, still sitting at the table with the other girls, and looks at Emily annoyed.

“Are you sure you’re allowed to do that?”

“Yeah, yeah, I checked.”

“Alright, just making sure.”

“Sigh. Whatever.”

Emily huffs in annoyance as Celeste turns back around. Kaylee looks at Celeste concerned before looking back at Emily’s fishing gear. As things settle down again and a few hours pass, Emily still hadn’t caught anything yet. Finding this annoying, she turns around to see everyone distracted with setting up a small fire and quickly makes a move. Emily puts her hands together and concentrates hard, a small glow emerges from inside her hands as she literally creates a fish from her bare hands, Carefully placing the fish on the ground, she reels in the fishing line and grabs the fish that was flopping on the ground. She places the fish’s mouth on the hook and shouts at the girls for their attention.

“Hey, guys, look what I got!” Emily waves around the fishing rod with the fish still on it.

“Aw, no way! Why didn’t you tell me you got one!” 

“Aw, sorry, I forgot to tell you.”

Celeste looks at Emily in surprise but it turns into shock as Celeste walks towards Emily.

“Please don’t tell me you-” 

“It’s fine…I made sure none of you were looking.”

Celeste and Emily speak in hushed whispers as Kaylee and Charlotte look at each other concerned once again. Rain is a bit worried about Kaylee and Charlotte getting suspicious, so she makes an excuse to get more fire wood just to avoid the situation. A little while later, Emily was cooking the fish over the fire as the three girls sat at the table.

“It’s getting kinda late, huh?” Kaylee asks as she looks up at the night sky.

“Yeah it is- wait, where is Rain?” Celeste looks around with concern.

“Don’t worry, she’s getting more firewood.”

“Alone?!”

“She’ll be back. I’m sure of it!”

“Maybe I should-” 

Suddenly, Rain comes back with a large pile of sticks and places them near the fire. Celeste breathes a large sigh of relief as she walks up to Rain. 

“Wow, Rain, you sure did collect a lot. We might have enough for tomorrow. too!” Emily says happily while placing her hand on her hips. 

Celeste runs up to Rain worried, Rain looks at her confused but then sees Celeste’s worried face, Rain places her hand on Celeste arm which reassures Celeste that she is okay. Charlotte looks at the two of them,but more at Celeste than at Rain. Eventually after a nice meal everyone heads to bed inside their tents Kaylee gets comfortable sleeping next to Rain but Rain looks worried since she didn’t hear Charlotte go inside her tent. Rain gets out of her tent and finds Charlotte sitting at the table looking worried. Rain walks over to Charlotte and sits down, writing in her notebook, asking what is wrong and shows it to Charlotte. Charlotte reads what she wrote and sighs.

“It’s just…I’m sorry about what happened back at the sleepover.”

Rain writes in her notebook, saying that Charlotte wasn’t in the wrong to be mad at her and that maybe she should’ve been more honest from the start.

“I know, but I still feel bad for yelling at you and just leaving instead of trying to talk it out there and then.”

“It really isn’t your fault.”

“I know! But I just can’t help but-”

Charlotte freezes and slowly turns her head towards Rain in shock. She looks at Rain almost in awe. Rain had talked for the first time; Charlotte, nor anybody, had ever heard her voice before. Rain’s voice sounded calming, almost like the sound of a morning rain. It was soft and low yet very beautiful.

“You just talked…”

“Yeah…”

“I didn’t know you could do that.”

“I always could. I just wouldn’t because-”

Kaylee comes out of her tent tired, just wanting to take the longest sleep in existence.

“Hey, guys, what are you talking about?”

Charlotte was about to tell Kaylee about Rain speaking for the first time, but Rain was quicker, writing in her notebook saying that it was some personal stuff. 

“Oh, okay then, sorry for interrupting!”

Kaylee goes back inside her tent, leaving Charlotte and Rain alone once again. Charlotte turns to Rain, her eyes shocked, and Rain looks back at Charlotte with a sad expression.

“There are just some things not worth mentioning.”

Rain leaves the table and goes back inside her tent, leaving Charlotte alone with her thoughts, now even more suspicious of Rain and what kinds of secrets she could be hiding. The next day, Charlotte gets out of her tent, her back hurting from having to sleep on an uncomfortable air mattress. Charlotte finds Rain and Celeste trying to start a small fire since the morning winds were cold. Charlotte also sees Kaylee running as Emily chases her around with a caterpillar in her hand. Charlotte tries to join Celeste and Rain, but Celeste politely shoos her away.

“Why do you have to be so rude so early in the morning?”

“Well, we don’t need you, nor do we need your help.”

“Wow, I feel very happy with that answer.” Charlotte crosses her arms.

“Celeste, I don’t need you or anyone else…besides Rain, of course…at least she’s helpful.”

“When it comes to new people you are really bad at starting a good relationship with them.” Emily then buds in, placing the caterpillar safely on the grass. 

“Not true…well, at least it wasn’t true back then.” Celeste pauses, feeling like this conversation was getting somewhere she didn’t like.

“Yeah, Celeste used to be a little bit nicer, especially when she met some Egyptian guy-” Celeste grabs on the collar of Emily’s shirt and pulls her close.

“Don’t ever talk about him again!”

Kaylee stops in her tracks, realizing Emily wasn’t chasing her anymore and curiously wonders about what Emily was talking about.

“Huh? What Egyptian guy?” Celeste tries to silence Emily but accidentally lets go of her and trips onto the ground.

“Oh, just some guy Rain introduced to her. They got married, had a kid, then she ditched him because she said she had more important things to do.”

Kaylee and Charlotte stared at Emily in shock and so did Rain, who had put her hands over her mouth. Celeste stands up and was filled with rage, grabbing Emily’s wrist tightly, ready to do whatever she could to make Emily’s life miserable. Quickly, Rain grabs Celeste’s arm and looks at her worried. Celeste calms down, seeing that Rain was worried, and lets go of Emily’s wrist. 

Later on in the afternoon everyone sat by the fire except for Celeste who was sitting on a cliff nearby looking at the water below. Meanwhile, Rain stood up and wrote in her notebook, offering to gather more firewood since the fire was getting lower. Charlotte offered to help, but Rain gestured that she was going to be fine and put on a wool coat for warmth. While everyone was talking, Charlotte watched as Celeste sat alone. She felt bad for what had happened even though this time she knew that it wasn’t her fault, yet seeing Celeste all by herself made her want to comfort her, even if the chances of Celeste just shooing Charlotte away was high. Charlotte sits down next to Celeste not talking at first. Everything was quiet for a while until Celeste started to speak.

“I didn’t leave because ‘I had better things to do.’ I just had to.”

“Well, why did you leave then?”

“I have an important job to do…if I just abandoned it then everything would fall apart.”

“Well, what job is so important that you had to leave him?” Charlotte asked with curiosity.

“It’s private.”

“Oh…okay then.” Charlotte sighs, disappointed yet not pushing further. Silence took over as Celeste looked at the lake below.

“I loved him…him and our son…but…he’s dead and I’m still here.” Celeste curls up into a ball, her hands on her knees. Charlotte looks at her confused, and Celeste notices her confusion.

“Rain hasn’t told you anything, has she?”

“No, she hasn’t…not about her past or anything personal. I didn’t even know she could talk until she suddenly did one night.”

“She can speak…she just won’t.”

“Why?!”

“She’s afraid she might say the things she’s been hiding.”

“Like what?” Celeste sighs and looks at Charlotte with a serious expression.

“Rain…is a god…” Charlotte looks at Celeste in shock, standing up looking down at her as Celeste stands up as well.

“And so am I…and so is Emily and Delilah…we are all gods.”

“But…How!?”

Emily and Kaylee come towards Charlotte and Celeste happily, but then Emily sees the look on Celeste’s face and realizes what she had done.

“So she knows…” Emily asks, her eyes serious.

“She does.”

“Knows what?” Kaylee asks happily but a bit confused.

Celeste and Emily look at each other. A magical glow comes from both of them as they transform into their godly form. Kaylee and Charlotte look in awe, Charlotte taking a few steps back towards Kaylee.

“I’m sorry you had to find out this way,” Emily says as her personality changes from a rough, confident woman to a soft spoken god.

“Rain is a god, too, if you’re wondering about that, Kaylee.” Kaylee becomes shocked, her mouth wide open.

“Wow! This is amazing. We have to get Rain,” Kaylee said excitedly.

“Where is Rain anyway?” Charlotte asked, worried.

“Shall we go looking for her? She should still be in the forest getting firewood,” Emily smiled reassuringly. 

All four girls went out and started to walk deeper into the forest in search of Rain.

“So, who’s Delilah?” Kaylee asks curiously.

“She’s one of our friends, the goddess of death and destruction. Her real name is Damnation.”

“I bet she’s scary!” Kaylee shivered.

“Of course not! She’s the sweetest god you will ever meet.”

Kaylee paused for a minute. “Wait, so what are your real names?”

“I am Eternal, the goddess of life and nature and Celeste’s real name is Celestial, the goddess of science and logic and Rain’s name is Inquisitive, the goddess of curiosity and creativity.”

“Woah, cool.”

After walking for a bit, Charlotte started to shout Rain’s name yet there was no answer. After a while of searching the surrounding area, everyone starts to get worried since there was no sign of Rain.

“Rain! Where are you?!” Charlotte shouts.

“Charlotte you know she can’t answer; she can’t talk,” Kaylee teased.

“She can…she just doesn’t.”

“What!? How do you know that?”

“Look, she talked to me one night, okay?”

“Really?!-”

Kaylee suddenly falls to the ground, having tripped on something. Charlotte becomes shocked and goes over to Kaylee to help her up.

“Thanks for helping me.”

“No problem, Kay-”

Charlotte pauses before picking up what Kaylee had tripped on. There, in her hands, was a muddy, wool coat on the ground. Kaylee pauses, looking at Charlotte. Emily and Celeste stop to stare at the coat.

“Isn’t that…the coat Rain was wearing?” Kaylee and the others look at the coat in horror. Suddenly, Kaylee’s phone rings and she takes it out her pocket, her hands shaking as she answers the call.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Katlyn, don’t worry about Rain. She’s just helping me with something,” Matthew says with a sinister voice.

“What did you do!? Where is Rain?!” Kaylee yells into the phone, already blaming her father.

“Don’t worry, my precious daughter…after this, mommy can finally come home and I can finally get my job back.” On the other side of the phone the sound of a drill startles Kaylee. Then, the sound of a loud scream causes Kaylee to drop her phone in fear, the call ending when the phone falls to the ground. Meanwhile, in Matthew’s house deep down in a dark basement with many machines and surgical supplies, Matthew stares at Rain who was strapped to a medical bed before turning away, now looking at his medical supplies. Rain was sobbing, her organs exposed. Matthew then turns off the drill, really only using it to scare Kaylee. 

“Don’t worry, love, it will all be over soon.”  Matthew walks over to Rain. 

“Soon, we can live how we used to…or at least how I used to…just give me yourself and I can show the world how beautiful your insides look.” Matthew takes off his mask.

“It’s time to come out, Lyra.”

There, laying on the medical bed, a glow starts to illuminate from Rain, her body becoming more human-like as her hair begins to grow longer as well. Rain closes her eyes, terrified of who she was about to become, but her expression suddenly changes, becoming calmer, before softly smiling at Matthew.

“Hello, dear,” Lyra says, smiling happily as Matthew starts to laugh maniacally.

TO BE CONTINUED