The Skies Will Boil and Bleed

Something hit my head, and then my shoulder. At first, I thought it was rain, but after several drops, when something hot and sticky started dripping down the side of my head, I began to wonder if perhaps something other than water was raining from the sky. My curiosity led me to touch the side of my head, and I gasped quietly when I found blood on my fingers upon pulling them away.

Slowly, I looked up at the sky, wondering why blood was falling on my head. Out of all my experiences as a rescue agent for the Power Child Protection Program, this would have to be the strangest. When I looked up, I saw the blackest clouds I had ever seen. Really, they were blacker than the night sky, and the only reason I could still see was because they had yet to block out the sun.

I looked down at the nice grey shirt I had on, now covered in blood stains, and then looked at the sheet of paper in my hand, which also was not taking the bloody rain very well. It was my case paper, the one that had sent me in search of this girl. Her file only indicated her power to be “weather control based on mood” but these clouds were telling me she had something considerably more serious than mere weather control.

I sped up my walk through the bloody rain until I reached the apartment complex at the end of the street. Before too long, I had found my way to the correct apartment number. This morning I had tried to make a presentable yet causal appearance so I wouldn’t terrify the girl and her parents, but the “rain” had certainly ruined that plan. Now I looked like a murder or something. But the appearance of my clothing couldn’t stop me; I still had a job to do.

I knocked on the door. No reply. I knocked again. Still nothing. Following protocol, I knocked a third time. When no one answered, I forced the door open as gently as possible. Only to be met by a trail of blood on the ground that looked anything but gentle. And around the trail of blood, I could also see a set of small bloody footprints.

My eyes narrowed as I started analyzing what could have happened to cause so much blood. There was evidence of a struggle. A bloody knife on the ground. A bit farther down the hall I found a pool of blood that looked as if someone had been lying there for some time bleeding out before finally being moved. The footprints were also still there, and they now led down the hall towards a bedroom.

I proceeded cautiously down the hall, not panicked as I had seen worse, but still wondering what exactly had happened here, wondering if the girl I had come for was still okay. I followed the footprints in to the bedroom and then into the bathroom where I found the young girl, desperately trying to stop blood from pouring out of the cut on her forehead long enough to put on a band-aid. But she was failing pretty miserably due to the tears pouring from her eyes and the persistent shaking of her hands.

When I realized the injury was on her forehead, I breathed a sigh of relief; she would be okay. The cut was far bloodier than the injury was bad, and while this one cut could not justify the large amounts of blood around the rest of the house, this particular child was okay. The rest of the blood could be better investigated later, perhaps by the investigative agent and not me, the rescue agent.

Of course, when she saw me, the girl jumped away, shaking and crying even more. Realizing I’d scared her, I quickly adjusted my approach. “Hey, my name is Madi,” I began, no longer moving toward her. “I’m here to help you. Will you let me?” She nodded hesitantly, probably not knowing what else to do. I moved in closer and began talking calmly as I began cleaning blood from around the cut and applying pressure. “Now, I will need to give you stitches for this cut, but I’ll have to take you back to my room, okay?” Still not speaking, she nodded. I pressed a button on my belt, and I was immediately back in my room with my medical kit sitting there on the dresser.

I picked her up gently and set her on the bed. Again, I spoke to her calmly while stitching her up, eventually getting her to tell me everything that had happened. I would have to give a report to my supervisor on why the child in my charge was injured and where her parents were. Finally, the injury was closed, she understood I would protect her for now, and she had fallen asleep. I called in my supervisor.

Jenny walked in. Before I could explain what had happened, she informed me of what I had left too quickly to discover for myself. The blood has stopped raining from the sky the same instant I’d stopped blood from pouring from the girl’s wound. But, after the girl’s story, I wasn’t necessarily surprised. She had told me that when she cried, it rained normally. When she was angry, the rain was of boiling temperatures. When she was happy, the skies were clear. The clouds came and went as her mood changed. And when she was hurt, the sky rained blood.

After hearing this news, I took a deep breath and began to explain myself. “Oddly enough, the cut on her head is not from any of the Remakers. She got the cut when she fell down running away from them, slicing her head on the knife that had been thrown on the ground. She’s fortunate that she’s not dead. They badly injured both her parents. According to her, one of the men outside screamed that the sky was raining blood and they ran away, screaming threats of how they would come back and leaving her to hide under her parent’s bed until she knew they were gone. There was a lot of blood all over the house, I’m assuming from her parents but that may need to be investigated. Her parents could be pursued, but I believe they may be dead by now. I am terribly sorry I did not get to her before the Remakers did.”

Jenny looked at me somberly and assured me that this was not my fault. Then we both turned to look at the sleeping child, our minds running over everything that this would mean for us. On our hands, we had an orphan who could make the skies boil and bleed, a power we had not seen before. What were we supposed to do with that?