People Of The Storm [ORIGINS]

Island of Cio

Banished here. Forever.

For what reason, I don't know. All five of us don't. Clara says that it's because we weren't good enough since birth. I don't think that's right, is it? Mack disagrees with her rather strongly, his confidence building up as the days go by and he gets stronger. Julie doesn't know anymore, same as me. Ryan is sick, so we can't really tell what he's thinking all the time. It's difficult, not knowing what's wrong with him. Not knowing what's wrong with us, if there is anything wrong. It's all just so confusing.

This is Cio, island of the storm. At least, that's what we call it. Every night, the clouds roll in and we have to get into our shelter, made of metal and wood. You can only imagine how that helps us. We were sent here as children, our parents dropping us off and abandoning us quickly. I remember them being quite eager to leave before dark. Now I know why.

A horrible storm would always come, ruining everything that we work on during the day. It's almost like a curse set upon us by the gods, because we're unwanted. For some reason we've grown used to it, besides the extremely rough storms that pound down onto our island. But we haven't managed to find a way to keep our stuff safe, only ourselves. Hiding in our storm shelter is the only way to survive, really. Well... Not really.
There are times when we've gone outside during a storm to grab something and ended up fine. It was strange.

I remember I once went out during one storm. The rain was pounding on my head, and the thunder made me feel deaf. But Julie tripped while she ran and twisted her ankle, and I was the one closest to her. Lightning struck all around me, hitting the palm trees and traveling to the ground. I was practically hopping to get to Julie. She was leaning on a boulder, cradling her ankle as she sat. Tumbling to the ground, I quickly wrapped my arms around her in a way that let me lift her up. Another strike of lightning next to us. We needed to move quickly. Well, moreover, I needed to move quickly. Which is pretty hard to do in leather sandles... On loose, wet sand. But I tried. Running fast, I moved towards the storm shelter, carrying Julie with me. With great effort I dodged the lightning strikes that reached the sand underneath me. Julie looked scared, but she didn't say anything. Eventually, I made it to the shelter, placing Julie down on the floor and shutting the door behind me. And then I collapsed on the floor myself. Julie wasn't exactly light.

Point is, I guess we've grown used to the storm, used to dealing with it's terror. We've grown used to Cio.