Paper Boats

Prologue

A grayish white sheet of clouds starts covering the sky. The wind starts to pick up. The trees around my house sways a little each time a somewhat strong breeze flies by. Slowly but surely, the air started to turn misty. Then sprinkled. The sky became a darker gray.

I stood by the window, watching the outside world turning and changing. The corners of my mouth tilted upwards into a a big grin. Bigger than any grin or smile I've had recently. I bounce on my feet.

"I want to go outside. I want to feel the raindrops but I should wait. It looks like it'll get better."

For a bit, the outside looked the same. Sprinkling rain with a gray sky. Many drops of rain lands onto the window separating me from the outside, I watch the raindrops run down the window glass. It's mesmerizing. Relaxing. But I got out of it when I hear a low thunder. I start becoming impatient, now jumping up and down on my feet.

"Up! Down! Up! Down! In the air! On the ground! In the air! On the ground!"

It's so tempting. It's calling for me. The gray sky that's turning darker, wanting me to look up to it. The puddles that lay on the ground filled with an infinity of ripples, waiting to welcome me to jump and splash around in them. The rain that falls from the sky, crying for me to dance and spin underneath it as it'll soak me to the bone. And then what I've been most excited for. Pouring rain.

I yell a bit in excitement and then slap my hands over my mouth, my giggling muffled by my hands. I drop my hands to my side and ran upstairs to my room to get the required equipment to go to the beautiful rainy outside world. Running through the hallway, I banged on my sister's door while running past. Reaching my room, I grabbed my blue raincoat and rain boots. They were getting a bit tight on me but that's okay, I can go shopping with Mom and we can get some new ones.

I ran back through the hallway, past my sister's door where I can see her poking her head of dark brown hair out of her room with an expression full of amusement, down the stairs and to the door that leads to the magical rainy world.

I grab the doorknob, my fingers trembling with excitement. No matter how many times I've gone through this process, I can't get over the feeling of excitement and exhilaration going through my veins. How it makes my body shake and tingle. My grip almost slipped when I turned the doorknob and was greeted with a chilly breeze that makes me bring my shoulders up to protect my neck from the small surprise attack that the magical rainy world gave me.

I stepped outside and closed the door. I'm pelted with rain and smile real big. With a shout of happiness, I become wild. Jumping onto every puddle I see, swinging my arms around as if to try to catch every droplet of rain falling onto the ground. It's amazing.

I stop for a moment to look up at the sky. It looks like I was flying through time but without the black space or stars. Instead, it was with a dark grayish sky and the rain falling towards me. This would be a relaxing and mesmerizing time but bubbly laughter comes out of my mouth when big raindrops falls onto my face and into my eyes.

I wipe my eyes and look up to see my older sister laughing at me, probably with how silly I am. Her taller body leans against the door frame, her sleeved arms crossed to keep as much warmth as possible. A happy smile dances on her face, her teeth showing. Caring brown doe-like eyes stare at me, full of genuine happiness and joy. I love my sister. I love seeing her so happy, even if I don't know why she is sometimes.

"Jono! Come back inside, you'll catch a cold if you stay out there any longer!" she waves me over but I don't move towards her. I continue to swing my arms around and smile at her. She smiles while shaking her head side to side, knowing that I'm not going into the house anytime soon. "C'mon! I'm starting to get cold from standing here!"

I laugh at how silly she's being. I run up towards her and I see her start looking relieved that she's getting me inside. Oh, that's what she wants to think. I give out my best evil laugh when I got close enough. She realizes what's going on and tries to close the door but is too late.

"TEDDY BEAR HUG!" I cheerfully yelled out, giving her one of my special teddy bear hugs. She shrieks, laughing and trying to push me away. It doesn't matter now, the hug that I gave her made her clothes wet and her skin cold. She gives up and hugs me back. I don't need to look to know that she playfully rolled her eyes.

"You're soaked!" I giggled, feeling energy radiating off of me. She glares at me and says that it's my fault but I continue to giggle, knowing that she's just kidding. I grab her hand and tugged for her to follow me. She does, closing the door behind her and walking with me out into the rain. I turn around to look at her. "How do you feel?"

"I feel cold," she bluntly replies, sounding a bit grumpy. I laugh, she laughs also. I thought she was grumpy. She's so weird. "But I feel like I'm on an adventure!"

I beam then grab her hands once again. I start to twirl us around, my sister laughing as I do so. It doesn't matter if she's cold or wet, what matters is that I always have the skills to make her come out in the rain with me. I think she's starting to get why I love to play in the rain so much.

We danced, skipped, twirled each other around, laughing to the dark gray sky. I always love these kinds of moments. Moments like these where I'm doing two of my most favorite things in the whole wide world; playing in the rain and spending time with my sister. I wish we could stay like this.

She stops. I follow her movement, confused as to why she stopped. She turns to look at me and give me a really big smile. She's using her teeth! She must be feeling really happy! Yes! She understands why I love rain!

...I think?

"Jono, you're the best little brother anyone can ever have! I love you!" she hugs me. I think the rain is starting to get to her. Or is it that moment of kissing in the rain but being with your brother instead? Oh! Or she's gonna give me something. Like a surprise! Yeah, I love surprises!

I open my mouth to say, "I love you too" but before I could, the sky flashed around us and an explosion like a sonic boom cut through the air. We jumped up high into the air, giving out small frightened screams. We stare at each before bursting out laughing. Laughing at how silly we are.

~•~~•~~•~~•~~•~~•~~•~~•~

I gasp, fully awake, sweating. Not again. Not this dream again. I look around to see that I'm in my room, sitting up on my bed. I try to get my breath back but it doesn't help that I can still hear our laughter echoing in my room, the rain splattering, the thunder that crackled overhead. I hate it.

I grab my head, covering my ears, doing my best to block out the noise that seems to constantly ring in my ears. I thought that the dreams stopped. That they ended. Is it just a one-time return and it'll stop forever now? Or will it be constant like before?

I don't think any further as I start to silently cry. Wiping my face from the tears does nothing as more squeezes out of my tightly shut eyes. I hate crying. So much. The tears running down my face reminds me of the big raindrops I used to love that would trickle down my smiling face.

People, friends, everyone wasting their time on reading this author's note, welcome! That's all I have to say but seriously, this book is why I paused in making one-shots. I've honestly been debating if I should publish this book or not but I already wrote too much shit to back out now so without a further a-do! Enjoy wasting your time! XD

Pie <3