When the Clouds Fell

Chapter 10: In Which an Epiphany is Met

Noah immediately regretted his decision to come with Marie and Colton when they entered the boys' room. It was not because all the furniture was still in the same place, even a year and a few months later. It was not the prospect of potentially reuniting with En and Derek after their not so nice reunion previously. It was the choking aura of death that seeped from the three people already inside. It churned around them in a mass of warped blackness, covering them to the point that Noah could not make out who was who.

The gentle click of a door brought him back out of his thoughts. Colton turned the lock too, just in case. "Well, Marie," he said. "They're all yours."

Marie nodded, her throat bobbing as she swallowed. She wrung her hands together, hesitant. "I don't know where to start," she admitted, looking back and forth between the two beds. "They're all hurt so badly." Her voice dropped along with her gaze and a little something glittered in her eyes.

"Start with the easiest one," Noah suggested.

Marie rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms, sniffling back whatever feelings had been brimming within her. She stood up straight, conviction settling into her faster than Noah could blink.

He and Colton watched as she set to work, retrieving a pair of scissors from one of the drawers and bending over the far side of the left bed. The only thing Noah heard was a quiet snip, snip and uncomfortable sounds of protest. Then, the haze cleared and Noah could see Karen; her red hair splayed across the pillow and her neck speckled with blood and a scar cutting across it. A tangle of surgical stitches spiraled between Marie's fingers as she unstrapped the blue brace around Karen's forearm.

When Marie came around to the other side, drafts of strong, cold wind slipped into the room. The blinds banged against the windowsill, clattering back into place. Noah pulled them up, reaching to close the window shut. But, he froze.

Outside, the evergreens stirred aggressively, whipping about in a violent fervor. The dark night looked darker still because of dense storm clouds roiling in the heavens. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled, bringing tell of an approaching storm. But, it was the trees that really got Noah. Their branches stretched out, tangling into one another and reaching all the way until the window to fill up gaps they should not have been filling up. Gaps they had not been filling up just a few minutes ago.

"Close the window!" Colton smacked Noah's arm, causing him to push the glass shut abruptly.

The wind still whistled through the window, piercing into the room with a shrill persistence. It only seemed to grow as Marie stood in front of Noah, up to her arms in an inky fog only he could see. Colton had come over to sit next to the headboard, his expression blank.

This time, Marie took longer to finish. A much louder snapping sound resonated from her location and, every few seconds, she stopped to drop something onto the mattress and wipe sweat from her face. Her lips twitched into a grimace as she worked, shoulders tightening when the whistling intensified.

Whoever was on the bed lurched and Colton reached over to hold them down. His face still gave nothing away, even as the blackness dispersed to reveal Vince. "Can't you do it a bit more?" he asked, finger trailing above a large and puffy gash that ran across Vince's chest.

"No, I don't want to exhaust myself." Marie had already turned to the other bed, attending to the one who could be none other than Hayden. A flush of tiredness crept up her glistening neck, travelling to her face.

Perhaps she had already exhausted herself? Now that he thought about it, Noah did not know the true extent of her powers, nor the consequences of breeching those extents. Did they take some taxing effect on her body?