Prompt Writing #3

I figured it was about time to give another one of these a shot.

Prompt: [Forward Motion Writers generator]

"For days, the dull gray skies have opened up, the rain a steady, drenching downpour. Every creek, every river, every pond laps at their banks, ready to spill over.

Another hour, two at the most, and the real floods will begin. Does your character dig in, or run for the high ground? Can they run even if they want to?"

Randomly Selected Story and Character: Roughhouse, Terry

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It had been raining since the orphanage released him. At first, Terry hadn't minded the downpour; the shushing and splashing were wonderful, the water dripping down his arms tickled, and he didn't have to worry about getting sunburnt. But as the rainfall continued and his food money depleted, his cheer started to drain.

By the time he was beginning to suspect it would flood, he was already out of town, chewing on wild berries and trying to find more. A little creek at the far end of the stretch of bushes fizzed and pounded at its banks, and brackish puddles in the grass reached out to each other and snapped into bigger puddles. His cheap, leathery boots were nearly black from wetness, and water and particles sloshed around his feet as he abandoned what little remained on a blackberry bush.

Where was he supposed to go? Higher ground, right? The city was too far away to go back, so he would have to press forward. That looked like a little hill ahead. Maybe it would be enough. It couldn't keep raining forever.

Slipping a bit with every step, he crept up the trailless slope. By the time he finally reached the top, he was sure it was high enough, but a look down proved that that was an illusion. Thin currents were already twisting the grass below, though, and he would have to see a better hill immediately if he was going to get to it in time.

He looked about quickly, but the only thing he noticed was the large lean-to straight ahead, in the flatter area. While every branch in the shelter was soaked through, the two pairs of soles visible through the opening weren't moving. He wondered for a moment if they were just abandoned shoes facing the same way, but those would have started to drift in the flood by now.

Still the rain fell, and still neither of the occupants had moved. Surely they weren't dead?

"H-hey! Is anyone..." the twelve-year-old started, cupping his hands around his mouth, but the whoosh of rain pounded the sound down into the water. Shivering hard, he looked down at the sheet of flowing water for a minute before deciding it still wasn't very deep.

His first step sent him sliding and staggering all the way down the hill. Falling onto his hands with a tremendous splash, he hurried to get his fingers out of the mud before he wiped them on his pants and walked ahead. The current was surprisingly strong, but if he just went step by step, he wouldn't get in any trouble.

He was panting with the effort, the water past his ankles, when he finally got close to the lean-to.

"Hey!" he called again, seizing one of the branches, half for support and half to draw attention. "You guys—you guys need to get out!"

Finally one of the boys in the shelter stirred, although he really had to force himself to get into a seated position. Squinting past his sopping wet, dirty-brown bangs, he sat there and groaned for a minute.

"Sorry," Terry started, taking a step back, "but, I mean, you should probably get up..."

It took another minute for the older boy's eyes to open fully. After a pause, he twisted to prod at the half-Asian boy next to him. "John," he mumbled. "Wake up. It's raining too hard."

John didn't move, and Terry let go of the shelter, walking a bit further back. The water was over the tops of his boots now, and his feet dragged in the water stubbornly.

"There's a hill," the twelve-year-old started, pointing, "over that way. It's not very tall, but it's at least better than here, right?" The current tried desperately to sweep him under, so he started back towards the hill after one more look at the bleary-eyed teen.

A high-pitched yawn startled Terry, but the grassy mud was sucking at his soles too much to let him jump. Rubbing his jacketed arms in an attempt to stop shivering, he plodded on a few more steps.

By then the others had caught up. They were taller than Terry had anticipated—at least, they were tall compared to him—and they seemed to be having a bit less trouble pulling their bare feet out of the ground. Despite that, one look at them made Terry wonder how on earth they had made it out of the shelter, let alone hurried along this far. Through a thicker sheet of rain, he hadn't been able to see the swellings and bruises across the white teen's jaw and John's cheekbones. The teens' shabby clothes revealed more damage than that, and John struggled ahead with a steady limp that the other tried to match. Both let their arms hang limply at their sides as they hurried ahead.

What had happened to them? Had they been mugged? Had they fallen down a long stretch of rocks? How did—

With a yelp, Terry went under. One boot remained stuck in the mud, and his ankle twisted painfully as the current wrenched him around. He groped blindly beneath him until he got to the ground, but he couldn't get his chin above the water before his trapped boot slipped off his foot. Grass uprooted in his hands as he tried to at least keep from being whisked away, and his head pounded and tingled as he refused to breathe in any water.

Suddenly the ground was gone. Gasping, Terry groped wildly at the rain for a while before realizing he was no longer underwater. Coughing and spluttering, he wiped some of the dirty water from his eyes and tried to figure out where he had ended up.

He was seated, bouncing slowly, and his feet didn't touch the floodwater. In fact, his calves were resting against fabric—the other boys' shirts. Shared between their shoulders, Terry was borne like a prince over the water. The two beneath him let the mud from his feet soak into their shirts as they forged ahead in unison.

Beyond the rain, Terry couldn't quite tell how far the hill was, or how high the water had come. But John and his friend plowed ahead steadily, and Terry clung to them, sure that they'd make it.