It Was A Dark and Stormy Night

        It was a dark and stormy night, the sky in all its anger pouring rain from the clouds like a waterfall, blinding everyone and everything exposed to it. The force of the wind pushed the rain harder, the huge beads of water pelting off of and hurting anything that hindered it from hitting the ground. It was almost as if rocks were being thrown down from the heavens, punishment for sins unknown.
         The streets and alleyways were covered in water, puddles from the sidewalks pouring incessantly into the already flooded roads. With the water already flowing steadily down the avenues and boulevards, the rain didn’t help much, creating splashes amid the puddles and spraying water.
         It was a bad night to go on a walk, but considering taxis and buses weren’t running due to weather and time, her only choice was to run the six blocks from work back to her cousin’s apartment. Since she’d moved to England a few months ago right after her high-school graduation, she’d taken on an intern job at one of the local newspapers. Unfortunately for her on this particular night, she was dressed for work in a skirt, blazer, and heels which were most definitely not clothes fit for running of even getting wet. It wasn’t as if she had planned the rain, but being the strong willed eighteen year old she was, she took off her heels and looked out of the front windows of the news building, already feeling as if drops of cold rain were hitting her. She then braced herself and plunged outside into the dark, hoping she could find her way home despite the darkness.
         As she began her trek down the stone side walk, her clothes got soaked, clinging to her body and making her even colder then she already was. Desperate to block the pellets of rain beating down her face, she dropped her heels and forced her sopping arms out of her once fashionable, but now ruined, blazer and held it above her head, trying to shield her face from the rain so she could see where she was going. It would not make this night any better if she were to ram her head into a light post, now would it? As she looked around, she failed to foresee a shallow, but strong, wave of water sweeping down the road, coming at her and taking away with it her heels. Frustration filled her mind, but she pushed it aside, longings to get home setting firmly in her mind before the rain could wash away any hope she had for ever leaving this nightmare.
         "London’s known for having rain, yes, but this much? I don’t think so," she thought to herself.
          It was if God himself had opened the floodgates of Heaven, trying to wash out the evil from between the coble stones of London. And though the main roads received their cleansing, one alleyway remained full of darkness, water pouting from the slanted roves of the builders enclosing it. It was in this alleyway she strayed; too preoccupied with trying to walk straight she didn’t realize she’d gone too far. She peered out from under the subtle protection of her blazer only to be splashed in the face with what seemed like a bucket of water. She went blind for a moment, water filling her eyes and making everything look like a part of a wet painting, all the colors running this way and that, mixing with each other and being ruined forever.
         She heard from somewhere behind her a great splash as if the bucket that had so graciously dumped water on her face had fallen from the clouds and to the waters beside her. But the sound didn’t stop, it continued. This time it wasn’t a splash, but a sloshing noise, as if someone was dragging their feet in the water.
         “Who’s there?” she shouted over the noise of the wind, her voice spreading out across the blackness that engulfed everything around her.
         No answer.
         The sloshing continued, drawing nearer and nearer after every step.
         She called out again, “Is someone there?” Then she heard it: the deep rumble of a drunken laugh that flew across the wind and danced around her, making her tremble. She began to shiver, bringing her arms down along with her coat and hugging herself as she slowly backed away from the direction from which the horrid sound had come.
         Suddenly, she bumped into something rough and warm and thinking it was the edge of a building, she leaned against it. When the warm building began moving, she screamed, only to be spun around with strong arms and face the enormous piece of flesh before her. Then it came again. The earth seemed to shake this time with the rumble, terror gripping onto her soul and dissolving all hope of ever returning home.
         She felt a blow to her head and dropped her blazer in the water, the world turning black and spinning so fast she fell. She hit the water hard, forcing the water into a tidal wave under her weight.
         The moments following that swirled by, filled with a deep darkness in which the greatest of terror was unleashed upon this girl. She remembered a dark room, piercing screams, the pain, and the helplessness. When the beast was done with her, a knife found his hands, marking her not only with dark memories, but with a deep scar to the soft skin on the right side of her navel.