Green Rain & Jelly Donuts

"Getting a donut shouldn't be this hard," Sam mutters, staring at the pouring rain outside.

"Oh, c'mon, it's fine!" Janet, Sam's best friend, drops a raincoat on her head. "It's not like a little rain will kill us."

"It's green!" Sam tugs the raincoat off and gestures outside at the green rain, because-- well-- it's green! She really didn't expect to have to defend the fact that green rain is a problem! "How do we know it isn't poisonous? That's exactly how poisonous things look in movies!"

Janet frowns, planting her hands on her hips and staring out at the rain. "I... have no idea."

"And you're saying we need to go out in that?"

"Sam. Sammy. My dearest Samigo." Janet turns a firm, deadly serious gaze onto Sam. "The store has a 95 percent off sale for jelly-filled donuts today. I am not letting a little questionable rain prevent me from getting donuts for fifty cents each."

Sam wants to argue. She really, really does. Because the rain is, as mentioned previously, bright, neon green. And starting to go sideways, if she focuses too hard on it. And-- the rain is weird. The rain is weird, and Sam really doesn't like it, but... the donuts are so cheap. She and Janet only have ten dollars of allowance to split between them, and, well, this is probably the one time in their whole entire lives that they'll be able to buy a whole twenty donuts at once!

Sighing, Sam puts on the raincoat. "Fine. Let's go."

Janet whoops, throwing on her own raincoat before racing out the front door to where their bikes are parked. Sam barely has any time to shout to her mom that she'll be at the store getting donuts ("have fun, dear!") and wonder why nobody seems to be concerned about the rain before Janet's yelling at her to hurry up and get on the bike already. And really, she should definitely be worried about the fact that the world somehow becomes greener when she steps outside, but there's donuts to be had, and Sam doesn't have time to worry anymore.

Except she does, because the rain picks up harder as they bike away from home, Sam's skin going red and itchy where it's exposed to the stuff. But she finds that she's not as worried about that as she probably should be, seeing as the rain is eating away at the pavement below her, pockets and sinkholes forming as the two girls ride on. Sam's about to call out to Janet that maybe they should stop and wait the rain out, that maybe it really is poisonous, when she slams face-first into the other girl, sending them both tumbling down the road.

"Hey!" Janet yells when they finally come to a stop, sprawled on the wet pavement. "What'd you do that for?"

"Me-- why'd you stop?" Sam shoots back.

"Uh, 'cause of that."

Janet turns, pointing to where the road just... ends. It typically climbs up over a small mountain, lets them ride across the rolling landscape, but today it just stops. Pavement falls away into a massive crater that decidedly was not there before, the whole thing covered with sheets of rain that stop right at the edge of the crumbling road.

"That's..."

"The road to the store!" Janet wails, running to the edge of the crumbling pavement. "We'll need to go the long way now!"

"That's what you're worried about?!" Sam shouts, gesturing to the nothingness that replaced a whole entire mountain. "Use your eyes, Janet, we've got other things to worry about right now!"

"And what am I supposed to do about that, bring the mountain back? I'm not made of magic, Sam!"

"You-- well--" Sam throws her hands in the air. "I don't know!"

"We'll just get donuts." Janet marches over to her bike. "Maybe look at the stars a bit. And then we will go home, and forget this ever happened."

Sam blinks. "It's like noon, why would we look at the stars?"

"Uh, 'cause there are stars in the sky? Haven't you been looking at them?"

Muttering something about being distracted by the missing mountain, Sam turns, squinting at the clouds and-- and there are stars. And there are glowing specks of light barely peeking through the storm in a way that would be kinda pretty if it wasn't the middle of the day.

"Janet," Sam says, "I think we're being invaded by aliens."

Janet snorts. "Now that's a bit silly."

"What, aliens are too far but a giant hole replacing a mountain isn't?"

"I mean, I can see the giant hole, for one--"

A click! sounds through the air, like someone snapped their fingers right next to Sam's ear. She turns on instinct, only to find nobody next to her, blinking as she tries to--

The rain is gone.

Sam blinks again. The rain, the bright green rain, is gone. Sam and Janet are dry as bone in their raincoats, the day has turned cheerfully sunny, and the crumbling road is now leisurely curving through a brand-new, lush green valley. And when Sam looks up, not a single star can be found in the baby blue sky.

"Well," Janet says, "that was weird."

"No kidding," Sam mumbles.

"So... let's go get donuts?"

"After all of that, you still want to--"

"Oh, c'mon." Janet gestures to the world around them. "We can either go home and process that with a crapload of donuts, or without. And I dunno about you, but I'm choosing with."

Sam opens her mouth. Sam closes her mouth. Sam sighs, walking over to where her bike fell over, and picks it up. "All right. Let's go get donuts."

And she, very politely, ignores Janet's I told you so!