A Rainy Day

We seek a haven // eternally progressing towards it // and when infinity is bypassed, and we arrive // only death awaits. 
Marco awoke to the ambient hum of the engine, as he always did on longer deliveries. His eyes darted up at the gray sky, which hadn’t changed in color since the last thousand times he had looked upon it. The endless city was much like the sky it had—dull, grey, and boring. It used to be incomprehensible and terrifying to him, but as time passed, that notion faded as all he found himself doing was sitting in the back of a truck doing the same old job of moving supplies for whoever needed them. He did think it was nice that people relied on him and his friends, however.
Suddenly, the man sleeping beside Marco jolted forward, waking up in a cold sweat. Marco laughed at this and turned to face the man. “Had a bad dream, Tom?” Tom frowned and turned away from Marco, trying to hide the disheveled expression he had on his face. “What of it? We all have bad dreams. Hell, we live inside one right now,” Tom said, turning his attention to the cargo in front of them. “What exactly are we hauling this time?” Marco grinned. “Fresh carrots. Farmed by those Highrise fellas over in Section 8. We have a few hours till we arrive at that shitty, run-down M.E.G base, so try and get some shuteye.” Tom didn’t have any qualms with the idea of getting more rest. He placed his hat back on his face and cozied himself up in the corner, preparing to drift off once again.
Marco fully stood up, feeling the wind push against the back of his head. The asphalt road sprawled far into the distance, surrounded by the same copy-paste buildings that had been spread around the landscape. They were probably as empty on the inside as they were externally, he thought, as the window of the car door rolled down. “MARCO! Sit the fuck down. I can’t see through my rearview, and it’s pissing me off.” Marco planted himself back on the cold metal of the truck bed, prompting the driver to speak again. “Thanks. I know the mirror has no use, but it’s almost muscle memory at this point to look at it, heh.” Marco grinned. “Don’t stress it, dude.”
*Plink*
Everyone immediately snapped their heads to the noise, including Tom, who hadn’t fallen asleep quite yet. Everyone was quiet for a moment. Tom fully sat up. “Was that the truc-”
*Plink*
Marco instantly moved toward the sound, scouring for what had created it. He crouched toward the origin of the noise, and as he looked with an odd desperation, his eyes locked onto the source. An almost unnoticeable trickle of water was sitting on the bed of the truck—a raindrop. Marco’s mouth became agape as he turned toward Tom, gesturing to him to come over and stare. More raindrops began to fall from the now darkened gray sky, with one landing on Marco’s hand. Marco could only stare in astonishment at the water. How long had it been since he had felt this sensation of rain upon his skin? He asked himself this in his mind, not coming to an answer. The truck came to a screeching halt, causing Marco to fly backward and slam his back against the front. There was no time to process the pain of the sudden impact, however.
“Tom… are you seeing this shit?” Marco spoke softly, not wanting to disturb the many noises of water slamming against the metal around them. Tom only nodded his head in agreement, staring silently at the sky. “It’s beautiful.” The door on the driver’s side of the truck suddenly flung open, allowing the driver to stumble out and stand on the road. “IS IT SERIOUSLY FUCKIN RAINING??? My god…” The driver clasped his hand over his mouth. Marco jumped off the truck and set himself next to the truck driver. “Yep.” Marco moved his face toward the sky, to stare at the now-darkened clouds. They were almost pitch black, and rain poured down from them onto the three men’s heads. Suddenly, a flash of white appeared on the road ahead of them, and after that, an ear-shattering boom. Marco began to laugh hysterically, still staring upwards. “IT’S A MOTHERFUCKING THUNDERSTORM, FELLAS! CALL IT GOD’S NATURAL SHOWER FOR US CRETINS.” The driver began to chuckle alongside Marco.
Tom still sat in the trunk, letting the water fill the truck bed around him. The thought of rain here was an inconceivable notion to him. He just wanted to appreciate this moment in its fleeting glory, for he knew it would not stay for long. Another flash of white illuminated the clouds, but instead of bolstering Marco’s screams, it brought them to a screeching halt. Marco stood frozen, his smile completely vanished from his face, instead replaced by a face of pure terror. “Dan… did you see that?” Dan turned back toward him. “Was that... a fucking... fish?" Marco shook his head. "Whatever it is..." Tom looked at the two of them, visibly confused. "What the fuck are you guys talking about? I didn't see shit up in the clouds. We should get back to moving this cargo before the bag gets wet." Dan turned back to him. "I am SURE AS SHIT not driving in this storm, even if we have an entity on our hands. We need to figure out what the fuck that thing was before Marco pees himself out of fear."
Another flash. This time, a visible outline of some terrible thing could be seen, slowly progressing through the clouds.
"FUCK... I... fine. We need to go. Better we miss the rainstorm than come face to face with whatever's up there. I'm not risking it." Marco nodded in agreement and moved toward the shotgun seat of the car as Dan got back into the driver's seat. "Tom, just stay in the back, ok?" Marco said, before shutting the door and fully placing himself in his seat. Dan immediately started the ignition once again and began to beeline it down the road. The rainstorm had only gotten worse, and even with headlights on, Dan could only see about 20 feet in front of the car. "Jesus. What the actual fuck was that in the sky?" He grunted, trying to stay as focused as possible on the road. "How am I supposed to know? Shit like this happened all the time before we got to the city. We saw something we couldn't explain or something that scared us away, and we ran. That's how we survive. That's all that matters now. Don't even think about what was up there." Marco began to feel his heartbeat grow. This fear he felt... was almost primordial. Like an ant looking at the bottom of a human's shoe. It utterly terrified him to his core. He looked toward the sky again out of the glass of his window, viewing the now black sky, and the endless rain that fell from it.
Marco was so fixed on the sky, that when a man in tattered robes suddenly appeared in the car's headlights, he wasn't able to react before Dan had turned to the left, causing the truck to roll and slam into a small ditch on the side of the road.
-------------------------------------
By the time Marco had come to from the collision, he had been dragged outside of the car onto the wet grass. His eyes opened to face the black sky he had grown to fear, and in the distance, he could hear muffled sounds of screaming. In his still disoriented state, he tried to turn and face the screams, but his neck wouldn't turn without feeling excruciating pain. Utter despair ran through his brain. He couldn't survive in a state like this. He had always heard the stories of the many who had died in these infinite spaces, but it never once occurred to him that he could be one of them, and now that he began to realize it, it reignited a fear of death inside of him that he had forgotten through his constant back and forth journeys and his mundane life. Marco let out a scream of his own, and began to move his body onto its side, so he could face the source of the suffering he had been hearing. He had a direct view of the truck, and with that view, he saw Tom pinned underneath. Tom continued to scream obscenities at Dan, who had been trying to pull him out after escaping the car and taking Marco to the grass. 
Marco sat powerless as he called out to his friends, who could not hear him over the sounds of the downpour and their own yells. Nothing got through. Tears began to stream down his face. What had happened over these past hours? This had gone too fast for him. Was it a dream? A nightmare? Some cruel torture by the same entity they had seen above them? He couldn't process the pace at which things had progressed, and only sent him spiraling further and further. Dan then turned back and hobbled towards Marco, which allowed Marco to get a good look at Dan's current state. The skin on his fingers had been flayed and cracked open, and on his left leg sat a gash that exposed his inner workings right down to the bone. Marco wanted to vomit, but instead, he could only feel blood seeping into his mouth. "FUCK! That's not good. Marco. MARCO! I need you to help me get Tom out of the wreck. Come on, stand u-"
By the time Marco noticed the sword that had pierced through Dan's neck, Dan was already collapsing to the floor, his hands frantically reaching for whoever had stabbed him. In the place of where Dan once stood, the same robed figure had inserted his blade into Dan. Marco was left without words. He could only stare at the figure, as the figure stared at him. It was an abomination of flesh. It had at least 7 eyes forced into the maw that it called a face, and it's mouth opened way past these eyes, almost threatening to swallow them at any point. Yet they floated in place. 
"You... have witnessed the god storm, and the truth haven that controls it. My purpose - stands only to destroy those who have gazed upon it. The man I just slaughtered had compared it to an animal when speaking of it. You... seem to understand that it is not so easily defined. This storm brings winds of change across infinity. You could learn infinity. Come." 
The being latched onto Marco's shattered body with many arms and lifted it. There were no words left to say for Marco, and no grunts or screams to let out. The events that had unfolded before him had left him in such a shock, that he had gone almost fully catatonic just upon witnessing what he had seen. Yet, he stared on at the truck where he saw Tom still struggling to escape, screaming and crying for Dan and Marco to come back for him. 
In that moment, instead of feeling sadness, apathy or fear, only one emotion coursed through the mind of Marco Vierra. 
Relief.
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Author: Twhalliii
Category:Tales