It hadn't stopped raining in what seemed like forever. The sky above the small town was a sickly yellowish grey, like old bruises. The sun was just a memory, a rumor of something warm and comforting. The two kids,Emily and James, were climbing the walls. Sara couldn't blame them. The relentless drumbeat of the rain, the way the thunder rattled their windows and shook the floor beneath their feet, it was enough to drive anyone mad.

     At first, it was just the usual stuff that happens when the weather turns really bad. Trees down, power flickering on and off, that kind of thing. But then people started to get weird. 

     Sara was peeling potatoes at the kitchen sink when she saw Mrs. Flores from next door tearing at her flowerbeds, screaming at the top of her lungs. Not words, just this raw, animal noise. Sara rubbed at the steam on the window, wondering if she was seeing things right. But no, there she was, ripping her hands to shreds on thorns, her face purple with rage.

     That's when the radios started going haywire. At first, it was just static, then snippets of voices talking about storms and floods. But then the trio started hearing things that made no sense. Whispers in languages they didn't recognize, bits of old songs, a man's voice saying "Ellen...Ellen..." over and over.

     The kids were getting scared. Their mother told them it was just the storm messing with the signals, but she wasn't so sure herself. She started keeping them close, not letting them out of her sight. Every waking moment, every single God damned day. Sara would visit the window in the front of the house, once an hour to note the changes outside.

     That's when she saw the first one. A man in a green slicker, stumbling down the street. He had this...this thing on his face. Like a shadow, but moving; squirming. He was heading for the Watson's place. Sara watched, frozen, as he smashed through their front door. Screams, then silence. Tears began streaming from Sara’s eyes. What was she witnessing.

     She knew then that the rain wasn't just rain. It was bringing something with it. Something bad. Something, irrational and terrifying.

     That very night they barricaded the doors and windows, piling up furniture and books. Anything they could find that was sturdy and heavy. Sara found this old shotgun he deceased husband used to take hunting and made sure it was loaded. She didn't know if shecould use it, but she was damn sure going to try.

     The kids were white as ghosts, their eyes huge. They could hear the storm paired with screams and slamming in the houses atound us. Echoing up the street. Sara kept them close to her, whispering that everything was going to be okay. Though, she didn't believe it, she had to try and sound calm and reassuring. She had to protect her kids.

     Night was the worst. The darkness pressed in on them, making the shadows on the walls move and twist. They could hear the others out there, the ones the rain had changed. Scratching at the wood, their breath steaming across the windows. Sara kept waiting for them to break through, but so far, the barricades were holding.

     Sara waits by the candlelight, up in the attic while she awaits a rescuer that will probably never come. Her childeren sleeping under the coffee table in a makeshift fortress with cushions all around them. She writes in a journal, while trying to keep from shaking: 

“The rain is still coming down, the thunder still booming. I don't know how much longer we can hold out. I'm so scared, but I won't let myself cry, not in front of the kids. I'm going to keep writing as long as I can, try and leave a record of what happened. Maybe someone will find it, maybe they can figure out what the rain brought with it.”

     The home which Sara and her kids lived was found empty. The doors and windows smashed in. It reeked of spoiled leftovers or something rotting in the house. The fort under the table was toppled over. The whole home in disarray. When the journal was found, it wasn't read. Not until after the team of rescuers discovered the bodies of Sara and her two children, skeletal and covered in webs, clinging to each other in the far corner of the musty attic. They had expired months ago, but the rain rattled against the roof just as loud as the day they died. The journal that Sara kept is the only written record known to exist of the early days of the rain. The phenomenon continues unexplained, and taking lives in the thousands, daily.