GIRL IN RAIN
CHAPTER 1:
THE WHISPERING RAIN
The rain had not stopped for three days.
It fell in silver sheets across the rooftops of Greybridge, a town where secrets often hid behind fogged windows and puddled alleyways. The sky hung low, smeared in bruised purples and iron greys, as though it mourned something no one dared name.
Talia stood barefoot in the middle of the road, soaked to the skin. Her thin cotton dress clung to her like second skin, heavy and translucent, but she didn’t flinch. Her eyes were wide and unblinking, fixed on something far beyond the rows of dimly lit houses. She didn’t shiver. She didn’t cry. She simply stood, as if the rain had called her out and she had answered, without hesitation.
People watched her from behind curtains, murmuring.
“She’s back.”
“She never left.”
“That’s the same girl, isn’t it? The one from the lake?”
The whispers were all wrong and all right at once. Talia didn’t hear them—not the voices, not the distant rumble of thunder, not the rain pelting the ground around her. She heard only one sound, faint and melodic: the sound of a lullaby.
It had started the moment she stepped out into the storm.
---
Three nights earlier, the lake had called her.
It was always the lake. Since childhood, Talia had dreamed of dark water and a silver moon splitting across its surface. But that night, the dream had been different. She had seen herself walking into the lake in the same dress she wore now. The water had shimmered as if welcoming her. And when she had submerged, she had heard a voice—a girl’s voice, soft and urgent.
“Come find me.”
The next morning, she had awakened with mud on her feet and water dripping from her hair. She hadn’t remembered leaving the house.
---
Now, in the middle of the storm, Talia felt the pull again.
A crow cawed above, circling. Streetlights flickered. The townspeople shrank from their windows. But she took her first step forward.
The puddles rippled at her feet like they knew her name.
She walked with purpose, not toward the lake this time, but toward the woods that lined the town's edge—a place few dared go. The trees there grew twisted and gnarled, older than any memory Greybridge possessed. Children told stories about the “girl in rain,” the phantom figure that appeared in the forest whenever the rain refused to stop.
Some said she was cursed.
Others said she was the curse.
But no one knew her name.
No one, except Talia.
---
She reached the edge of the trees just as the rain quieted, softening to a whisper. Each droplet that hit the leaves seemed to murmur a secret. The canopy above swallowed what little light remained, casting Talia in a dim, green-tinted gloom. She didn’t hesitate. The forest welcomed her with open arms.
With each step, the song grew louder. Not a lullaby now, but a harmony—many voices, all female, all echoing in a tongue she didn’t recognize but somehow understood.
A name repeated again and again: Amarinth.
Talia stopped. Her breath caught in her throat.
That name had never been spoken aloud in her life, yet it was carved into the back of her childhood journal. It had appeared in her dreams. She had always thought it was just a figment, something invented. But now it vibrated in her bones.
She moved faster, weaving through the wet underbrush, her hair streaming behind her like ink in water. Trees leaned inward. The rain never fully stopped, but in that part of the forest, it seemed to hum rather than fall. As if it were listening.
And then she saw her.
A girl in a white dress, glowing faintly, standing in the clearing ahead. Her face was identical to Talia’s.
But her eyes were filled with stars.
---
The girl smiled, a sad, knowing thing. “You came,” she whispered.
Talia stumbled forward, heart thudding. “Who are you?”
The girl’s smile didn’t fade. “I’m the one you forgot. The one they drowned. The one they cursed.”
Talia shook her head, but the memories began to surge like water bursting a dam. The lake. The cold. A name screamed into the void. And hands—so many hands—pulling her under, long ago.
“You’re me,” Talia said.
“No,” the girl answered. “I’m who you were meant to be.”
And as lightning cracked across the sky, the forest fell silent. The rain stilled. And the wind held its breath.
Talia took another step forward—and vanished into the mist.
