Nexus Prompt 066: Rain [pastflavin]

[rodentia_sapiens]

The first pattering drops of rain drove them from their path to find shelter. Nearby loomed an old, abandoned human conveyance--a car, they remembered. There had been a lot of these vehicles in the parking lot that they often saw in photos and that they'd scurried through uncounted hours ago. Now, out in the open country, as they made their way along a blind path in tall grass, the sight of the conveyance was surreal.

"It must have stopped functioning and they abandoned it," someone observed.

"Whatever its reason for being here, we can at least shelter in it to wait the rain out. There aren't any humans anywhere nearby," someone else had pointed out. This was true, especially when Justin scrambled to the top of it to look around. Nothing around at all, just grass. The buildings surrounding the laboratory were small, vague shapes in the distance. They'd run far.

He found that one of the windows was open and, as the rain started to come down heavier, he gestured the others to follow him into the vehicle. The opening was just wide enough for Brutus, the largest of their number, to squeeze through. By the time the last one, a spotted female, climbed in, the rain was coming down in earnest, now.

Nothing for it but to wait it out.

They found a corner in the driver's seat and huddled in it, exhausted and twitching. The rain drummed against the top of the vehicle and on the windscreen, sheeting down the glass windows and dripping in through the opening. They watched it do this, wondering if their shelter would end up flooding. But the dripping never amounted to much and they relaxed after a moment, huddling closer for warmth.

Lightning flashed, causing a few to startle. "It's only lightning," someone said quietly. They'd seen so many lights, recently.

The instinct was there, and some of them began to groom each other's fur, though it didn't seem as comforting as it once was. There was a hint of awkwardness, now. How much had they changed? How much would they continue to change? Still, they smoothed each other's fur with their paws and settled closer. The escape had exhausted them and there was something ... lulling about the sound of the rain against the top of their improvised shelter.

The mice, Jonathan and Ages, crowded together, almost too small to generate enough heat to warm themselves. It wasn't much, but the rats could, at least offer warmth and a strange structure to their huddling surfaced after everyone shifted about to find someplace to curl. Several were balled up in the corner, next to Brutus. Several more had curled around a shivering Nicodemus. They all formed a pile of fur, most dropping off to sleep immediately.

But Justin was awake. And he could tell, by the faint glow of the other's eyes, that Nicodemus was, as well.

"Where will we go?" he whispered after a moment. "We can't go home, can we?"

"I'm afraid we can't," Nicodemus murmured after a moment. "We've been changed in too many ways."

"Will we find a home?"

"We must. And, so, we will."

Justin sighed and closed his eyes, leaning against warm fur. He wished he were as confident about the future as Nicodemus sounded. He wondered if the old rat could see the future. He wondered if there was a future to see.

He drifted to sleep, eventually, the rain sheeting outside and the inside dry and somewhat warm. They all slept, eventually, all but one, whose softly glowing gaze watched the rain against the windscreen and the tiny bits of the future reflected in the rivulets.