The Rain
rating: +12+x

Rain was pouring down on me from up above, pattering on the skylight of the break room as if mother nature herself had just gotten a broken heart. I could barely stand the sound. It reminded me of worse times, when the sound of the rain on glass was nothing more than the distance between me and a liquor store. Those were hard times.

The sound started getting under my skin, so I went for a walk. Most evenings it's so dark you can't tell if it's day or night, and the only comfort you might get is the buzzing of fluorescent lamps and the yellowish glows they cast across the floor. Beyond that, around here the only friends you ever get are the sound of your heart beating fast and that feeling of a chill on the back of your neck when you think you're alone.

The sound of my footsteps on the tile floor echoes like gunshots down the twisting corridor. I got a few stares from the tired Janes and grumpy Joes around every corner, but I didn't care. Nobody was gonna stop me from what I had to do. That rain! I could still hear it on the windows, and I felt my stomach sink like a cannonball in water. Somehow (and don't ask me how) I made it back to my office and sat down. My desk was littered with requests and reports, glaring up at me with their cold facts and their unending pain. I was tired. The rain still shook deep in my head and split my skull like a bolt of fire.

I drew my sidearm and laid the sleek, black weapon on the desk, a tool of death coiled and ready to strike like a venomous snake. I'd thought about the possibility of ending things before. I heard once that firing a gun is a binary choice: Either you pull the trigger or you don't. Sometimes that decision is slow. Sometimes it's a decision you make in an instant.

If nothing else, then the grave would silence this godforsaken rain.

-

Dr. Brown pulled the hat off of the corpse. "You gotta be fucking kidding me."

Agent Stevens shook his head. "This is ridiculous. How does a containment breach like this even happen?"

Brown put the hat into a box and sealed it. "He checked it out earlier for research. He got approval from three level 3's. He followed protocol, up until he put the damn thing on."

"Well, shit." He pointed at the box and glared at the doctor. "I want to make sure that thing stays locked up from now on. When I find out how the hell this happened, I'm gonna have one hell of a report. I'll be lucky if I still have a job." His eyes drifted over the dead researcher on the floor. "Then again, that might not be such a bad thing."

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