Author’s POV
Bags above their heads, coats and shoulders all hurting and fingertips burning. With quivering jaws and lips, Cassandra along with her best friend and professor make their run towards her house for the night. Hailstorm have really become destructive in the future.
Around the alley turn, Cassandra sees another person entering her house. His black leather jacket was above his head and a silly grin on his face whilst he entered the fence first.
He held the fence open for his sister and two other visitors.
“Welcome! Welcome aboard!” He says in a hurry, hail hurting his shoulders all the more.
“There goes another ruined jacket.” He sighs, making Cassandra roll her eyes.
“You have the keys?” She asks the young male who checks under the small white pot. “Nope. I never carry the keys with me. Might lose ’em.” He says, making her roll her eyes again.
“So, that’s your brother Cassandra?” Asks Professor Zayn, dusting his trench coat shoulders off the melted pieces of hail.
“Yes sir. He is a bit idiotic so please bear with him.” She says, the brother going, “Hey! That is so rude! I’d never introduce you to my friends like that, Cassie!” The door opens with a click as the siblings enter first, following with Ravine entering the last and closing the door behind herself.
“Well, you didn’t introduce me to them because you don’t even have friends. Am I right?” The girls snicker at his reaction.
“Meanie.” Professor Zayn felt out of place as second thoughts came to him. He wanted to leave the place, moreover so after he found there wasn’t an adult around. He was the only liable adult.
“Oh, uh… your mother seems to be stuck somewhere too. I think I should leave.” Says Professor Zayn. The siblings have received a message from their mother just then,
[Hey Kids!]
[It’s hailing so I am stuck at Hudson’s]
[Take care of the house for tonight, and your soup’s in the fridge darlings!]
Louis shrugs his shoulders and escapes to his room. For Ravine, this was the only chance in her life where she could probably have a cup of hot chocolate with her hot Professor. She did not want to let go of this golden opportunity. Not in a millenia.
“S-sir! It’s alright. Louis is home so you don’t have to worry about being the only man in the house.” Says Ravine as a slip of a tongue. When Cassandra budges her arm, only them she notices an unsure gaze from Professor Zayn.
“Yeah. All the more a reason for me to leave then. So-”
“Sir, what she means is you will probably get hurt again.” She says to the Professor, pointing at his right hand where his ring finger was bleeding a little.
“Oh. I didn’t even notice this.” Says Zayn.
“Sir, I insist you stay. Louis cooks really well.” She says, manipulating him by dangling food in front of him.
“Okay. I’ll stay then.” Cassandra smiles, nodding her head to acknowledge him. The man asks for a room to stay at. Cassandra cleans up the guestroom of her little house and comes out all dressed.
Little did they know that over dinner, Louis and Ravine were exchanging glances and teasing each other under the table. Cassandra was totally exhausted for today and couldn’t care less about her brother and best friend teasing each other just above her leg.
The worst part of their dinner night was the lingering awkwardness. None of them felt the need to cut it. The two idiots under the table couldn’t even give a pinch of care. Zayn was almost too close to completing the rest of his dinner on the sofa rather than ruin his integrity by sitting awkwardly between his students, and well one of their was his ex-student too.
“Professor Zayn.” After early dinner, Louis joins the man at the table who was intently typing his life away on the laptop. “Yes, Louis?” He assertively addresses the boy who sits beside his ex-teacher.
“Now that everyone knows I’m a playboy, I still don’t get why you don’t do the dirty with your students. Like, come on. You can’t hide your manliness in this accursed world anymore.” Louis’ enunciation makes the man smile rather than get upset over the topic. He was open minded enough to listen to Louis and explain him why he cannot be like him.
“Well, Louis. I’m a person who wants to spend the first experiences with a special one.” Louis raises an eyebrow at him.
“You’re a few decades too late to say that, sir. People do whatever they want and whenever they want. Society has grown.”
“Then I’m a bit of an old soul myself, aren’t?” Says the man. Another person joins the conversation.
“I second Professor with that. First experiences are way too special for anyone. It’s that people lack the finesse of first love these days. Huh. My mom used to speak a lot about her youth and how things were back in the days.” The young girl Cassandra says, an arpon over her neck as she insisted on cleaning the dishes for the night.
“You both are so boring.” Says Ravine, Louis and her giving each other a high five.
“Yet someone can’t stick-”
“Okay! That’s enough. Louis. Off to bed, now.” Zayn chuckles at how the younger sibling acts like a responsible adult. The male grunts and leaves at once, never once looking back but gesturing something to the girl he passes by.
“When they’re asleep. Okay?” Says Louis as he skips into his room, keeping the door slightly open.
Suddenly, the current goes out and the whole area around them turns pitch black. Cassandra was a light frightened as she whines, making her friend chuckle and snicker.
“You’re still afraid of the dark! Oh look and it’s thundering too!” Ravine tries to make fun of the poor girl who was still whining and complaining not to pull her leg. Zayn wasn’t happy with this. As a friend, one must know clearly that if one of them doesn’t like it, they can’t be teased about it.
Maybe Cassandra had a fear of something. Maybe Cassandra had to go through a phase where she cannot be helped but consoled with words and nothing more. Maybe… Cassandra had an experience, if not in this life but in her past which makes her feel uncomfortable.
“Hey, Ravine?”
“Yes sir?”
“I think I’m hearing her cry…” Zayn says after awhile. It looks as if Cassandra stumbled on her furniture and walked herself to somewhere in the house. She must be too scared, also having no one around to help her morally.
Upon hearing the faint sounds of her sobs, Ravine searches for where the candles were usually kept in their kitchen drawer.
“Stay where you are, Cassie. I’m coming there.”
“Hurry…” her voice breaks their hearts. Why couldn’t they guess her broken voice before? She must be scared to death too, on top of that.
Lighting the candle with a splinter, Ravine tries to locate Cassandra in the dim yellow light of the flame. “There she is.” Upon his shadow casted, Zayn sees two glistening eyes of the girl who was crying with her ears all cuffed with her sweater paws.
“Oh no, I’m so sorry. I thought you were over it already.” Even Cassandra held no explanation whatsoever. She only held a regrettable amount of sadness in her heart and she began to cry over darkness and thunder.
What was this about? She couldn’t pin point.
“Hey, it’s fine.” Professor Zayn touches her shoulder. The area felt warm for her. Like she was familiar with that kind of touch.
It was pleasant. It was reassuring and safe.
She slowly looks up at the two of them, weeping reduced to silent sobs and finally deep breaths. In under a minute, she announces, “I’m okay. Thank you.”
Taking Ravine’s help, she gets up and they walk her to the room. “I’ll open the curtains for at least the night light, okay? Jeez, solar power is so unreliable around this zone.” Says Ravine, opening the curtains for the dimmed blueness of the outside to flow in. She smiles at their professor who tilts the candle so it’s melted wax falls on the plate below.
“I’ll go back to the guestroom. Thank you again for having me.” Says the professor as the two girls wave it off and say it was just their duty to be kind.
The man goes to the couch where his things were scattered. He takes his laptop bag and his trench coat and heads over to the guestroom. It was neat and minimal, like for a guest. He occupies the bed and sighs deeply. Folding his elbow over his forehead, a notification in the SMS pops up again.
“Further information: Hailstorm to proceed for the next three days. All citizens are to follow the guidelines and stay in safe zones and inside their homes until further notice. There will be a shortage of power upon the heavy thunders too.” The message read.
“Great.” He was least pleased with the information. For another damn three days, he is stuck in this house; he thinks.
For no reason he found it good that he had to stay with his students to keep his head and hands safe. There are no automobiles running too, nor the public transport. The hails will damage everything that is not under concrete.
He stares at the wound which Cassandra attended for him. It stings, all the more when he thinks too deeply and presses on the wound.
“Ouch…” he calls. It was around midnight when Zayn was tired of shifting over and over. He would rather not sleep than sleep with no peace in his heart. There was something bothering him vaguely. Or more specifically about Cassandra.
He finds the girl intriguing. It was almost as if both of them were old souls with old ways of thinking. It isn’t a trend these days, neither did many prefer being old schooled from 2010’s. It was 2057 and the year for the worst climatic conditions so far in America’s history.
Zayn tosses and tosses around his bed but couldn’t get his mind to settle down. Clicking his tongue, he walks around his room and stares at his phone. His signal tower was way too low to even place a call to find someone nearby and crash into their place.
He was really, truly stuck at Cassandra’s house.
Growing bored out of his mind, he heads over to the kitchen with guilty steps of emptying their entire fridge. He considers himself as a man with huge appetite. He must love feeding himself.
As he walks towards the kitchen, crossing the door to Louis’ room, he hears bizarre sounds of two people doing the absolute dirty. Of course, the weather demanded so and Ravine along with Louis seemed to enjoy their position. Zayn doesn’t have a say in this. Nor can he do anything. Sucking it up, he convinces himself that sex is normal.
Well, he wasn’t much of a saint himself either.
He’s had a couple of share of his sins for this lifetime. He had even tried pleasure with his similar sex. That phase made him prefer women over men, anytime.
Over their room which he quickly passes by, he hears a faint sound of the only girl in the house murmuring something to herself. It was as if she was assuring herself through the downed weather. Zayn observes her for awhile. She flinched every time it thundered, even the smaller ones.
Before a big one hits and she screams, Zayn knocks on her door and makes her look at his silhouette.
“Hey. Are you okay, Cassandra?” He says, walking further inside.
“Y-yes sir. You haven’t slept?” She acts tough, but he has seen her already.
“Hey, you don’t have to pretend you’re not scared. I understand you, it’s fine.” He sits on her bed. The girl scootches over to give him place.
“Why are you scared of the rain?” He asks, his hand betraying him out of the blue. Cassandra stares at the man who adjusts her hair behind her ear. Why did he do that all of a sudden?
Both of them go silent, until Cassandra decides to continue as if nothing happened.
“I- I don’t know myself sir. It’s… like I’m not scared but there’s the feeling of Deja Vu when I’m alone and in the dark.” Says Cassandra. Zayn widens his eyes, smiling and scoffing as he says.
“That’s funny. I feel the Deja Vu too…
… when I’m with you.”