Umbrella -random and crappy-

We walked silently in the pouring rain, trying desperately to keep dry under our tattered umbrellas. Everything was so cold, that it felt like it was seeping under my skin, soaking my soul to its bone. Not like my soul had been warm before the storm. No, not after what happened to New York, to those innocent people and those children. Had it really been a month since those small children were taken? A month of constant planning, strategizing and training, never time for rest and mourning. At least Victoria wouldn’t have to go through this.
I stopped dead in my tracks just at the thought, letting the big puddle I stepped in slosh around my pant legs.
Victoria.
She really was gone, and I knew it too, but it didn’t seem real. There was never a moment to miss her, to bring flowers to her small tomb stone. I was too exhausted too cry at the end of the day; too wrapped up in the horrible thoughts and ideas that were forced on me during training from my horrible scars to spare a thought for her. Yet, I told my self, continuing on through the thick puddle and over smooth stone, maybe that was just my pathetic excuse to go numb over her. I was too busy to care, too wrapped up to miss her; just too tired to let reality take control.
“Catch up,” Zandra’s voice floated through the pounding rain, snapping my mind back to the present. Zandra was walking briskly under the trees that lined our path, making me realize I had been stepping only every few moments. I ran up to her, slipping now and then on the slick stone. Zandra stopped for me once I caught up, but kept her face under the umbrella. The black cloth was faded to gray, and the fabric was so worn down it look like it would burst into holes any moment now from the thick rain.
“It’s cold,” she whispered, her voice strangely flat and lifeless. She wrapped her black shawl around her shoulders in a poor attempt to warm herself up.
“Yah, it is,” I whispered back. It was strange, how different she looked now. Her clothes were all black and gray, and her long brown hair wasn’t in a braid anymore, just left down to hang and sway in the wind. Looking at her grim clothes, and her long hair, I remembered Victoria’s last dying words.
I know what’s going to happen to me, but still, don’t let Zandra get too hung up on it. She’s supposed to hate me remember?
Clearly, Zandra didn’t feel like that. She never had, and she would never. Her eyes always lit with sadness when talking about her sister the first days we met. But there was also love speckled into her eyes, a caring that accompanied the sadness. Nothing in the world would make her hate her sister, nothing.
“Ah!” Zandra cried, I snapped my eyes up to her, and her umbrella had burst open, letting seeping water fall through. She turned to me, her face splattered with raindrops. Her expression was pained, her eyes watered over, too blurred to see the sadness and despair inside.
“Look at that,” she croaked, “my umbrella broke.”
And then she slumped to the ground, and let out a long sob. She clutched to her umbrella tightly, gasping between cries. Her whole body was shaking violently, while her clothes quickly soaked in the rain. I instantly dropped to her level and wrapped my arms around her neck in a poor attempt to comfort her.
“I-I’m soaked now,” she wailed. I brought her closer, letting her burry her face into my shoulder as she sobbed on.
“Zandra,” I whispered, lost to what to say. She wasn’t crying over the damaged umbrella. Almost everything she had was rag tag, and she had accepted that long ago. No, this was the bottled up emotion, the agony of one month finally being released.
“I-I c-can’t go on now,” she gasped, “I-I’ll get h-hypo-ther-mi-mi-ah!”
“Let it out,” I said, feeling the pain she was feeling suddenly. She really is gone.
“A-a-nd I w-won’t be able t-t-to help anymore,” she sobbed. Victoria wouldn’t be coming back would she?
“It’s ok,” I cried out, finally letting go of my reserve and giving into the searing pain. Why did it have to be her?
“W-w-what will I do?” Zandra managed to choke out. Why her?
“Cal, take care of her. For me.” Victoria’s quiet voice floated into my head once again. Slowly, I managed to stop sobbing, and pulled Zandra from my shoulder, forcing her to look in my eyes.
“Don’t worry,” I whispered, “you can share my umbrella.”