The thunderous drone of splashing rain drowned out all thoughts. The thumb-sized droplets that smashed into his face were cool in the scorching heat and unabating humidity. His eyes moved in and out of focus. The lush vegetation around him received the same treatment he did. They bent and caved to the rugged and unrelenting rain.

The smell of wet asphalt invaded his senses like an unwanted guest. The street where he stood needed much repair, the houses were not in much better shape. He was soaked, his clothes weighing him down as his rugged breathing shifted from sharp inhales to painful exhales. His shoulder ached with a pain he had never known before. His crimson blood leaked from his side. He was exhausted to the point in which, had pain from the wound not enveloped his mind, he wouldn’t have noticed. His lungs burned and his throat clogged with increasing amounts of phlegm.

There was a vague notion he had to be somewhere. A reason to continue forward. A reason to move. Yet no matter how much he willed himself he couldn’t move. His fear was rising. What started as a slight feeling in his stomach had developed into a pounding in his head. The pounding timed with the falling rain until it became an intense and constant ache.

A single thought flashed into his mind. He had to warn her that they were here. Who she was and who they were remained foggy and confused. He had to move, if he didn’t, he would die. His confusion reigned but he was certain of that.

He had once been certain of many things. Ever since that day though, everything had come into doubt. Only this undisputable truth remained. He needed to Move! His mental shouts echoed across his throbbing brain. But there he stood, unwilling to take another step.

The sound of a gunshot rang out, the sound unmistakable to his ears. A sound he learned in childhood. A noise he had become overly familiar with in the past few months. A new pain sprouted in his chest and everything went dark.

Sam’s eyes snapped open. From his prone position, he could barely make out the light streaming in through the bedroom’s large window. The knot in his stomach was tight. As he pushed himself up into a sitting position, he rubbed his eyes. He shook his head to clear away the horror that had unwelcomely invaded his sleep.

Sam’s dream slowly leaked from his mind. With every passing second the fear receded and the memory of the dream became fuzzy. Sam tried to recall individual memories of the dream but could only remember the feeling. Complete dread.

Sam was drenched in sweat from head to toe. The salty liquid imprinted on the sheets where his body had thrashed in the night. The sheets were just as soaked as he was. Washing them would be a priority. Sam couldn’t let his father… The thought died in his mind as he remembered that it was no longer a concern of his.

As his mind refocused on his surroundings, it became evident his fiancé was not in the bed with him. Had she left their bed because of his constant tossing last night or because of the fight they had two days ago? The memory of the intense screaming match shouldered its way to the front of his brain. The brutal insults she had said to him took front and center. He pushed them away.

It was a heated moment he thought to himself she surely didn’t mean what she said. His mind had been too groggy because of the numerous all-night shifts he had been picking up recently. It was the effort he needed to receive the promotion his boss all but guaranteed was his. His exhaustion and long hours had made the fight fade to the back of his mind like a tick drawing blood. After some sleep, the barrier holding it broke like a flooding dam. It all spilled forth, every word spoken and every accusation levied.

He pulled the sheets from his bare body as the sweat that drenched him moments before dried. He made his way toward the bathroom and hopped in the shower. The warm water felt great on his tense and slightly chilled skin. The heat soaked into his bones and muscles. It banished the cold and apprehension.

Sam replayed the fight in his head yet again. The heat brought clarity to what before was a patchwork of emotion and regret. The fight had started over his second all-night shift that week. It had started as a concerned conversation and quickly escalated. That was mostly due to his lack of sleep, exhaustion, and his fiancé’s built-up resentment about his increased workload.

Their lack of time together was doing a number on their already strained relationship. Though Sam knew the reason for the tension he remained determined to sustain his current course. He had plans after all. His current path was the quickest and most time-sensitive way to achieve them. They were both already behind his planned schedule. Which brought out his near-constant background anxiety.

The fight wasn’t the problem. Sam was well aware people fought in every relationship. It was the intensity and the insults thrown that continued to plague his mind. Something about what she had said churned just under the surface of his mind. He had a bad feeling about it, and his bad feelings were usually right.

He stood his head under the spicket letting the water run down his toned body like tiny rivers all racing to see which would reach the great drain first. He was getting nowhere. The insults that he thought had bounced off his protective mental armor had cracked it. It was shattering. His thoughts began to race out of control. Even the once-southing water began to pound against his head.

Every muscle in his body tensed. A wave of unbearable heat washed over him. It started at his head and ended in his toes. He became slightly dizzy and began to wobble. It was as if the whole world froze at that moment. A panic, which he had felt many times, set in. For endless seconds he let the waves of heat wash over him each growing longer and more unbearable. The tightness in his chest grew as well. It was only when he felt ready to explode that Sam remembered to breathe.

His panic attacks always caught him by surprise. Though he was aware he had them. Their ability to manifest always seemed to shock him. It wasn’t until he was well into one that he remembered the techniques to cope.

His breaths were rugged at first. He began to force a pattern in his breathing. Five seconds in five seconds’ hold. Five seconds out five seconds’ hold. The adrenaline that coursed through his body like heroin slowly began to abate. His muscles which had remained tight began to relax.

As Sam’s breathing normalized and his heart rate dropped something clicked in his mind. All the insults from the fight left him with a clear and distinct impression. There was another romantic partner in his fiancé’s life. If he had not been currently dealing with a panic attack, he surely would have had another one.

Sam was certain he was overthinking it. However, the more the impression circled in his mind the clearer it became. He wasn’t her only romantic priority. She might be cheating. The thought which had been nibbling at the back of his mind for days hit him like a gut punch. His breathing once again became ragged and gripped the shower valves to steady himself. It took him a second to regain control. He was not in good shape.

Sam shut the water off. The ever-changing rivers on his body ceased to flow. They instead became like teardrops. Whether or not his tears had mixed in Sam didn’t much care. He toweled off his once placid face now scrunched up with worry and doubt.

He stumbled back to his room. He dressed and then stripped the bed. Sam made his way downstairs. After throwing the sheets in the wash he headed toward the kitchen. As he reached the dining table his eyes focused on the plate from his dinner last night. It sat where he had left it. Food still clung to it. Dried into an unappetizing crust. It would need to soak for sure.

Sam’s mind returned to the previous night and the details that he had ignored due to his lack of sleep. Two things stuck out in his mind about his fiancé’s behavior the previous night. The first was her lack of a kiss on his cheek. A routine that had become like second nature. The second was her hurry out the door without informing him where she was going.

There was no sign of her return. His hope that she may have decided to sleep on the couch was dashed when he found it pristine. The front door had been locked but the bolt had not been slid in place. His fiancé always did that when she was home.

She had not come back? Where had she spent the night? Why keep a secret like this? The questions rumbled through his mind like an out-of-control freight train. The runaway train led him back to only one conclusion. She was cheating on him.

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Sam was going to be sick. He rushed toward the cramped downstairs bathroom and barely made it to the toilet on time before what was left of last night’s dinner spewed forth. One extremely gross coughing fit later, Sam flushed the toilet. He washed his mouth and returned to the kitchen.

He was back to staring at the unclean plate. A million ideas of how to confront her came to mind. None of them seemed appealing enough to try. He couldn’t get past this. Sam often prided himself on being able to rationalize anything. Ever since the day he had vowed to be better, Sam had become the ideal of stability and wit.

Suddenly he burst into laughter. It rang across the house and echoed back giving the sounds a life of its own. It almost sounded like someone else’s laugh. He laughed at his failure. He was still that same scared boy. Even after all these years. Nothing had changed.

What had started as a normal laugh quickly turned manic and uncontrolled. Sam reached for the table his hand gripping around the edge. He used the table to steady himself as his ceaseless laughter was making him light-headed. His eyes never left that unwashed plate. He stared and laughed for what felt like an eternity. His laughs were only punctuated by sporadic and trembled inhalations.

Then all at once, as if someone flipped a switch, his laughing ceased. His fingers curled around the table. His nails dug into the soft wood. The rage that simmered forth turned him into a different man. A version of himself he always feared was there. A man he was intimately familiar with. A creature he despised more than anything else in the universe. A man he thought had been killed.

His teeth ground together as the rage coursed through his body. His head slowly turned. His eyes were like daggers ready to rip apart anything in his path. His hate-filled eyes landed upon two slightly bent and loose floorboards. She wouldn’t get away with this. The thought flashed through his mind before he could stop it. His body was so tense he thought it might burst like a tightly wound spring.

“Breathe!” a concerned voice rang through the house. His lungs sucked in air as if he had been held underwater for the last minute. Sam’s breaths were rugged and uncontrolled. He hadn’t noticed the tears that had migrated like tiny streams across the plain that were his cheeks. The tears dripped off the cliff of his jawline like waterfalls.

The rage seeped from his flesh with every breath he took. The voice that had spoken washed through his head like a southing stream. His body began to relax. A calm cleansed him of worry. The familiarity of the voice was like a loving hug. That voice had been his mom's. Sam had never been more certain in his life.

Sam’s mom had died three years ago. But he still knew the voice of the person he trusted most in the world as if she had spoken to him yesterday. The voice that had just pulled him back sounded so real as if he heard it with his own ears. It had surely been only in his head.

She had seemingly reached from beyond the grave to keep him grounded. He missed her so much. The pain that replaced his rage corrected him like a strict teacher. The whirlwind of emotion that had corrupted him had settled into a numb acceptance of reality. Betrayal and sadness were the only things left to feel. Not hatred or rage. That had quickly come and luckily for everyone quickly passed. Only a cold indifference remained in his heart.

Sam hadn’t realized he was pacing back and forth. The unwashed plate eyed him down as he maneuvered along the table. Its once pristine China hidden under layers of new grime. It begged to be washed. Sam was, however, far too distracted to take notice.

His mind was occupied with all the past conversations with the woman he thought he loved. All her inconstancies and mood swings. Their fights all replayed with the new context. Even the good times became colored.

The day they first met flashed into his head. The randomness of the encounter. The way they connected instantly. That dreadful dinner destroyed them both for the rest of the week. The passion that followed when they returned home together. The slow dancing. The way they meshed together, holding each other, alone and bathed in candlelight.

The smile that had crept across Sam’s face turned to a sour grimace. Their love had been real, right? Maybe his intuition wasn’t true? Maybe she wasn’t cheating on him. The thought which seconds before seemed impossible, sparked with a renewed conviction. The hope that it was all in his head was like a siren’s song. It lulled him to return to the lie of before and ignore his gut. It was enough to sow the seeds of doubt.

Sam had no solid evidence that anything had happened or was happening with his fiancé and another partner. Everything he was feeling now was based on conjecture. His rational mind knew that something was going on but he loved her too much to believe it without real proof. The spark of hope that ignited just seconds before was growing. The cold indifference that had all but consumed his love for the woman he intended to marry had begun to thaw. It wasn’t much but it was something. He resolved himself to confront her, consequences be dammed. He had to know.

Sam's pacing ceased. His eyes returned to the ancient China plate that lay defiled before him. He grabbed it without hesitation, brought it to the sink, and washed it. He made sure to scrub it to perfection. It was spotless as it lay on the drying rack. Its shine from the sun caught his eye. A testament to his handy work.

Sam spent the next few minutes cleaning the kitchen, dining table, and all. He then moved to the living room and tidied up before sitting on his pale cream sofa. His hand reached for the remote to his TV. It blinked to life. A whirl of laughter and cooing from the crowd accompanied a dating show contestant forced to strip to his boxer briefs. The noise increased as the man pulled off his tight shirt which was intentionally two sizes too small. Sam changed the channel to the morning news.

“Today we bring you a story of tragedy!” a voice from the TV announced. The anchors' fried vocal cords sounded terrible. Donny Witson had been the leading news anchor going on thirty years. His snow-white hair and clean-shaven face drooped like a bulldog into a consistent frown. He had always been mediocre in Sam’s opinion. The studio seemed to have no interest in replacing him. Sam rolled his eyes, what new tragedy had the governor concocted this time to pass new reforms?

“Over three hundred officers killed last night while combating an intense and traitorous riot.” The anchor's face remained as uninterested as before. The only change was a slightly more pronounced downturn of his mouth into an ever-deepening frown.

“The group of officers, who included the newly established riot division, were bombed last night trying to quell local unrest as it approached the downtown area.” Images of the destruction and the aftermath of the dual bombing flashed on the screen. Much of it was blurred and censored due to the extremely graphic nature of the images. Sam scooted forward in his seat his eyes glued to the screen as his finger naturally found the raise volume button on the remote. This was more than just some random government propaganda.

“Forty rioters and three surviving members of the riot division were injured.” The anchor's face conveyed a poor form of mild annoyance. His tone of voice became stern. It reminded Sam of the look a father on TV would give a child he was disappointed in. The screen on the bottom displayed the message that a total of seven bombs were detonated around the city at key government buildings particularly where the riot division was headquartered and trained. This appeared to be a directed attack against the recently formed division.

“The group known as the Children of Liberty claimed responsibility for the attack,” The news anchor said the tone of his voice returning to its monotone.

“They have been known to the authorities for some time now and have been responsible for a series of high-profile attacks across the nation. The most recent being the lynching of a prominent alternative media pundit. These terrorists are extremely dangerous and are funded by international enemies of the nation. Anyone caught aiding or abetting them will share the same punishment for the crimes committed.” The newsman continued with his monotone update and condemnation of the fringe terrorist group.

Sam knew very little about the group that claimed last night’s attack. He had heard of them through gossip at his job. They had also made headlines in many other major cities. Most of the people who talked about it seemed to condemn their methods, even if they secretly sympathized with their supposed goals.

Liberty was an ever-fading dream. Sam had known little of liberty even when it was supposedly in abundance. As a kid, his father never allowed anything that even whiffed of personal autonomy or the right to choose one’s destiny. So, Sam did not concern himself with rights or the politics of the nation. He preferred to focus on what he could control.

A loud knock came at his front door. Sam almost didn’t hear it over the sound of the TV. He stood from the sofa and made his way into the kitchen then toward the door. The knocking came again. This time in the form of a pounding on the old oak door. It squealed as it maneuvered in its increasingly warped frame.

Sam turned the brown and rusting deadbolt and pulled the door open with a mighty huff. It creaked back like a cackling witch. Its rusty hinges were always in need of lubrication. On the stoop stood two women. The one who knocked had blonde shoulder-length hair and stood around five foot eight inches. Her piercing green eyes looked swollen and puffy. Her milk-white skin had been dirtied but her beauty still showed through.

The girl behind her was on the shorter side. Sam guessed around five foot two inches. Her black hair extended down her back in a braid and her golden-brown eyes shot him a look of anxiety mixed with surprise. She looked fit and in much better shape than the blonde door knocker. The thing that caught Sam’s attention most about her was her strong jawline and cleft chin.

Sam looked between the two girls. His concern quickly jumped to anger as his eyes narrowed on the woman in the back. The blonde door knocker stepped in front of the other woman and placed a hand on his chest. Sam who was just about to step out and have a word with the woman who made his fiancé look like this was left surprised. Sam’s eyes drifted back toward his fiancé.

“Care to explain what the hell is going on?” though it came out as a question, it wasn’t one.

His fiancé looked at the woman behind her then returned her gaze to his. There was something in those emerald eyes that conveyed a sense of profound sadness mixed with heavy fear. Sam’s gut sank. This was it. What he had feared all morning. The anger began to grow. Swapped from its earlier target of the strange woman to his battered fiancé. His words came out in a deep growl.

“EL, explain!” Elinda or Ella for short stood there unresponsive, tears welling in her eyes.