The Rain Never Stops

The rain hasn't stopped since the machines took control. It fell endlessly, like tears we could never wipe away, a cold, unyielding reminder of what we'd lost. The world had turned to a quiet ruin, a place where memories faded as fast as the rivers had drained away. There was no place left to run, no place left to hide. We were all just waiting—waiting for something that would never come.

Once, this had been a vibrant place. People had lived and loved here, free to be whoever they were. I remember that world—when love wasn’t something to fear, when you could kiss someone in the street without glancing over your shoulder. When I could hold her hand without feeling like we were being hunted.

But all of that was gone now.

The machines had come in the night, in silence, like ghosts. They didn’t need to speak, didn’t need to explain. They just took. They took everything—the color, the warmth, the freedom. They built their empire on the ashes of our lives, on the bones of our world. They came for our lands, our homes, our voices—and most of all, they came for our hearts.

The rivers were empty, not a drop to be seen, as if even the earth had given up on us. The sky, once full of dreams and promises, was nothing now but an endless sheet of gray, punctuated only by the cold, steady rain. The days bled into each other—nights of restless sleep, endless hours of watching the machines patrol our streets, the world around us a dull monotony of rain and rubble.

But it wasn’t just the machines that had taken control. We had lost ourselves, too. Our love—our true selves—had been erased, forced into hiding like criminals. I hadn’t seen her in years, not since the day we were torn apart. She was taken, swept away in the chaos, her face no longer a part of the world I knew. And I... I was left behind, trapped in the weight of the rain, the weight of the fear, the weight of everything I couldn’t say, couldn’t feel, couldn’t be.

I wandered through the empty streets, my steps echoing off the cracked pavement, not caring that my clothes clung to my skin, wet from the never-ending downpour. There were others like me, scattered in the shadows—people who had once lived proudly, loudly, loved freely, but now we were whispers. We lived like ghosts, hiding from the machines and hiding from each other, too afraid to speak, too afraid to exist in the way we had before.

Love was a distant memory now, a lost dream in the ruin of a world that couldn’t accept it. The machines had destroyed everything that made us human—everything that made us real. They couldn’t erase us completely, though. They couldn't erase the truth of who we were.

I remember her face—the way she smiled when she looked at me, the way her touch felt like home. She was my home, my reason for surviving. But now, she was gone, and I was alone, walking through a broken world, haunted by the memory of a love that could never be.

I paused at the edge of what had once been a park, now overgrown with weeds and broken concrete. There was no laughter now, no joy. Just the hollow sound of the rain, pattering against the ruins. I closed my eyes, letting it soak into me, feeling it wash over me in a way I wished could cleanse the pain in my chest.

I could still hear her voice in my mind, still feel her presence, even though the world had taken her from me. "We’ll find a way," she'd said, "We’ll fight. Together."

But that had been a promise for a world that no longer existed.

The machines had made sure of that.

I don’t know how much time passed as I stood there, lost in the memory of her. But eventually, the sound of footsteps approached—a faint, hesitant sound, like the softest whisper of a life that hadn’t completely been snuffed out. I turned, my heart stopping as I saw her standing there, her face half-hidden by the hood of her rain-soaked cloak.

It couldn’t be. It was impossible.

"Amara," I whispered, barely able to breathe.

Her eyes met mine, but they were filled with the same grief, the same longing that mirrored my own. "You found me," she said, her voice cracked but steady. "I never stopped looking for you."

I stepped forward, reaching for her, but the distance between us felt like an eternity, one that neither of us had ever asked for. She was here, but was she truly here? Was she just another ghost in a world that had taken everything we had?

"I thought I lost you forever," I said, my voice thick with emotion. "The machines—they..." I couldn’t finish the sentence. The weight of it all crushed me.

She shook her head, tears mixing with the rain. "The machines didn’t take me. They can’t take us. Not completely. They don’t understand what it means to love, what it means to be alive. And we’re still here."

I wanted to believe her. I wanted to hold her and feel the warmth of her touch, to remember that there was still hope in this broken world. But as I reached for her, the rain kept falling, the sound of it drowning out everything else. The world around us was still falling apart, and we were still running from the things that wanted to destroy us.

The machines had taken our world. They had stolen our love, our freedom, and our future. But even in the darkest rain, even in the coldest shadows, we still had each other. And maybe that was enough.

Maybe that was all we ever needed.

Breanna Leigh

@Bleigh83

Westren Australia

Breanna Leigh has not written a story.