Thunderous Intent

Torrentially pouring it down, the kids without their umbrellas took shelter in the foyer of the draughty secondary school in the aftermath of the blackout during the five o’clock darkness, their breath visible in the freezing air, culminating into a poor omen on the eve of Halloween. Crowded and noisy as the students’ voices grew louder to compensate for the booming thunderous skies, a pale, fifteen-year-old, five-foot-eight girl, Kira, sprinted back to the second floor, her squeaky shoes leaving a trail of wet marks. Running through the pitch-black halls she’d walked a thousand times, she reached a thin wooden door that, above it, read “Principal. Essira.” Finally, something was in the girl’s favour when she turned the knob and it was unlocked! Sliding in and silently closing the door behind her, she pulled a wiry cord dangling by the window which pulled the blinds up at an angle, stopping any security guards or teachers from looking in from the hallway. Without a hitch, she got to work rifling through the drawers of the principal’s desk, but all she found were sweet wrappers and dull papers - it wasn’t in either of them. Next, she turned to the metal filing cabinet beside her, kneeling down since it was at waist height, yet she was met with the same result in all three drawers until the bottom-most one didn’t budge no matter how hard she tugged on the steel handle - was there a key for it? It certainly had a keyhole, so she pushed the papers aside again, checking for anything bumpy and key-like. Nothing, and she knew she only had as long as her friend could stall for her back in the foyer.

Thunder roared again. Powerful rain relentlessly battered against the windows, so loud it obscured any sound from the hallway. Continuing to root around the office, a brilliant flash of lightning - the only illumination since the street’s blackout - revealed a cardboard box teetering on the edge of the bookshelf. Still, she was cursed with a lack of height. Even after standing atop the wheelie chair that precariously twisted under her, her fingertips barely scratched the edge of the box. Risking it or else she’d have broken into the office for nothing, Kira raised herself on her tip-toes, put all her weight forward against the bookshelf, and touched the box enough to raise it slightly when-

Crashing in a pile of books and mobile phones that spilt out of their cardboard protector, the chair had completely given way and wheeled itself away from her. The back of her head was splitting as not only did she crash into the desk, banging her head on the sharp corner of the polished wood, but the desktop computer fell and was hardly balanced in her hands as she froze, not daring to move in case all of the expensive equipment and more toppled around her. While petrified, she kept an ear out for anyone who may have heard the crash, but focussed mainly on gently pushing the computer and all its fallen accessories into a standing pile on the edge of the desk. Carefully backing away from the dangling maze of wires, Kira searched the dozen-or-so phones for her own, eventually picking it out - thanking god it wasn’t damaged - and stood up for the door the moment the handle twisted and it creaked open.

Inherently, Kira darted between the wall and the door which was pushed into her as somebody stepped into the room, awed by the mess. Huffing, the gruff, bearded man turned and jogged back through the hallway, not before a small spider fell off his tight raincoat. When Kira waited for his echoing footsteps to grow distant, she pushed the door away from her and let out a deep breath she’d been holding for at least a minute. Un-squished from between the wall and the door, she crouched in the doorway and ran out with her phone in her hand, not realising the spider had clutched itself to the side of her boot and crawled up and up under her black polyester-cotton blend trousers.

Rushing down the stairs, her rain-covered shoes still squeaking, she headed towards a labyrinth of lockers, slotted a thin metal key into the lock, turned it and snatched a black rucksack from it that she dropped her phone into. Reaching the foyer, her backpack slung over one shoulder, Kira’s brisk pace slowed to a casual walk when she blended in with the other students sheltering from the storm and partnered up with a half-Indian girl her age, bumping a shoulder into hers smugly.

“Did you get it?” The girl turned to Kira, whispering, her accent heavily english-ified and having lost much of her parents’ original native tone.

The two were out of earshot of any of the supervising teachers who hadn’t left yet, and Kira kept her attention on a skinny man in a black suit chatting to the burly man who’d almost caught her. She was certain he hadn’t but thought it was best not to push her luck.

“Let’s go, Meera,” was all she said to her friend who’d stalled and bought enough precious time for Kira to get her phone back.

With that said, Meera snapped the velcro tying her black umbrella together and, once outside the heavily windowed school’s entrance; still covered by the thick overhang that outcropped several metres out of the drenched face of the building, the umbrella sharply opened out. Battling against the wind, however, it took her several minutes to force it under control, meanwhile Kira stood an inch before the end of the overhang, rain that didn’t hit the floor spraying on her clothes, face, and hair; the wind blowing against her yet she stood unphased and rooted to the spot. Once Meera had control and covered the both of them under the umbrella, Kira strolled into the storm and forward they walked - homebound…

On the contrary to her formerly disciplined pose, it didn’t take much more than them getting out of the school gates until they lost control of the umbrella and, despite their best efforts, it slipped from both the girls’ grasps and flew several blocks in a few seconds, unlikely to ever be recovered by the two. Meera was the most distraught as it was the second one she’d broke in two weeks - the first being because she snapped the plastic when closing it so it was trashed moments after! Soaked in seconds, the two friends eventually parted ways and split for the respective homes. Although she fumbled the keys and dropped it in a puddle forming on the tiny stone garden out the front of her cramped, terrace housing, Kira unlocked the front door and battled the winds with all of her arm strength to slam the door, indicating she was home to her mother.

Witnessing her daughter breathless and sopping, Kira’s mother sternly ordered her to remove her shoes and place them upside down on the scorching radiator. Eager to change out of her uncomfortable uniform, she did as she was told and took a glimpse at the TV, her clothes dripping and forming a puddle on the laminate hallway floor. The news was on, showcasing Spider-Man. At first, he was swinging from building to building, followed by a news helicopter, then cut to an American male anchor on the ground relaying the events unfolding behind him of the masked and suited up Spider-Man facing down a man in a near ten-foot rhino mechsuit! Kira nonchalantly grabbed a freshly-washed apple from the kitchen’s fruit bowl after her mother displayed disdain for her making the floor wet; a mouth-watering smell flowing out of the ajar oven door. When she passed by the open door to the living room again she caught the first sentences of the british news studio stating how Spider-Man had defeated the so-called ‘Rhino’. She wished she could have seen it first-hand but assured herself somebody online must’ve streamed the endeavour.

Kira’s mum had just about wrapped up making dinner for the two of them when Kira ran upstairs to her room, closing her door and throwing her clothes into the laundry bag at the foot of her single be,d donning baggy pyjamas and a dark-grey hoodie to wrap herself up in afterwards. However, as she packed her bag under her bed, her day was far from over. Opening her window outward to breathe air into the room, it was square and thin, opening outwards and upwards, and forming a hole big enough to climb through - she’d tested (multiple times). Stacked side-by-side and on top of one another were over a dozen terrariums of varying sizes, one set on the wall opposite her bed and a handful on the wall it was shoved next to. Beautiful, green and brown jungles were contained within the glass containers, but most importantly were their inhabitants: many species of arachnids from the velvet to common house spider but nothing as big as a furry tarantula, though she’d wished for one for as long as she could remember.

Finding them all, feeding, and taking gentle care of each of them individually, she sat on her bed after nearly an hour of looking after what she saw as more than just pets; it may have been odd but they were unequivocally part of her family, especially - and the one whom she spent the most time fawning over - Torm, her fuzzy jumping spider companion who was the last gift from Kira’s father. He was the second youngest spider she made a home for and the most affectionate by far. As a matter of fact, rather than returning him to his artificial habitat, usually let him roam around her room while she did homework, but today was different - Kira was exhausted from the weather and itchy around the back of her neck. Naturally, she scratched it but felt something crawl up her index finger onto the back of her hand. Unattentive, she placed it as a ghost itch or her hairs standing up on edge due to the cold wafting in from her open window, but what she when she rested her hand on her thigh was a spider; not one she recognised. Showing a black body and brilliantly red abdomen, Kira looked down at it for some time and it reared up as if to stare back. She smiled, wondering where it had come from and if it belonged to someone, then it sharply bit into her, pinching at the reddening skin on her knuckle and stripping the concerned thought from her mind!

Instinctively, Kira shook her hand but the spider remained steadfast and bit her a second time in a spot adjoining the initial puncture! Freaked and pained, she reactionarily stood up and walked backwards. Her room was quite small, she couldn’t have run anywhere but she just wanted it off her - what if it was poisonous, vibrant colours usually correlated with poison! As it reared up again, she panicked and ran backwards; it jumped at her face and her knees caved as she hit the gap where she’d opened her window, her body folding and a second later falling down into the flooding alley below, only managing to let out a shocked gasp as she smashed into the rugged ground and black overtook her senses…