Hailstones

This story contains themes of whiny teenagers, untimely deaths, and being very cold and wet. Beware.

It was terrifying.

There were so many things that could go wrong.

I mean, it wasn’t that I didn’t trust her. I trusted her. I really did.

But still.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to crash or anything like that,” Mira said. “I’ve got a license, you know.”

“I know, but…” I trailed away. But what? She’d gotten her Ps yesterday? She was only three years older than me? She’d been annoying me for years and what’s not to say that she wouldn’t drive into a tree just to annoy me?

“You don’t trust me?” Mira accused.

“Of course I trust you!” I said. “But it’s just, we’re a long way out from the main road. And the road is so narrow. I just really don’t want to tumble off a cliff today.”

“It’ll be fine!” Mira dismissed. She turned the key in the ignition. “So let’s go!”

I gripped the gold-edged Pass tightly. It was the most precious thing in the world. I’d worked myself almost to death earning it, and now I had it. It was the key to my destiny.

The car lurched forwards, hurtling out of the driveway.

“YAGH!” I gasped, as she slammed on the brakes. I was panting. She’d almost crashed. I knew it, I knew it…

One glance at Mira’s cheeky grin told me all I needed to know. “Oops, my bad,” she laughed.

“Mira,” I moaned. “Please!”

“Alright,” Mira said. “Now let’s go.”

Mira smoothly drove out of the driveway, turning onto the road.

It was a long, winding road. We lived at the top of a heavily forested hill. We were the only house in that area, and it was almost ten kilometres to the main highway. That’s what Mira and I got for having a famous author for a father.

For the first five minutes, everything went smoothly. I held my breath every time Mira made a sharp turn, the land dropping off far into the valleys on the edges of the road.

Almost to my annoyance, Mira was actually a pretty good driver.

The trees were waving furiously in the wind. They always did, we were at the top of a remote hill that was almost a mountain. But today, they weren’t dancing. They were angry.

“Bit windy today,” Mira commented. Her mouth twitched. “It’s a bit hard to drive. We’re going to be blown off the cliff any moment now…”

I rolled my eyes again. Would she never stop?

All the trees were being pulled to the left, their branches straining against the wind. Leaves swirled wildly up through the branches, being carried out into the open air.

The car swerved a bit. Mira tightened her grip on the wheel.

The sky was dark, the clouds low and heavy. I could hear the wind whistling, it was that loud. A few raindrops splattered against the windscreen.

The car swerved towards the edge of the road again.

Mira’s brow furrowed.

Then, the rain began. It was like an entire cloud had fallen on top of us and exploded. I couldn’t see out the windscreen, it was a wavering mess of colours. The roar was deafening.

Alarmed, Mira slowed the car, turning up the windscreen wipers to full speed. They did nothing to clear the glass.

“This doesn’t look good,” Mira observed.

How could she be so calm?

“Of course it doesn’t look good!” I cried. “It’s worse than that! This is a disaster. We’re going to miss our flight, which means I’m going to miss the audition, which means I’ll have no chance of getting into the movie. I didn’t earn that Pass for nothing. We have to keep going!”

“We can’t, not unless you want me to drive off the edge,” Mira said. “Not unless you want us both to die.”

“I am going to die if I don’t get into it,” I said.

“Can you stop acting like an overdramatic teenager?” Mira said.

“I’m NOT an overdramatic teenager!” I huffed. “I’m an actor! You need to stop being a disgustingly complacent author who cares about nothing but books and ridiculousness. Stop being like Dad.”

“I’m going to write you unfavourably into my next story on Reedsy.” Mira gritted my teeth. “And in the story, you’re going to die by being driven off a cliff.”

Mira turned off the windscreen wipers. Her foot twitched on the accelerator pedal.

My heart leapt into my throat. I couldn’t breathe.

She wouldn’t.

Crack.

Something hard hit the glass. Then another. The roar of the raindrops redoubled. Now it was hailing.

CRACK.

The window on my side fractured.

I held my breath.

It shattered.

Glass few into my face. Distantly, I heard Mira cry out. There was screaming, and it was a moment before I realised it was my own.

There was no window anymore. I was soaked instantly, blood mixing with freezing sleet. My body was pounded with sharp balls of ice.

“Leah!” Mira yelled. “Get to the back seats!”

My hands fumbled with the seatbelt. With a click, it released. Gasping for breath, I crawled through the gap between the front seats, tumbling into the back. I landed on top of Mira.

“Ow,” I moaned.

“You’re bleeding,” Mira said.

“Cold,” I chattered.

The front seats were piled with ice. The wind whistled through the shattered window. My whole body was numb, shaking uncontrollably. Cold. Too cold.

Metallic bangs echoed through my ears. The hailstones were larger now. The size of golf balls. The back window shattered, showering us with shards of broken glass. More hail poured in.

“Leah.” Mira’s voice was firm. “We have to get out of the car.”

“We’ll…be killed,” I gasped.

“Uh, well…I didn’t turn off the car and I can’t reach the brake pedal from here,” Mira admitted. “We’re sliding off the road very slowly. We have to get out.”

“But the hailstones!” I protested.

“Here.” Mira yanked off her thick jacket and wrapped it around me. She took off her beanie and pulled it over my head. She reached into the boot of the car, grabbing all the shopping bags and an umbrella. She stuck all the bags inside one another, making a thick wad of fabric. Then she handed the bags and umbrella to me.

“Hold the bags over your head,” Mira commanded. “They’ll protect you a bit with the umbrella gets ripped to shreds. Find shelter and stay there until the storm passes. And keep this safe, at all costs.”

Mira shoved her phone into my pocket.

I was too terrified to roll my eyes. But why did she want me to protect her phone?

“Call home when the storm’s over,” Mira told me. She opened the door on the side facing away from the wind. “Go.”

She was talking like she was never going to see me again. “Mira—”

“Go!”

Opening the umbrella, I stepped out into the storm.

All the breath was swept out of my lungs, the hailstones pounding on the umbrella. It wouldn’t last very long.

I glanced around, searching for shelter. There was a slight rocky overhang on the right of the road. I ran for that, slipping on the hail. I huddled against the rocky wall, breathing hard, staring intently at the car.

Why wasn’t Mira coming?

There she was. She’d just been digging around for another umbrella. She poked her head out of the car.

A tortured creak cut through the air.

One of the trees lining the road was desperately trying to hold on in the hurricane wind. It was leaning. Leaning towards the car.

I tried to shout. Her name stuck in my throat, the tree inching closer.

Mira paused. She paused to grab the Pass. The Pass to the audition that I had worked so hard to get into.

The tree gave way.

It fell heavily onto the car.

It crumpled beneath the weight of the tree.

A final creak as the tree settled.

My eyes widened.

“MIRA!”

I screamed. Grief overwhelmed me, pulling me to the ground. I was carried away by the river. Horror. Disbelief. Rage.

I lay collapsed in the dirt, sobs racking my body. I cried until I was completely dry, nothing left inside.

There was nothing but emptiness.

Exhausted, I closed my eyes.

No. Mira couldn’t be gone. She couldn’t be.

But she was.

I slipped into delirium. There was nothing left.

The tree and the car slipped closer to the edge of the cliff.

I didn’t look up.

There was nothing left.

They fell over the edge, throwing Mira into the valley.