storm

For the first time since he moved to Inkopolis, Yarrow wakes up to the sounds of rain hitting his window. The sound is rhythmic and soothing like the air vent fans and electric humming he grew up with in the caves of Octo Canyon. It’s nearly enough to lull him back to sleep, but he jumps out of bed once he realizes what’s going on. It’s been forever since he saw rain!

Yarrow opens the small window in his bedroom to get a better look, then quickly realizes how bad of an idea that is when water starts splashing onto the hardwood floor. Without bothering to change out of his pajamas, he opens the window fully and perches on the windowsill. With agility from years of training, his long tentacles unravel and wrap themselves around whatever they can hold as he slides out of his room and closes the window. The puddle can be cleaned up later… his pet axolotl might appreciate a moment to lay in it anyway.
The young samurai scales the side of his apartment building until he reaches the roof. The grey clouds above him are easier for his eyes to adjust to than the blinding sunlight he’s still getting used to. The droplets hitting his skin feel cool and clean and somehow more alive than the recycled water of the underground. He stands at the edge of the roof with his arms spread at his sides, taking in a deep breath.

The smell takes him back to just a year before. The first time he ever experienced the scent of clean rain on soil and stone. 

It was his second expedition to Mount Nantai. Most of the time octolings weren’t allowed to travel far outside of the Canyon, but he was different. He was a samurai and a fiercely loyal one at that. His superiors had no doubts that he would return home from his survival training. Said training involved keeping himself alive in the thick forest of the mountain for increasing intervals of time. Normally it would be undertaken with a group, but as the last of Daiki's students, he was prepared to face the unknown alone.

The first training exercise only lasted a day. The second, this time, was three days. Nothing in the forest was actually dangerous, no large wild animals or monsters aside from sensei occasionally dropping by to give him a scare. The challenge was keeping himself fed and sheltered in an environment octolings no longer saw but might one day need to reclaim. A world that was the antithesis of man-made, stagnant dome networks they'd lived in for a century.

The first day was spent locating resources. Drinking water from a spring. Branches to fashion a small shelter out of. Kindling to start a fire to cook some of the vegetation he was fairly sure was edible, but was still a little worried to try. Maybe he should’ve read that manual about mushroom species a little more carefully.

The second day he spent exploring. During his first expedition, everything was so new and confusing that he didn’t get to properly take in his surroundings. The breeze felt nice and the sun felt warm, but he already missed home. The lush forest couldn’t compete with the carefully crafted beauty of the garden dome.

On the third day, it happened. Water started falling from the sky without any warning besides small grey clouds. He’d heard of rain from his sensei before his training, but he wasn’t sure what to expect when it actually happened. It was a part of nature, something that happened all the time, but it seemed like such a huge event for sky to change so suddenly. For a while he just started at the clouds dumbfounded, letting the droplets roll down his face and soak through his gi.

It would be the only thing about the surface he would miss once he returned home. The sensation of weather. The wind blowing his untied hair freely. The small pricks of cold rain on his face. The sun beating down on him at noon, warming body from the outside in. The smell of life mixing with the rain.

Now, he stands in the middle of a sea of skyscrapers that still feels so foreign after months of living among them. He can’t tell if the drops rolling down his cheeks are just from the rain or his own eyes. In the forest he felt awestruck with the novelties of surface life, but he was content with knowing that he could leave this unknown world to somewhere that feels safe and familiar when he needed to.

He wishes he could feel that again instead of this pit that settles in his stomach every time he remembers that there’s no going back.

He fruitlessly wipes his eyes before scaling back down to his window with a feeling of melancholy and a slight chill from the rain settling into him. He wants to go home.