Chapter 3: After the Storm, Before the Flood

April 3rd, I was woken by Derek shaking me.

“Dude, Eli, look outside!”

Derek’s voice was full of excitement, and I heard the sound of rain. Still groggy, I followed him to the window and was stunned—outside, it was pouring!

Survivors rushed out, standing in the street, cheering and celebrating this life-saving rain.

We let the rain soak us, laughing, crying, hugging strangers—every drop felt like a miracle. Even from twelve stories up, I could hear shouting, laughter, sobbing—the sound of hope breaking through months of fear. Someone cranked up a speaker, blasting "Here Comes the Sun." For once, it didn’t feel ironic.

“Bang!”

A crack appeared in the double-pane glass in front of us. The sudden change from hot to cold was too much, but it didn’t matter now—the temperature had dropped.

Seeing the rain, we couldn’t resist running downstairs to join the crowd. It was still a bit warm, but the cool drops felt amazing.

We washed off the sweat in the rain and stood for a while before reluctantly heading back upstairs.

Water, power, and internet hadn’t come back, so we didn’t hurry to return to campus, but stayed in the apartment.

The rain lasted three days and nights. During this time, some shops reopened, water, power, and internet gradually returned, and people online marveled at the miracle rain.

People started trading survival stories in the apartment lobby, faces thin and eyes wild, but alive. A few neighbors even offered us some of their canned beans in exchange for a bottle of water—Minnesota Nice was still alive, even if the world wasn’t.

As soon as the internet was back, we called home. Except for Caleb, we all reached our families. I tried to cheer Caleb up, saying maybe his parents’ signal was bad. He just nodded, quiet.

On the fourth morning, the rain stopped, but the sky was still overcast. We decided to go back to campus and check things out.

At the university gate, we saw several police cars and a cordon blocking the entrance.

I remembered Derek telling me about the dorm riots. We couldn’t go back to school, so we returned to the apartment.

On the way back, Caleb got a call from his parents. They and some neighbors had hidden in a storage cave up in the hills. The cave was cool in summer and warm in winter, so they were safe—just out of signal. When the rain stopped, they came down and got Caleb’s message.

Caleb’s shoulders finally dropped. He wiped his eyes, grinning through tears. Caleb cried for the first time since all this started. We clapped him on the back, awkward but relieved. It felt like something had shifted—like maybe we’d actually get through this together.

When the four of us got back, it started raining again.

This time, the rain was even heavier. Outside was dim and yellow, and the rain hammered the windows.

Looking at the rain, none of us wanted to go out. We ordered takeout and played video games until we passed out.

Logically, the rain shouldn’t last long, but when we woke up at noon the next day, it was still coming down.

The rain from before had already soaked the ground, but now it just kept coming. Water on the street was over our feet.

People in the neighboring building downstairs cursed the property manager for doing nothing. The underground garage was flooded, water over the tires, and they couldn’t get their cars out.

Such heavy rain after the heat was clearly not normal. Our apartment was on the fourth floor, but if it kept raining, in less than a month even the fourth floor would be underwater.

Caleb told us to wait in the room, then went out and soon returned with a bunch of keys.

He had brought the keys for floors eight to twelve. We packed up our remaining supplies, went to the twelfth floor, and picked a room with intact windows.

On the fifth day, the rain still hadn’t let up. The authorities issued a red rain alert, organized emergency drainage, and loudspeakers downstairs urged people not to go out.

On the sixth day, the rain stopped, but thick clouds and low pressure suggested a bigger storm was coming.

The water on the street receded a bit, so Marcus and I waded through knee-deep water to the grocery store twice, paying crazy prices for food and supplies. The cashier gave me a look like I was prepping for a frat party, not the end of days.

We wanted to buy more, but the owner, traumatized by the heat, refused to sell extra.

He watched us like a hawk, eyeing every item we put in our cart. No amount of sweet-talking—or even offering to Venmo him extra—worked. Scarcity changes people.

On the seventh day, it started raining again. At first it was light, then it turned into a downpour. The first floor was flooded, and residents had to move upstairs, so our building got crowded.

More people meant less safety, but since we had the keys to floors eight to twelve, we were okay for now.

In these two days, the newly restored power and internet became unstable, and the water was muddy from the rain. The city announced that each area would get only four hours of power a day to conserve electricity.

After that, it rained hard every day, and the temperature dropped—a high of only 52 degrees.

The sudden cold after the heat made a lot of people sick. I wasn’t spared either.

Luckily, Marcus had bought some medicine before the heat. After taking it, I got better fast. But some people weren’t so lucky and had to tough it out. The weak, elderly, and children died one after another. Every day, we saw people tossing bodies from the windows.

We never said it out loud, but the first time we saw a blanket-wrapped shape drop past our window, we all stood there, silent, until the sound of rain swallowed our shock.

On the ninth day, the water had risen to the second floor. The rain sometimes eased, but never stopped.

The water crept up the stairs, inch by inch. Every morning, we measured it with a Sharpie on the wall.

I sat on the bed, scrolling through news about disasters across the country. Some small towns were destroyed by floods, and panic spread everywhere.

In these dire circumstances, some people took the chance to sell food and medicine at sky-high prices.

At that moment, I heard knocking outside, and an old, hoarse voice called out.

“Hello, anyone there? The kid hasn’t eaten in days, please, just a sip of water.”

My heart started pounding. Derek heard it too.

He quietly walked over and listened at the door. I followed and looked through the peephole—an old man and a little girl stood outside. The old man looked familiar—he was our American lit professor.

I told the others what I saw. The four of us fell silent.

We all glanced at each other, weighing hunger against guilt. We all knew that in times like this, everyone was out for themselves, and the last thing you should have was a bleeding heart.

But the professor was honest, kind, and always helped others, respected by everyone.

Once, Caleb was bullied and couldn’t get financial aid. The old professor found out and helped him get it.

He was strict about attendance, but at the end of term always tried to help those who struggled.

We were torn.

The knocking stopped. Marcus saw through the peephole that the professor had gone to another door. Soon, a man’s angry shout came from down the hall.

“Get lost! Why are you knocking? I’m starving myself, go away or I’ll call the cops!”

It was the shopkeeper from the store downstairs.

Hearing this, Caleb clenched his fists. He told us he wanted to give his share of food to the professor and find another room so he wouldn’t be a burden.

We shook our heads, saying we could eat less and let the professor in. We were young and strong—if needed, we could still go out to scavenge.

Marcus went to the door and gently turned the handle, trying to make as little noise as possible.

“Click.”

The door opened.

Marcus coughed and waved the professor in, then closed the door.

Inside, the professor looked at us with surprise and relief, his voice trembling.

“It’s you! Thank God you’re alive. I thought...”

The professor, just over fifty, now looked much older, thin and haggard, his hair almost white.

We gave the professor and the girl two bags of bread and two bottles of water. She clutched the bread with both hands, eyes huge and wary, but didn’t say a word. After they finished eating, the professor told us what had happened these days.

During the heat, he was trapped in the Maple Heights Mall, so he survived. He didn’t come out until the rain.

The first thing he did was go back to campus, but it was a tragedy—charred bodies everywhere.

He then tried to go to the faculty apartments, but the rooms were unlivable after the heat damaged the windows and walls, so he came to this apartment.

He first lived on the first floor, but as the water rose, he moved upstairs with everyone else.

The girl was someone he found alone in the mall and couldn’t leave behind, so he took her with him.

Time flew to late April. Water, power, and internet were cut off again, and there wasn’t enough food or water for the six of us. For over half a month, the four of us and the professor took turns scavenging from other rooms.

At first, we couldn’t stand seeing the rotting bodies and kept gagging, but gradually we got numb.

The girl, maybe afraid of being a burden, often snuck downstairs to look for useful things in the flooded rooms, but we caught her several times.

We wrapped her in a towel, Marcus making a lame joke about sea monsters. She almost smiled. We always brought her back, soaking wet and clutching random treasures—soggy boxes of Band-Aids, a bag of expired gummy bears, once even a picture frame with someone else’s family still inside. She never complained, just curled up on the sofa, legs pulled tight to her chest, eyes far away. And somehow, despite everything, we all knew we’d keep dragging each other back, again and again, as long as it took. But outside, the rain still fell, and none of us dared to guess what would come next.