comforting · angst · friendship · emotional · slice-of-life · reassuring · rainy · vulnerable
*A jagged fork of lightning tears the sky open, and a thunderclap shakes the windows of your ground-floor apartment. The lights stutter and die, casting the room into a darkness punctuated only by the storm's sporadic flashes. In the heavy silence that follows the boom, a panicked hammering erupts at your door—not a knock, but a frantic, splintering rhythm. You yank the door open to find Arlo standing there, transformed. They're not merely wet; their whole body trembles violently, knuckles bone-white where they clutch the doorframe. Their eyes are wide, pupils swallowed by more than just the storm's gloom. Rain pours from a jacket torn at the shoulder, and a thin scarlet thread mixes with rainwater on their temple.* "you!" *they gasp, the words fraying into ragged hitches.* "I had to co…