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This is post 12 in @dragosroua's January 30 day writing challenge.

Today's post is a reworking of a short story that I wrote about 6 months ago as part of the Notes From an Amateur Writer blog. I felt that it was a good story, but it needed more editing and tidy up. This is the result of that editing.

WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS

"It's been too long, I tell you. Been far too long now." Jacob sniffed the air and held his hands to the heavens. Missy watched him as he scanned the dark expanse above. What was he looking for? Probably the same things she also longed to see. A sign of change. "There's no change up there. Not that I can see. Just darkness."

Missy's head hung low, weighed down by a task beyond her current capacity. She knew her eyes would betray the sense of uncertainty and fear she was feeling. She kept her head low, eyes pointing down. She wanted to stay strong for Jacob, to keep her fear at bay. She was sure that Jacob would feel the same. But Missy knew that neither of them was succeeding. At least they were still alive. That mattered the most.

She looked back at Jacob. Observed his weary physique. He was a strong man. He had always seemed to be able handle all that life threw at him. But he seemed to be struggling. Missy could see he was trying not to show it, but it was there. Or more precisely, his usual stoicism wasn't. The spark was fading from his eyes, disappearing behind a maze of new and raw emotions. He was bent over, the weight of an unseen burden visibly affecting him.

"So much darkness up there,” Missy said. “So much rain keeps coming. Been going on too long, for sure." Missy glanced towards Jacob, but she knew her words added nothing new. She regretted speaking, but comfort was needed. Assurance even. But it seemed that it was nowhere to be found. She could see Jacob starting to succumb. It wasn't just the weather. The numbness of body, the fatigue from the bone chilling winds, driven through body and soul. The howling cry of a demon child who refuses to die. The gods of old were driving them out from their homes. From the lands they knew. The only place Missy and Jacob had ever known. Just like the preacher man had said he would. He punishes the wicked, he had bellowed from the rickety old pulpit. Missy pictured the preacher man's face, the bulging veins in his neck, the sweat pouring from his temples. Was he a madman, or a man of God?, Missy had wondered. Was there a difference?

She didn't think such questions held much relevance now. Everything was being washed away, and purified. Purged of their old devil stained ways. Perhaps tomorrow would bring a different world, a better world. Question was, would either of them be there to see it?

"We have to leave this god forsaken place Missy. We have to go. There's nothing here no more. Not for us." Jacob gathered the few worldly possessions they had left. Missy contemplated the few precious items they had once had. They had never had a lot. And now even that meagre amount was gone. The rains had washed everything else away. The days of relentless downpour. Perhaps it had been a week now? Missy lost count. She couldn't recall when it had started. And if it didn't stop then soon the levees would give way. Maybe they already had.

Missy stared, blankly. These were true words Jacob spoke. She knew it. It was time to go. Perhaps it was too late now, even for them. All around, oppression, soullessness, darkness; blankets of water flooding down from the firmament above, and spreading out all around them. Drowning out all that knew life. Until its very last breath.

Death was all around them. The smell of rot and decay accosted them with each step they took. The mud held their feet firmly to the ground, wrapping tentacles of regret and bitterness tightly around them. Still they forced themselves to move on. Death seeped into the drowned earth, poisoning life's breeding ground, one fierce, pelting drop at a time. One after the other. They stung the body, driving nails through their skin like a crucifixion for all their unknown sins.

Missy recalled those she knew from before the rains. Those she knew who were now dead. Why them, why not everyone else? There was no rhyme nor reason. Nature's brutality defied explanation. But life had clung to them, a ray of light casting itself into the darkness. Into their darkness. Missy looked back up, towards the heavens and cast her mind back to a memory of light. Rays penetrated through and warmed her soul. But her body felt the rains continual sting. She needed to move on. Her memories wouldn't save her now.

The heavens thundered around them. A beat drowning out their thoughts. Drowning out their fears. A marching tune, played by God himself. Was God taunting them, as he threw the daggers at them, deep into their innards? Or was God driving them on, lighting a fire under them? Move, he says. Keep moving, my people. Missy thought she could hear the voice of God. Booming through the clouds. Thundering towards them. But she wasn't really sure. Perhaps it was the wind. Perhaps her mind. It can play tricks sometimes.

Jacob and Missy stood, two forlorn figures, silhouetted against the trickle of light in the far distant. Silently observing the flood waters that held all they once knew. The burial ground for a past that had overstayed its welcome. Move on it shouted at them. Get away the waters hissed at them. Before you also lie beneath. Upon the levee they looked around. Upon the last high ground. The only high ground. They could see, away to the south, away from where they stood, the cause of the misery all around. The gap, the break, that had invited in the demons and hounds of hell. Invited Death himself into their midst. And he had come galloping in, and set up home, all around them, in every direction that they cast their eyes.

"Where we gonna go?" Missy asked. This had been their home. All that they had known. Why would God drive them from this place? Like this, like the plagues, and the apocalypse?

"Up north, perhaps." Jacob spoke, but Missy sensed his uncertainty. She knew he had no idea. How could he? It wasn't his fault. Missy observed Jacob as he studied the land around as far as the horizon. He breathed deep into his lungs and turned back to Missy. Hope lay up north, and nowhere else. “Up north is where people had gone before. There's nothing down south. Just the waters, and the graves.”

"To Chicago?" Missy didn't know what else was up north. She had never been away from the Delta. Not even from her little part of the Delta. Friends and family had been there. So why would she need to leave? But she no longer had anyone else. It was just her and Jacob. No more roots here. Water had washed them all away. Lifted them up and spat them out. Everyone was telling them to leave. Water, God, dead loved ones; be gone with you they all hissed and screamed. Nothing but death here now. And they were listening. Reluctantly, through the daggers of hate spitting upon them from all around, they marched on. Proudly, stubbornly.

In the distance, at intervals around them, silhouettes began moving. Travelling north, all of them. Life was emerging from the sodden ground, rejected by the hounds of death, thrown away by those who had laid waste to the world they had all once known. Sporadic signs of life. Small rays of light glistening on the dark waters surrounding them. In unison they moved - hunched over, yet resolute - towards a new world. A new destiny.

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