Work In Progress: Screechers, Chapter 7

The red storm

A whistle pierced Sun’s dreams. She peeled her eyelids back, thinking groggily that it was a familiar sound.

She bolted upright. It was the typhoon alarm. Kicking off carmine sheets, she scrabbled from bed and to the window. The blue glazed tiles were cold beneath her feet. She yanked back the heavy curtains, though there was nothing to see with the moon behind the cobra’s cape—just leaves flying down the walkway.

She squinted, straining to see the lightning that should be riding a typhoon. Nothing broke the endless dark, though.

Which meant it wasn’t a typhoon. But she already knew that, didn’t she? She had seen it coming earlier. It was a storm from the Red Mountains. She rushed to her bedroom door and yanked it wide. Then, swatting aside beads and ignoring the startled looks of her evening guards, she barreled down the long hall. The closed doors of long-empty rooms blurred past, and the guards’ boots clicked behind. Sun paid them no mind. All her thoughts were on this storm.

The wind …