Greetings stranger.
My name’s Finn, and I’d like to take a brief moment to discuss both my current situation and a little backstory that’ll help explain it.
First of all, I’m probably about to die. Not just me, but my entire town at that.
You may be wondering why I’m so nonchalant about it, and the answer is quite simple; I’ve been expecting this for quite some time now. You see, my town is sort of strange. Not strange in the sense that there’s a few odd neighbors or perhaps some weird traditions, but instead strange in a rather supernatural and dangerous way.
Our town itself is a petite grouping of various buildings in the middle of the Sahara desert that just short of two thousand people call home. The town doesn’t have an official name, won’t be found on maps, and is situated right on the edge of a long-forgotten interstate road that leads hundreds of miles into the sandy abyss.
The seemingly unnatural aspects of the town however, reveal themself in a rather abnormal way.
You see, we have a very strict set of rules that govern our everyday life, and all of them are centered around nothing other than the weather. While most people might see a rainstorm and enjoy the calming patter of raindrops and crashing thunder, we hide. While some might look forward to a cool and cloudy day, we have to leave town when the temperature falls.
I’ll go into the reason behind all that in more detail momentarily, but I’ll preface this by asking you to not consider me crazy from the start. This might sound like nonsensical rambling, but it’s very much real, and very much the everyday life of two-thousand people.
So with that out of the way, I’ll briefly discuss the rules of our town.
Rule One: Stay away from the totems.
This one sounds rather ominous at a glance, but it’s genuinely the easiest to follow. All throughout the desert, in about a five mile radius of the town, are totem statues.They look marginally similar to traditional totem poles, with slight variations in the style of the sculpting that differentiates it from other regions. Similarly, the eyes on the various faces of the pole very faintly radiate a dim white light after dark, and emit an audible hum at close range. Getting within close proximity of one seems to cause a rather nasty headache, and weather events seem to happen more frequently afterwards, so we generally steer clear of them; but they remain on the edges of town, so it’s not too tricky.
Rule Two: Listen to the rain, stay alert.
This one carries significantly more weight than the last, and for good reason as well. Whenever it begins to rain, which is typically very sudden, it’s advised to immediately go indoors and close all windows and blinds. While life can resume as normal once indoors, as a general rule most people tend to turn off unneeded lights and keep noise to a minimum. If the rain ever suddenly picks up, as in going from normal to a thundering downpour, immediately turn off all lights and retreat to any room in the home without windows. You might hear knocking on windows and the exterior of the home, and potentially noises inside as well, but as long as you remain quiet and hidden you’ll be perfectly fine until the rain passes. Those that don’t follow this rule or act quick enough more often than not disappear without a trace; and we don’t know where they go.
Rule Three: Stay hidden from the lightning.
This one follows a similar vein to the last rule, but requires much more diligence and attention to detail to comply with. Whenever a lightning storm arrives in the town, which is usually foreshadowed long ahead of time by a dark line of clouds slowly approaching the area, staying hidden is of utmost importance. Similarly to rule two, all blinds must be drawn, and it’s typically advised to hide in a windowless room and fill the cracks under the doors or any openings with whatever is readily available. Being quiet isn’t important in this case, but it’s imperative to remain hidden from the lightning. I won’t go into detail as to what happens if a living thing is even remotely visible by the flashes of lightning, but it takes a small crew to clean up the remains. However, once the rumble of thunder can be heard fading onto the horizon, it’s generally safe to come out.
Rule Four: If the wind starts picking up and the temperature drops, leave town immediately.
While this rule seems to carry some sense of urgency, it’s actually rather tame compared to the rest. Whenever it gets windy and frosty outside, you simply pack up some food and blankets, and hike a couple miles outside of town to set up camp for the night. As the sun goes down, most of the totems outside of town should vanish and reappear one at a time in various streets throughout the town. It’s seemingly instant, so nobody is quite sure as to how they move, but going back to rule one, we still keep our distance when this occurs regardless. Throughout the night the various totems are visible by the faint glow of their eyes, and a deep hum can be heard emanating from the town. By morning however, they return to their original posts outside of town, and it’s once more safe to return home.
So why would I detail all these rules for you?
In short, they provide necessary backstory for me to now discuss the current dire situation we’re in. Around a week or so ago, one of the town’s delivery drivers was returning home, swerved off the road, and crashed into a totem. The totem and truck alike were both completely destroyed, but the driver thankfully survived.
Ever since then, the weather events have been nonstop. I’ve frankly been hidden in my bathroom for five days now, and with the remaining canned goods I could bring in with me dwindling, the situation isn’t looking great.
Constant rain intertwined with lightning has been occurring nearly every thirty minutes, and we’re not confident that we’d be able to drive far enough out of the radius of the town in the brief windows of time, sometimes just mere minutes, that the events stop. It’s gotten rather cold today, and with the rain still thundering outside we’re unable to leave town. I’m not sure of what will happen once night falls, but once the totems enter town I can only assume the outcome.
I write this to leave behind at least some trace of this nameless town, as the sun goes down in an hour and I’m not sure if there will be another opportunity for me to type this, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit scared.
To whoever reads this, thanks for sticking around; and if you ever stumble upon an old abandoned town in the middle of the desert for some outlandish reason, don’t forget to follow these rules.