Leafs and Raining
The world held its breath, a moment of profound, pregnant silence before the sky tore open. Elias stood at the rain-streaked window of his old, slightly sagging cabin, nestled deep within a valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The scent of damp earth, rich compost, and the sharp, clean promise of a coming deluge was a potent, intoxicating note in the chilly air. For weeks, the forest that surrounded him had been a study in vibrant, desperate color: the fiery reds of the maples, the defiant, almost electric golds of the birches, and the deep, resonant oranges and burgundies of the sturdy oaks. Now, the sky above was a bruised, heavy grey, a vast canvas of impending release. A collective shiver seemed to run through the woods, not from a mere drop in temperature, but from a deep, primal anticipation of the event to come. The leaves, brittle and dry after a long, unseasonably warm autumn, began to rustle, a sound that started like distant applause and quickly escalated into a frantic, papery whisper that filled the air.
