Darkness. Misty, hazy viscosity. Chaotic, piercing lights and sounds, omnidirectional. Burning desire for warmth; for shelter from the dissonant storm.

He pressed on, following the painted lines on the asphalt. The lines were thick, protruding from the road as a textural oddity. Light refracted through their slick coating of water and diminished their visual presence.

The turmoil seemed as if a sentient assault, but he continued to advance towards his goal. A red hand pierced the precipitation in repetition to give warning.

Rubber slid against the asphalt with great aspiration, creating tumultuous currents in the mist. It seemed to ignore the beacons of warning that skirted the crossing, and came from many directions, always with inhumanly excessive speed. He darted faster as the local storm began to prevail over the common one.

A bellow. A turn of the head. A rapid advance of light. A howl of tires.

The end.

--

He shot up from the warmth of his bed, flinging the covers all the way across to the opposite wall. His breaths were shallow, but they were there.

Rain pattered against the window, betraying the harsh conditions outside to the artificial reality within. Deposited droplets flowed together on the glass and streaked erratically towards where gravity desired them to end. Warmth flowed from the space heater beside the wet glass and covered the bed with an invisible blanket... it conflicted with the cold sweat he had worked up.

"Richard?" his wife muttered, as she was less violently pulled from her own dream. "Another one?"

"Yeah," Richard responded, still gasping for enough air to satisfy his lungs. "Bad."

She sounded her call of comfort, and added her warmth to his. It helped.

--

"Never had a chance. Such a shame."

The paramedic closed off the zipper on the black bag, and two of his colleagues lifted it from the wet pavement.

A middle-aged woman sat on the curb near where a clean, white SUV was parked, blisslessly ignorant of the water it was leaving on her clothing. She sobbed uncontrollably, while a police officer quietly talked to her, his hand placed on her shoulder in a comforting gesture. A set of keys lied beside her in the gutter, a steady stream of water rushing over them.