By The Hillside

Chapter 25

This was a... stressing one to write, ngl. Anyway, don't kill me, um, yeah. And follow my Twitter - sof_tomlinson26

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Weather apps were not always right, or maybe their predictions changed last minute, but that night, Louis wished that they had been correct.

He wished for a lot of things that night.

He was sleeping restlessly, his mind wandering between London, his father, his mom, Harry, even in the land of dreams. First, his father was standing in front of him in a hospital hallway. The hospital hallway. The one Louis had walked so many times before, the one he himself had been rolled down not long ago, unconscious. Close to death.

His father wasn't saying anything, just standing. His gaze was straight ahead, not even registering his son's presence.

Louis hit him on the chest, trying to get a reaction out of him. "Do something!"

His father did nothing, he just kept standing still.

Suddenly his mother was there, next to him, touching his arm. "Let it go," she said. "He won't do anything. He never has, and he won't now."

Then she was gone, and when Louis looked back to where Mark was standing, he was gone, too. Louis was all alone. Again. Darkness protruded from the walls, surrounding him.

Suddenly he was on the streets of London, walking. He was walking toward his home, the street all so familiar. The houses, the people, yet it felt wrong. It wasn't home.

Suddenly a new person stood in front of Louis. It was Harry, with a suitcase next to him. He was wearing a suit. It looked wrong, unfamiliar. Where were the boots? The jeans? The cowboy hat?

"Louis, I had to sell the ranch." Tears were pouring out of his eyes, yet his facial expression was completely monotone. Everything about him looked wrong.

Louis was about to reply to him, but then—

Louis woke to the sound of what he would later describe as the beginning of the worst night of his life, but in that moment he identified it as a crash. A loud one. A loud crash from outside had pulled him out of his slumber. He immediately sat up in bed, looking around himself bewildered. Harry had also stirred at the sound, and their eyes found each other. Now Harry's face wasn't monotone. It was specked with confusion, with worry.

"What was that?" Louis asked, heart beating rapidly in his chest.

It was then he began to pay notice to the rain pouring down outside. And the wind. Like a storm. Louis jumped out of the bed, running to the window. Harry was in his heels.

What greeted him outside, was equal to hell. The rain was pouring down, the wind having picked up. It wasn't supposed to. Not yet.

And worst of all.

One of the branches on the old oak had ripped off the tree and flown straight into the roof of the stable, making a hole there. The end was sticking out between the broken tiles, and for a second, Louis felt as if the branch was penetrating his own heart. What was happening? He was still too tired to grasp his head around it.

Louis could hear Harry take in a sharp breath of air, indicating he had seen it, too.

"The horses," he whispered. "They are outside." He backed away. He was wearing nothing but his boxer shorts. Neither was Louis.

Louis looked at him, panic coursing through his veins. When he had went to sleep he had felt peaceful, now he felt like the whole world was crashing down around him. "We need to get dressed." It was all he could say in a moment of panic.