Day woke up with a curse. Her hair was tangled up in the gray, polluted, grasses and her pack's contents had spilled open by the fierce winds. Her watch told her it was mid-afternoon and she was not even out of the sight line of the city. She raked her hands through her tangled hair and hastily gathered her pack's contents. Day stood up and hurled insults at clouds above that kept the world in darkness. She was tired of this life of shadows and rage. She fumbled around for her flashlight and then remembered that it had broken. The only light was from the city lights far away. She pounded her fists into a nearby rotting log and was rewarded with a satisfying crunch. She glanced down and threw another insult at the ground below her feet. 

Because the path was gone. 

Daybreak, she reminded herself. I have come to find the daybreak. Her breathing slowed. Day sat down again on the gray ground and watched the clouds move, somehow, even though they were merged together into one. She snapped open her water-resistant watch and flicked through the contents. 

FLASHLIGHT MODE, it said. 
Perfect, Day thought. The steady and powerful beam of light lit the way as she started to walk... 

And stopped. She had no idea where to go. The path was gone. The path had gone to the east, however. Day opened her watch and flipped to COMPASS MODE. She entered her direction and watched the watch's compass spin around until it pointed east. Day swallowed, then felt her stomach rumble. She sat down stiffly and ate an afternoon breakfast of a bland nutrition bar packed with the vitamins her body desperately required. 

A whisper of wind. 

Day looked around, then desperately gulped down the rest of her bar and stood up. 

A crackle of lightning. 

She started to run...

Only a few seconds had passed before she heard the boom of thunder. Perhaps she could escape the huge hurricane that went on every night that was now massing in the distance.
It came early, she realized. It was only around three 'o clock. It always came at five. 

Two hours... It was nothing. Day judged the storm would reach her current position in about five minutes. As if to assure her of that problematic fact, a thin, cold drizzle began to fall. Her thin sweeping beam of a flashlight started to flash red. A waterproof cover slid over the emitting beam and the world was darkened once again. 

"I thought they said this thing was water-resistant." Day muttered to herself and desperately tried to pry open the thin cover. It refused to budge. The panic started to well up in her throat. 

What was I thinking? She asked herself. She had been a fool, but there was no turning back now. She glanced up, desperately hoping for even a thin moonbeam to come down from the clouds but the sky remained just as dark and forbidding as it always was. Day recalled something from her science class about how above the clouds, only the sun was visible in the sky during the day, its bright beams hiding the moon. And often, the moon was on the other side of the planet. So no, even if the clouds did part, she would see only the sun. Though seeing the sun would be quite incredible too. 

There. 

A thick canopy of leaves towered above her just barely in the distance to the right of the path. Thick brown trunks rose up from the slimy grass and their majestic beauty seemed to make up for the pollution. The leafy ceiling would probably make up a good enough shelter. Day darted forward towards the safe haven... 

A huge streak of lightning sliced through the sky and hit the branches of an old spruce tree that was among the woods. Day slammed her feet into the dusty road, leaving wide grooves, as the tree started to quake. Its branches seemed to let out little tips of flame that kept on creeping up, until the entire tree was ablaze. A crack split it apart and its long arms snapped and ripped as it fell towards the ground, the ferocious flames covering it. Those same flames grabbed onto the grass and then that ground was fiery too, creeping towards the trees, sneaking towards Day. 

Day grabbed her pack and ran.