The Fog

AN: I based this story off of a book a recently read, The Mist by Stephen King. If you've read it, you'll probably see it's the same but all Faberry-d up. This will be set at the end of summer vacation, before senior year, everything after will be AU. If my timeline is correct, Quinn is Punk!Quinn during this but nobody from school has seen her yet. There might be some spoilers in there so, if you haven't seen all of the episodes, you have been warned.

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, or anything pertaining to it. I only own a copy of The Mist by Stephen King and a very Faberry imagination.

No Beta.

Chapter 1: The Storm

Quinn's POV:

On the night that the worst heat wave in Ohio history finally broke, the entire city of Lima was lashed with the most vicious thunderstorms I had ever seen.

I sat on a patio chair in my backyard idly flipping through a book I wasn't really reading, just enjoying the sun. For an hour before, the air had been utterly still. Not even the leaves on the trees that resided in the forest on the other side of our backyard were rustling. The heat was practically solid. I looked towards the horizon that was slowly being consumed by enormous purple thunderclouds and sighed; I would have to go back inside soon. Back inside, where my mother was rigorously preparing herself to go to another one of her book club meetings. I found out what my mother's definition of a book club was when she hosted one at our house. Apparently getting inebriated and trash talking your ex- husband was what passed as a book club meeting now a days, at least for my mother. I had thought that once the divorce was final and my father was out of the house the relationship with my mother would stop being nonexistent. Turns out it was all wishful thinking. My new sense of style and neon pink hair had only served to direct disapproving head shakes my way. I wanted to believe that was better than nothing but it wasn't. I shook away those thoughts and reached for my water bottle. It was empty.

The air began to move, jerkily at first, moving the leaves on the trees, making them rustle and shake and then still. It began to freshen and grew steady, first cooling the perspiration on my body and then seeming to freeze it.

That was when I saw the silver veil approaching with the storm clouds. It blotted out the hills in the horizon then headed straight for me. The birds suddenly stopped chirping. I stood up and squinted at the horizon, trying to see if it was just a trick of the light. After a few failed attempts at trying to prove it was just my mind playing tricks on me, I decided it was time to head inside.

I picked up my water bottle and my book and went in through the sliding glass doors that lead into the living room. I slid the door shut on its track and paused for another look out. The silver veil was three-quarters of the way across the forest. It had resolved itself into a crazily spinning teacup between the lowering black sky and the tops of the trees. Watching the dark storm clouds roll closer was strangely hypnotic. They were nearly directly on top of me when lightning flashed so brightly that it printed everything on my eyes in negative for thirty seconds afterward. The telephone started ringing shrilly snapping me out of my thoughts. I turned to see my mother hurrying down the stupidly long staircase.

"I'll get it!" I quickly said and walked over to the landline. I was about to pick it up when it stopped ringing. Shrugging, I turned and looked back at my mother who was now standing where I had been a few seconds prior.

"I don't think it would be safe to go out tonight. A storm's coming," I told her nonchalantly as I leaned into the couch, waiting for her response.

"I'll be the judge of that," she murmured, barley acknowledging my presence. A vision suddenly came to me- the kind that are reserved exclusively for when you're angry with an adult, but can't really do anything about it- of the glass door blowing in with a low, hard coughing sound and sending jagged arrows of glass into my mother's cosmetically altered face. The horrors of the Inquisition are nothing compared to what my mind can conjure up with all of my repressed feelings. I shook away my thoughts once more and along with it, the foreboding feeling in my gut.

"Maybe you shouldn't stand so close to the glass. The wind's picking up." She spared me a startled glance, as if she had been partially awakened from a deep dream. I discreetly rolled my eyes and headed towards the stairs.

I was almost halfway up the stairs when the wind came. It was as if the house had taken off like a 747. It was high, breathless whistling, sometimes deepening to a bass roar before glissading up to a whooping scream. I paused in my ascent and thought for a moment. Sighing, I turned and headed back down the stairs. Sparing a glance at my mother who was still staring through the glass, I filled up my bottle with more water. Scrambling through the cabinets, a strange thought flitted through my head. Flashlights are funny things, you know. You lay them by just in case, not knowing when there might be a power outage. And when the time comes, they hide.

Ha, good ol' Jack Daniel's, I sighed shaking my head. My mother had drunk half of it, and the bottle was slightly hidden by random house wife magazines.

I shuffled them around a bit and behind the new Martha Stewart issue found some spare batteries. Just as I made to grab them, a streak of lightning flashed across the gloomy sky, illuminating the dining room like an oversized lightning bug. I moved the batteries to my left hand with my book and water and flicked on the flashlight in my right.

"I'm going downstairs," I said, but this time I had to shout to make myself heard. I was eerily calm all things considering. I turned and headed towards the basement just as thunder whacked mammoth planks together directly over the house. I flinched a little and looked back to see that my mother had been snapped out of her daze and was following a few feet behind me. I didn't comment, just handed her the other flashlight and kept heading towards the basement. Up ahead I let my mother walk in first.

I had to have one more look at the storm.

I looked back through the glass door but I couldn't see twenty yards into the forest; it was complete turmoil outside. Hesitantly, I joined my mother downstairs.

The basement was strategically made into another living room. I sat down on the couch opposite my mother, I listened to the storm roar and bash at our house and began to read by flashlight. It was oddly calming. About twenty minutes later we heard a ripping, rending crash as one of the big pines went down nearby. Then there was a lull. I was startled when my mother spoke.

"Is it over?" she asked. I thought it over.

"Maybe," I said. "Maybe only for a while."

We went upstairs, both of us carrying a flashlight. It was too dark to see what damage had been done around the house. We sat in the living room, listened to the wind, and looked at the lightning. About half an hour later it began to crank up again. For three weeks the temperature had been over ninety, and on six of those twenty-one days the National Weather Service station had reported temperatures of over one hundred degrees. Strange weather. Strange enough that I overheard many non-believers around town talk about global warming. And of course, the end of the world.

The second squall wasn't so hard, but we heard the crash of several trees weakened by the first onslaught. As the wind began to die down again, I head back to the basement with my mother not far behind.

My mother had fallen asleep on one of the armchairs by the time the last squall came at around ten o'clock. It was bad. The wind howled just as loudly as it had the first time, and the lightning seemed to be flashing all around me even though there was only one small, bulletproof window in the basement. I was lying down on the couch, book long forgotten by then when I heard the splintering crash of more trees falling. I winced a little.

I had loved those trees.

I few moments later there was a splintering crash from upstairs- the glass door. So maybe my vision earlier hadn't been so crazy after all. My mother, who had by then been sleeping deeply, woke up with a little shriek. She looked around dazedly for a few seconds then realized the same thing I had a few moments ago. She looked at me with a slight hint of panic.

"The rain will come in," she said. "It'll ruin the furniture." I looked at her; she was still half asleep so I figured I'd amuse her.

"If it does, it does. Everything's insured, isn't it?"

"That doesn't make it any better," she said in an upset scolding voice. Apparently not that asleep.

"Shhh," I said. "Go back to sleep."

"No." she said stubbornly, and five minutes later she did.

I stayed awake for another half hour with my flashlight for company, listening to the thunder walk and talk outside. I pointed my flashlight towards the ceiling, the glowing golden light making me smile as it reminded me of a certain argyle-wearing diva that had an affinity for gold stars. I allowed myself to indulge in those thoughts that I rarely let run free at the forefront of my mind. I did a lot of thinking this summer and it not only resulted in my drastic change of appearance but also aided in my acknowledgment and acceptance of the feelings I have been harboring for one Rachel Berry for who knows how long. Suddenly the impulsive hostility I had felt towards her made sense. I was frustrated and confused at what she made me feel, which lead to me taking it out on her. The reevaluation of my feelings began as soon as Finnept had single handedly lost us Nationals with his stupid attempt at romancing Rachel. As soon as it happened I had felt like someone had punched my stomach, hard, causing all of the air to expel from my lungs. I knew that feeling; I had felt it before but never as strong. I was jealous, and as soon as I named the feeling I knew that I wasn't jealous of Rachel. My smile dimmed when I remembered what had happened at Nationals and that Rachel would probably get back together with the Jolly Green Giant. If she hadn't already. I was already formulating a plan to try and woo her. It was a work in progress that had made…no progress. I wasn't exactly sure how to approach her anymore after everything I did to her. The only thing I could think of was surprising her with a mind blowing kiss so that I wouldn't have to explain myself first. But just the thought of talking to her, let alone kissing her makes me blush like a strawberry and my thoughts turn into something along the lines of aghjbsfjhgdsf.

The storm was fading now, with no sign of a new squall coming in. I went back upstairs, leaving my mother on the chair, and looked into the living room. Where the sliding glass door had been, there was now a jagged hole stuffed with birch leaves. It was the top of the old tree that had stood closest to our house for as long as I could remember. Looking at its top, now visiting in our living room, I could understand what my mother had meant by saying insurance didn't make it any better. That had been my favorite tree. Whenever mom and dad would get particularly loud when they fought I would go outside and climb it and spend hours reading on it, hidden between its branches until the yelling stopped. Big chunks of glass on the rug reflected my flashlight over and over. I reminded myself to warn my mother in the morning.

I went downstairs again. I fell asleep on the longest couch. I had a dream I saw God walking across the forest, a God so gigantic that above his waist He was lost in a clear blue sky. In the dream I could hear the rending crack and splintering of breaking trees as God stamped the forest into the shape of His footsteps. He was coming closer to our house, all the trees that stood in his way bursting into white flame like lightning, and soon the smoke covered everything. The smoke covered everything like a fog.

oO0Oo

AN: What do you think? Should I continue?