Echoes of The Fall
Echoes of The Fall
She awoke to the pitter-patters of rain on her cheek. Eyes struggling to open, the scene beheld was one of confusion. She could not discern ground from sky nor wall from floor. Eyes closed again, she inhaled deep and steadied her mind. Forced to squint at new-found light, a gleam of the moon reflecting a thousand times off fragmented glass. A stream of red flowed down the glass and blotched out the light that had shone in her eye. Blood. Her blood. She started to remember now. She had jumped, and she had fell, and now she had come to rest on a bed of cobblestone and shattered glass.
She rolled onto her back, barely feeling the few new shards of glass pierce her skin amongst the pain she was already in. A blank stare at the sky was met with countless shining stars. She thought for a moment of the beauty and the wonder the night’s sky held. She labored out a breathy chuckle that showed grim understanding far beyond one of 10 years should own. A blink and her focus changed to the window above her from where she dropped.
It was a moment and a decision. An opportunity taken, and an exit made. She had intended to fall, but she never had intended to survive. Deaf to the world around, she contemplated the consequences in pathetic silence. Life meant she still had her uses, and those uses were the very ones from which she was using death to escape. Footsteps splattering water broke the silence. A woman ran towards, yelling in ferocity.
This woman had offered her shelter and food. She had pulled her out of the gutter and cleaned her up. She was not the charitable sort, no she was something much more sinister. The price for rescue was revealed to be her body given to those who would pay. She didn’t understand why, she couldn’t understand why. They would clean her up again. They would send her back to work.
It felt like an eternity, but it was perhaps just a moment. A cry of pain and a burst of motion brought her stumbling back upright. She limped down the pathway, no real plan in mind. To her surprise, she recognized the crossroads found at the end. This whole time, she was merely a stone’s throw from her home.
She struggled towards it, not quite knowing why. It wasn’t home anymore. No parents yet lived to greet her. She coughed harshly, blood still flowing, and came to a stop. Her energy was at an end and she could run no more. Her name was called in the night and the woman drew close.
A sound like the whisper of a ghost reached her ears, a glint of light and the slam of a door. A girl emerged from another home, lantern alight. She recognized the girl. This one had been cordial with her parents. The child, the girl and the woman met under the moon in unsteady silence. Light began to fade from her eyes as vision blurred. The girl looked upon her in fright and mouthed a name.
“Cammon?”
A smile as consciousness left her. Maybe hope hadn’t abandoned her quite yet.
