TW: 18+, traumatic injury and small reference to SA (doesn't occur)
"Corra!" his voice screamed my name, traveling up the hill from thick woods behind me. I can't see anything in the darkness, but the sounds of him crashing through the vegetation were definitely getting closer to me. When I'd started going out with this guy from my graduating class it was just meant to be a few months of fun before college. Now, I'm running for my life towards what I thought was a building, regrettably realizing its just some old well sitting solitarily in an elaborate, overgrown garden. The sounds of distant thunder, Steven thrashing through bushes, and my own heart beat are all mixing together in my ears, my mind fumbling around on what to do next.
Where the hell is a Super when you actually need one? The news is just chalked full of stories of Heroes like Mr. Tecton or The Blazing Duo saving cities all over the world. Those feel good stories are nice and all, but where the Heroes over the years as bands of Villain groups decimated small towns around the globe like mine.
Cities have become a safe haven for the masses, that whole concept of safety in numbers I guess. Local governments can't cough up the same amount of money to pay Heroes like major cities can. So I don't bother screaming out for help, not even Dr. Resonance would be able to hear me in the depths of this forest.
Looking around the unkempt flowers and unfamiliar trees surrounding the clearing, my mind quickly settled on the only logical thing to do. I can't keep running or else I'm going to exhaust myself. Steven revealed he'd had powers this whole time when a giant boulder flew past my head while fleeing from him. I may be a star athlete, but a mortal's endurance could never compete with a Super's.
I tug at the rope attached to the well, a splintering wooden bucket dancing over the dark abyss. Though it's probably decades old, the rope seems strong enough. I've been helping on my father's fishing boat since I could walk, so I can tell this rope could withstand some heavy weight even if it's a bit ancient. It may be unsound faith to think it'll hold more weight than a bucket full of water, but what other choice do I have now?
I'm pulling up the dry rotting bucket as I realize there is a missing member to the trio of chaos roaring in my ears. The rain drops accumulating on my shaking shoulders tell me I'm almost out of time. He's caught my trail somehow, quieted as to not scare his prey. The aged wood breaks away easily from the rope, and I hastily tie it around my waist. Body shaking, yet fingers laser focused from years of dad's training.
I give the knot secured to around my core a few strong tugs to ensure its fast, then slide my legs over the side of the well, feet hovering over the deep darkness. I wrap the section of the rope closest to the top around one arm and hold the spooled remainder in the other. Closing my eyes as I take a deep breath in, forcing my shaking shoulders down as I exhale slowly, I say a small prayer that I don't snap this rope.
"Think light thoughts," I tell myself, taking one last look down the hill to see the brush parting. Not wanting to stick around to see who it is, I push my body forward, cold stone releasing from under me, and I fall into the abyss.
Miraculously, the rope holds my weight and I loosen some of my grip on the tether, allowing my body to rapidly drop further into the darkness. The night sky fades out of view as I hit the end of the rope, my body swaying softly side to side. The thunder coming from above is smothered out by the pounding of my heart in my ears. Each loud thump projecting from my eardrums, bouncing off the stone walls, and reverberating back into them.
My body wants to shake in fear, but I don't let it. I need to conserve my energy and mind if I'm going to be climbing out of here. Because I'm going to get out of here. I'm not going to let some guy end my life like this, I'm too smart for that. I do the litany of breathing exercises and mind tricks the many therapists I had growing up tried teaching me. My limbs' muscles are stiff, yet my hands waver when I think of my father.
It’s been just me and him my entire life, my mother abandoned us when I was about 5. I don’t really remember anything from life before then, some of my earliest memories being that of his depression after she’d left us. I don't bring her up or ask questions about her anymore. Every time I did he'd get this lost look in his eyes, like he was searching for a memory of someone he didn't really know. I will not let this situation be the thing that leaves my father completely alone. I can't let him think I've abandoned him too.
We live above my father's fuel dock that's been in his family for generations, but his dream is in the sea. He man's the fueling station most of the day, his head barley ever meeting his pillow. Every moment of spare time he has, he uses to earn more money by going out at night on his dilapidating fishing boat. Most mornings I'm woken by the sounds of fishing vessels outside my window, my father cheerily chattering with the men. As I've gotten older I've started to help my father expand the business into a convenience store for the local fisherman as well. Bait and tackle, snacks and fillet knives, oh how men are so simple, yet so dangerous.
My fears of death drift to my best friend, Gretta. Two months from now we're supposed to be roommates at Maxville University. We’ve been planning our lives together for years, celebrated together when we got our acceptance letters, our matching comforters already bought and out for delivery. We were so happy to have each other during the transition from small town to big city.
We've had so many late night phone calls, ranting about life, how things felt so unfair. Both our families struggle with money, it was the core of our shared disdain for the glorification of Super's. If the cities are where Super's make money, it must be where we can create a life for ourselves. I was going to go to University to help my father's business, learn skills that could help keep us afloat. Gretta's family has dealt with many legal battle over their farmland, so her goal is to become a lawyer and fight back for what they lost.
I can’t leave them behind, I can't die, I was just starting my life. We have so many big plans, our futures were interwoven.
I can hear distant sounds from above of Steven's anger devolving into frustration, probably because he's lost my trail again. The snapping sounds of breaking branches and ripping of shrubbery rain from above. The raging carnage gradually quiets, and I think he's finally tired himself out or hopefully given up.
But there comes the distinct sound of rotten wood hitting the stone walls above me and my stomach drops to the bottom of this well. I forgot about that old bucket, laying on its side in the dirt next to the well. I was so panicked I forgot to clean up my tracks once again. The old bucket shatters against my skull and my grip fails on the splintering rope.
My body begins to sway in the cavern as my fear weakening hands fumble for traction again, coarse fibers piercing into my skin. My shoes meet the wall and for a moment its like I'm on solid ground again. My body facing towards the top of the well, it's walls acting as my floor. I see him now, black form against the darkening night. The cold of the stone seeps through the bottom of shoes, spreading up to my shoulders, down into my fingers.
He doesn't say anything, no longer raging above, but a perfectly white smile seeps through the silhouette, reflected its way all the way down to me. I can't see the knife in his hand, but the vibrations through the rope cause the hold I'd regained on the tremors in my body to loose control.
I finally find my voice, but all I can croak out is, "no, please". I feel one of the strands of the rope break, my voice growing louder, hopeless fear weaving through the repeated desperate pleas to stop. I try to gain some sort of grip on the slick walls, nail polish tipping off as I scratch at the stones. My body is swinging around in the darkness, I can't get a hold of the breaking rope.
Another strand snaps, the last one fraying up the line to the teeth of his knife. I'm just seconds away from falling to my death, but all I can think of right now is how nobody will ever find my body at the bottom of this well. I'll fall to my death, never to be heard of again. I snuck out to meet this guy, leaving my phone behind at Gretta's graduation party so my over protective father couldn't track me going out to the woods with Steven.
What was supposed to be a fun evening of celebrating going away to college and saying goodbye to each other quickly turned into the literal death of me. I thought we were just going to star gaze and make out like we normally do when I'd sneak out to meet him. When I stopped him from putting his hand down my pants, I didn't expect him to get so angry. He abruptly burst into an angry rant about how much of a tease I am, how I never gave him anything other than blue balls. I'd got up and started to walk away from him, but that's unfortunately what's lead to this moment.
The final snap, weather it came from his knife or the weight of my body on the last strand of the rope, it doesn't matter now. My body is falling. The silhouetted figure dropping away into a small pinhole of darkening light. I don't recognize the scream coming from my lungs.
The stone is moving so fast around me, but no light reaches its surface, all I can hear is the air rushing past me. An arm slams into jagged stone, my scream filled with not just fear but agony now. The collision causes my body to tumble through the air. Limbs, back, head, slamming into spiking rocks, a windchime of breaking bones echoes off the walls. I'm a pin cushion of rocks, warm blood trickling from the puncturing stones, red rain drops flying off my skin.
I must be about to cross over, bright light is growing from where I'm falling to. Shimmers of iridescent light fly past, lining the tunnel downward, streaking lines of light exponentially growing around me. Another rock lodges into my palm, this time boiling heat spreads from the wound and up my arm. I'm shrieking at this point, my screams sounding more like a wounded animal rather than a girl facing death.
Through blurry eyes I try to look at my hand, the skin around the puncture feels like I'm holding hot coals. Instead of glowing embers, my squinting eyes are met by an iridescent crystal, oddly illuminating, piercing straight through my hand. The pale rainbow colors of the crystal are rapidly leaking into the pigment of my skin around the wound and up my arm.
Another crystal slams into my spine, searing hot pain spreading across my back like spreading wings. A third crystal slashes across my nose and down my cheek, the heat that splinters causes my eyes to snap shut in pain. My body tries to scream from the suffering, but my voice is just a measly whimper, that of a baby chick fallen from the nest.
I hit the ground hard, my ears registering the sounds of my bones breaking against the crystal ridden bedrock before blacking out.
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