The Cascading Effect

Fight or Flight?

~Going down the rabbit hole
Get away from all we know
Come on, follow
Come on and follow me
Going down the rabbit hole
Even hoes and gigolos
Come on, follow
Come on and follow me~

Tessa wondered if she was dead.

For the first time, the soundtrack playing in her head felt apt. She wanted to laugh at her own misery but nothing, not even a facial muscle seemed to move.

In fact, she couldn't feel her face at all. Or rather, she couldn't feel anything at all. The drop was massive, easily 100s of feet. If she cannot feel anything.... it must mean.....

Death was always something she had been curious about. Not that she had a dying wish, she just, like countless others, wanted to know what lies ahead of the mortal realm. Heaven and Hell? Chaos? Void?

But this, she had to say, was a huge disappointment. She couldn't feel anything, she couldn't see anything and all that she could hear was that stupid song. This can't be afterlife.

And then suddenly it struck her!
The questionnaire she filled in the 7th grade! About what her own personal hell would look like!!
Tessa, sick of this song with a pesky, catchy beat which hadn't left her head for days, had written all about how having to listen to an annoying song on loop, unable to do anything else would definitely be hell for her.

Whose questionnaire was it anyway? Miss Bale's?
She works for Satan? Well, Tessa thought, she wouldn't be surprised if Miss Bale was in fact Satan's Spawn. That old crone would specifically make Tessa answer exactly those questions she did not raise her hand for. Sadist bit*h.

Tessa was lost deep in thought when something hit her on her head. Wait, she felt it? She felt the pain? She might not be dead after all?

She tried to open her eyes. One muscle at a time. She was able to move her eye brows a little. If somebody was watching her at this moment, Tessa couldn't even imagine how stupid she must be looking, with her eyes shut close and her eyebrows showing some weird sporadic movement.

After some effort, she was able to open her right eye and then her left.

And she was back to square 1.
What her eyes witnessed around her was definitely not earth. It felt like one of those Disney movies. As far as what her peripheral vision could see, it was all green. She couldn't make out shapes yet but there were definitely loads and loads and loads of trees and bushes and grass and flowers.

She tried to move a finger. And gave up.
Some of her sensory nerves were back in action. She could feel that beneath her, was grass too. A very soft grass, nothing like the sharp, thorny grass blades she was used to.
It was almost like a cushion.

This cushiony surface had saved her! But what was this place? A sort of an underground resort? If it really was one, that's some very strange marketing right there. Tessa wasn't complaining but not everybody might appreciate having to fall down these many feet and breaking all these bones.

Looking up at the calm blue sky, a sense of comfort set in. Tessa felt a little too comfortable.
What is the need to get up anyway, she thought to herself. Life is bleh and it'll always be bleh. Why make the effort for something that'll just be... bleh when I can lie here forever, no need to move, no need to exercise, screw you crossfit.

Smiling, Tessa relaxed and ceased all efforts to move.
When suddenly, her view of the surreal azure sky was blocked by something which was seemingly not blue. Not something, somebody!!!!

She immediately jerked up in standing position.
So she could move after all.

Processing her surroundings, there wasn't just a somebody, there was an entire crowd staring at her! With hammers and sickles in their hands!! How long had they been here??