Fallen (au sans x reader)

The Fall

RING. RING.

You reached over the side of your bed and smacked your alarm clock to get it to shut up. It was morning, at long last. You had never felt more glad to wake up; that crazy dream, or whatever it was, was practically traumatising. There was a pain in your back where you had been hit in the back by that normal-voiced guy in your dream, but you decided to dismiss it as a coincidence. The brain had weird ways of incorporating pain into dreams. After a few more minutes of lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, you decided it was best you get up. You had a job to do, after all. You peeled yourself off your sweat-stained sheets and pushed the duvet aside, then pushed yourself onto your feet. The wooden floor of your bedroom felt astonishingly cold under your feet and you had to resist the temptation to just climb right back into bed, where it was warm and soft. After stretching out your back and legs with a yawn, you walked over to the window on the right side of your bed and looked outside. The rain was tapping gently against the glass, and there was cool air coming from the tiny gap where you had just partially opened the window the night before. You would have left it open to keep your house nice and ventilated but there were small droplets of rain managing to sneak onto your windowsill through the gap, and you really didn't want the paint to start peeling away...

It was a stormy day in Mount Ebott City. Mount Ebott City was a remarkably quiet place- in fact, there could not have been more than a couple hundred residents. Despite its title as a 'city', the only thing that deemed it such was the little cathedral that sat tucked away at the very outskirts of the residential area. It also happened to be a very secluded area, and from the highest points in the city which could be reached via various hiking routes, all that could be seen was miles of forest, untouched by mankind. This, however, did not mean the city was not well known; it was known all over the country for its stunning scenery and farmers markets. Many theorised that Mount Ebott was once an active volcano, and such was the reason the crops grown there were always the best of quality. This theory was further supported by a strange, and very deep, hole in the top of the mountain, and was neither approved of nor denied by local scientists.

Even so, the city was still lacking tourists, no matter the time of year. Many did not have the patience to drive without service through miles of woodland, and others found even the markets quite... unremarkable. This meant the city was very popular with older people, typically old, married couples looking to get away from the hustle and bustle of modern life. There were also those who were born in the city, to whom leaving felt like a very distant dream. It was relatively impossible to earn large sums of money in the city, as the local economy depended largely on small cafes, farms and markets, which made it nearly impossible to buy a house elsewhere. Many people spent their days dreaming of a distant relative leaving a hefty sum of money in their will so that they could leave this tiny city for good...

And then, there was you. You had lived in Mount Ebott city your entire life, in the same little cottage. And it didn't look like things were going to change any time soon. On Whitehirst Road, at the very far end of the street, was your house. It was a simple thing: two bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room, dining room and kitchen, and the interior was decorated in a rustic style, the same style your parents had decorated it all those years ago. Quite cozy, too- in summer you could open the windows or sit in the garden, and relax while the cool mountain air blew gently against your face, and in winter you could turn on the fireplace and wrap up with a book or a game. You worked a job at the town hall, which you recently got after finishing working at a local cafe. While the cafe was nice, customer service still sucked in such a small place, and it was a job that paid very little, perhaps similar to what a teenager would earn working their first part-time job.

Your new job was a lot more interesting, plus you made over four times what you were earning previously... it really made you wonder how you even managed to survive on such a small wage. But you did it, somehow.