After the fall

Chapter 2

The world around is pitch black and the feeling of floating around in an endless world without meaning.

Which way was up, which way was down? The girl could not tell. Her arms and legs, as well as her toes and fingers were numb, devoid of warmth and feeling.

'Wait, water?' Lapisa thought as she slowly started to gain consciousness and become aware of her surroundings. Suddenly the lack of oxygen began clawing at her lungs, desperate to breathe in air. Instead of oxygen making its way down her desperate lungs, a lump of water made its way into her body. In a panicked state, she began thrashing around in the water, flailing her arms and legs around like a cat desperately trying to claw her way to the surface. Black dots began littering her vision as her pulse started to slow down. The pitch black surrounding suddenly made way for a bit of light, signaling the way to the surface, where emptiness and coldness no longer would accompany her. The light grew closer and closer until it was right above her. With a final push she surfaced and her desperate lungs could finally breathe in oxygen, the black dots surrounding her vision grew faint until they disappeared completely, as if they were never there to begin with. Clawing her way up onto land, hands digging into the mud, coloring her already tan skin an even darker shade, she made her way out of the water and laid down on the ground. Taking in long and deep breaths she slowly opened her brown/amber eyes to take in her surroundings. She scanned the area around her from where she layed on the ground, clothes sticking to her small and slim frame, giving signs of malnourishment, and took notice of the trees standing tightly to each other giving the impression of a caged room with no way out.

The dark surroundings were only a little lit up by the light shining from the moon. Shadows stood tall, the rustling of the trees as the wind blew between the leaves and the wet ground caused a lot of thoughts to go spiraling in the girl's head.

Where was she? Wasn't she supposed to be dead, a mear smudge on the ground of some random road she landed on. This couldn't be real, this had to be some sort of dream she had before going to the afterlife. Her brown hair hung in clumps around her head, dripping with water onto her now dirty shirt as she slowly but surely started to maneuver her body from laying down on the muddy ground to sitting up and looking around in a daze. 'This had to be a dream, some kind of sick twisted dream.' She thought as the feeling of dread slowly started to creep up her body. How could she be alive and breathing, she was supposed to be dead! Free from all the suffering. In a sense of disbelief she reached for her arm with her hand and pinched her forearm.

At first she barely felt anything but then a spark of pain flew through her. The feeling of relief was quickly replaced by dread and disbelief as the lingering feeling of pain slowly faded from her still numb arm. Dropping her hand onto the ground she looked out in the distance, devoid of feelings as warmth suddenly began trickling down her cheeks. Reaching up to touch her face her hand made contact with her cheek and came away wet, wet with tears that had made its way out of her eyes before her brain even acknowledged it. Her hand now wet with warm tears instead of cold water, she lowered it down and she slowly angled her body to look at where she had come from and she made eye contact with a pond that sat right by her feet. The light from the moon gleamed on the water surface and the small wind caused ripples to form on the pond, distorting the perfect replica of the moon.

Hopelessness filled her entire being as she sat there staring at the pond, expressionless and empty. How long she sat by the pond she doesn't know, but a burst of strong wind suddenly blew towards her and she started to shiver uncontrollably. Her then wet hair was now damp and her eyes stung from exhaustion.

A rustling to the side of her snapped her out of her mindless staring and she turned to the dense woods, waiting for something to happen. All of a sudden the bushes at the edge of the clearing began rustling and what looked like a garden gnome came stumbling through before face planting on the muddy ground. The gnome struggled to straighten itself for a while until it finally got up on its feet again and stared right ahead. The gnome looked harmless, basically a replica of the gnomes she saw on those american tv-shows, with slightly pointed ears, a bit muddy and holding a pitchfork. When the gnome made eye contact with her the small gnome's harmless smile went wide, showing razor sharp teeth and giving space for a long tongue to slip through.