The Limbus

Ch. 8- A Change Of Mind

A few hours go by before someone else finally shows. The strike was far away, so it may take a bit to get to them. As I head over to them, a second bolt from behind me appears too. I look at my wrist for the two times. They both have decent times, a few hours each, yet the closer has less time. I could head to him first, yet I may forget where the other is. Rebecca. Let's go have a chat and get her out.

As I reach the area, I can hear something. It sounded like crying, yet I didn't think that's possible. I fly overhead a road and as I glide by I see her below, but she sees me too. She cries out to get my attention, like she knows I'm human. I stop instantly and slowly drop down, landing in front of her. She does have tears on her eyes, so she must have been sad, or something of the sort.

"Hi, my name's Alex. You're Rebecca right?" I say with confidence, yet still hesitation in my mind. She just looks at me, more tears beginning to form.

"How am I still alive. It should have worked." She holds her hands in front of her, looking down at them. Her arms tense up, like she is startled about something. She brings them closer to her face, but not her hands. Her wrists. I'm just standing still, fearing what she means by this.

"My scars. Where did they go?" She whispers under her breath. I don't think she wanted me to hear it, but I did nonetheless. She starts to feel her wrists, running up and down, side to side. Fear and shock are in her very breath, raspy and short. It almost seems like a panic attack. I slowly walk over to her, and put my hand on her shoulder. She looks up to me, her eyes large and full of confusion.

"What's going on? I don't get this, why am I here?" With my hand still on her shoulder, she grabs, clutches, my forearm. She looks at me with desperate eyes. She's obviously terrified.

"Hey, just calm down. You need to explain what you're meaning." I try to calm her down, but her grip tightens. She's definitely having a panic attack. I kind of know how to deal with these situations. I take my hand off her, and she lets go, but I move in and wrap my arms around her, calmly repeating 'Shhh' over and over. She doesn't fight it, and she slowly falls into a sitting position, her breathing back to steady pace. Her tears have stopped, so many I can talk to her now. Letting her go and backing up, she doesn't even look like she questioned that. More of she appreciated it.

"Ok, let's just go over this calm and easy. What do you remember before all of this happened." I'm sitting on the curb next to her, she's toned down, so hopefully she will talk to me.

"Well, I was, kinda killing myself." She reaches into her pocket, but straightens up when she finds nothing.

"Where did they go? I still had at least a third a bottle." She looks back at me like nothing happened. "Anyways, I've been having a pretty terrible year so far, and it just seems like everything is going against me. I just couldn't take it. So I went into our bathroom, and grabbed the bottle. I don't know what it was, and frankly I didn't care. So long as it was something." She was looking at the asphalt, almost seeming that tears were forming again. I don't know if this was out of line, but I felt like asking anyways.

"Why do you think that. What could be so terrible that you would feel the need to do this?" I'm asking very nervously, because I don't want to strike a nerve, yet she answers anyways.

"My friends, or at least what were, abandoned me and just betrayed me. Now they don't even talk to me, except when they bully me. I've tried so many ways to make them quit. I've talked to the teachers, the principal, even theirs and my parents. Nothing! And I'm just SICK of it!" She stands up fast, extremely angry. I stay sitting, trying to influence her to calm down again.

"So why did I do it? BECAUSE I'M NOT DOING THIS ANYMORE!" She spins around and starts to run away, but I appear before her almost instantly with the speed of my wings. She starts to turn around and run away again, but I grab her and start to fly off with her, still I don't speak a word. I take her up to the tallest building I could find within a short time and set her down near the edge. As I begin to get close I retract my wings, causing us to fall a few feet before we land.