One of my favorite characters .3.
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Time stared down at the abyss below her, unseeing eyes wide and filled with terror. Shadows swirled and jumped in the pit below, but she saw none of it. Their hisses and scolding words failed to meet her ears. She was captivated not by the entrancing way in which they moved.
Instead, it was the memories that flashed before her eyes that had landed her in her current state. In her mind's eye, she sat not at the top of a rocky cliff, but on the crest of a grassy hill. All around her, wild flowers filled the air with their fragrance, and the burbling of a near by creek and a particularly pesky flock of birds were the only sounds that met her ears. She was /home/, not trapped in the cruel lands of the earth. Yet she knew that the warm feeling that had filled her was superficial. It was a memory, sure to turn sour if she just lingered in it for long enough.
She tried to pull away from the memory for fear of the ones sure to follow, but the moment of peace was much too tempting. She found herself held tight by it, unable to tear herself away from it.
Sure enough, the memory soon lapsed into something much darker.
The rolling, grassy hills grew darker, in a way the heavens were never supposed to. Time tried to pull back to reality before the scene got worse, but it was too late. She was stuck in them, destined to see them rolling past until she couldn't take it any more.
She watched as the stream dried up. She watched the grasses turn brown and give way to rocky, harsh looking dirt in which even the most hardy of plants would struggle to survive. The birds ceased their singing, for reasons she didn't dare look for. And then, with little to no warning, she was no longer sitting on what was left of the once dreamy landscape. Her surroundings were whirring by now, the speed just slow enough for her to catch the telltale signs of movement around her.
A tall, well built being made his way back and forth through the confines of the small yet extravagant home she found herself in, yelling things Time couldn't make out no matters how hard she tried. Every so often he would sweep his arm over an ornate piece of furniture and send everything on it crashing to meet it's end in a collision with the hardwood floor. He was mad, that much was painfully easy to spot. His movements were irregular and controlled solely by the anger inside him.
He was freezing then, his blue gaze swinging around the room before coming to rest on the spot she sat in. It rested there for a long moment before a tortured sound left the big man's mouth, and he crumpled to the floor, his body shaking with the roars he let out.
Before Time could see what came of the situation, her surroundings were changing yet again. The seconds slowed again, ticking by a regular speed now. She was standing this time, grasping her stomach. A wave of pain crashed over her, making her feel like she was going to be sick.
The man was there again. This time he was standing before her. His anger had fled, replaced by the sort of love only a crazy man could show.
Time found her gaze drawn down. She knew how the memory always played out, but she couldn't gather the strength to try and change it, to do something else for a change. A gasp left her mouth as she stared in shock at the dagger protruding from her belly. Blood soaked her silken gowns, and pain wracked her body.
The man was holding the hilt of the dagger in one hand, his other pressed carefully against her back, holding her up and supporting her against him. He was whispering something, and Time had to strain to make out the gentle words.
"It's for your own good."
Everything went black then. Time struggled for the briefest of moments, and then an un-explainable rage filled her. The next snatches of memory were dim and dark, filled with the burst of rage and a vast amount of pain. she rampaged, smashing everything in her path just as she had watched the man do not long ago.
She could hear voices all around her, murmuring to each other in concerned tones. She ran at them, but she could never quite catch up to them.
And then she was falling.
Down, down, down. The feeling of the free-fall made her drift in and out of consciousness, but even worse than that was the agonizing pain that struck her with each small movement. The pain was unbearable, and she heard herself letting out screams as she tried in vain to rid herself of it.
And then, and then..... She had collided with the soil of the earth with a sickening crunch, and everything had gone black for one last time.
Time gasped and tore her eyes open. She could feel the pain as if she was experiencing it again, and it was awful. Her small frame shook with the terror of the memories, and she had to hold back sobs. "It isn't real. It isn't real." She whispered, rocking back and forth as she tried to be rid of the memories. Despite her desperate attempts to calm herself, the words did little to nothing, and the memories remained.
They haunted her every movement, plaguing her with the weight that had been keeping her down for far too long.