Translucent

First

Rhiannon's small hand reached out towards the cat, whose fur bristled at the sight of her. She remembered what her father had taught her about animals; offer your hand to them to sniff so they can know who you are. She offered her hand but got no closer.

They were visiting a family friend, Margaret, and Evelyn had told Rhiannon that Margaret had a fat, orange cat called Ginger. This perked Rhiannon's interests, as she was told not to bring any toys with her on this particular visit. She didn't approve of this, her arms crossing over her chest and her feet dangling off the edge of the car seat.

The cat's spine was arched upwards, a hiss developing in the back of its throat but Rhiannon still didn't move away. She had experience with unsocial felines before. Her friend Samantha has a small tabby that her father rescued from a scrapyard. He was afraid of everything for a while, even Samantha until he got used to having a home and a family. Rhiannon guessed that Ginger just needed to warm up to her.

She shuffled closer, when she was crouched down like this she was almost the same size as the cat, which she thought would make her look less frightening to the angry feline. It hissed at her fully now, audible even to some of the adults down the stairs from her. She watched the creature with wide, unblinking eyes as it launched a clawed paw at her and she felt the scream escape her throat and resonate through the house. She dropped back onto her backside with a quiet thump as the cat's paw swung into her hand, clawing into the flesh like thorn pricks.

Rhiannon's balance was gone, her body rolling back and towards the staircase. The cat's claws were out of her arm, leaving an unfortunate trail of bloodied lines in her tan skin. She was tumbling back and she could hear her mother shout from the kitchen. Rhiannon knew she was in trouble but that was the least of her problems as she realised that she was going to crack open her skull on the bottom of the staircase if she didn't do something soon.

She could feel the drop in her stomach as she fell but she didn't continue to fall.

Vision white, all of the weight that she had before was gone, feeling the air solidify around her. She remembered her father once saying that when you were about to die that your entire life flashed before your eyes and then you saw a bright light that meant you were going to heaven. She wondered if that was what she was feeling. She tried to lift her hands but it only leads to pain, the air now thick like treacle. Her feet were still visible in her line of sight, the colour of her shoes now unrecognisable in this state.

She tried to breathe in but to no avail, the thickness of the air unbreathable for human lungs. Though she was still finding it difficult to move, and her panicked movements should have had had her panting. The most she managed to move was into a loose fetal position that allowed her to see her hands.

They were equally as unrecognisable. Her skin was so thin that she could see everything underneath them, bones and tendons that she could not name but she knew were there, under her layer of plump, flexible armour. The series of scratch marks on her arm was just beginning to bleed, the droplets of blood forming in the shallow wounds agonisingly slowly.

Rhiannon hoped that if she was going to die that she wouldn't have to face this for eternity.

As if her prayer was heard, she felt the drop in her stomach and her heart beat rapidly in her chest as if she was going to vomit. The syrup began to thin around her, regaining the crisp colour of her skin and her shoes. The electric nature of the transition back to wherever she had been had her skin tingling and her hair standing on end and finally the air realised her, her precious surroundings taking hold over the endless white expanse that engulfed her moments before. 

She dropped onto the floor, the momentum that she'd gathered from the fall now being affected by gravity, her bones jerking and body rolling once over onto the floor before finally flattening out against the carpet.

Her ears were ringing and her heart was racing, her muscles now aching from whatever that experience was and the impact with the ground. She was already crying but not from pain.

She was crying entirely from fear.

Her vision was still blurry but she could easily make out her parents rushing towards her with laboured breath and distressed voices

"Mama" Rhiannon coughed as she said it, realising that is must have been some time since she took a breath. Once she did start breathing, she was heaving in the air around her, trying desperately to oxygenate her blood.

She felt where her mother was checking her over when her father was scooping her up into his arms.

"Where did you go, darling?" her mother asked her, the ringing distorting her voice. Rhiannon heaved in another breath.

"I don't know, Mama"