Prettiest After the Fall

Mag was euphoric. Those cursed eyes which had kept her chained to GeneCo for so long were finally destroyed. Even better, she'd destroyed them herself! After so long, she was finally free to do what she had wanted to do for years and years on end. Once she had finished singing her little swan song, she gouged those cursed eyes out, crushing them away into nothingness, her own grip on those eyes as hateful and powerful as GeneCo's grip on her had been. Mag had grinned like a madwoman, celebrating her freedom and triumph as those perfect little orbs became nothing more than a mushy mass of nothingness. She kept on squeezing, even after they had been obliterated. She was free! She won!

The ex-singer for GeneCo was totally deaf to the crowd below her. They cried out in terror and horror, for they had just witnessed their beloved Voice of GeneCo mutilate herself. A mix of grief and sympathy filled all of their hearts, but Mag did not care. In fact, she hardly noticed at all. Whatever they felt for her, or for her actions, was something she did not even consider. For once, she was only thinking about herself, and she was in paradise! Contrary to what the masses thought, Mag had never felt better, never felt freer. Just like the bird in her song! After so long enslaved, Mag had finally thrown off the golden chains that bound her to this sinful earth and she was free to fly amongst the Heavens again.

Suddenly, however, something changed. Mag felt herself fall. Where she once had been flying, suspended in midair by a complex set of cables and harnesses, there was suddenly nothing but gravity. She wasn't quite sure how those harnesses had failed her, but a tiny part of her mind was already blaming her cruel and monstrous boss. No doubt, he had done something to cause them to fail, to cause her to fall, but she would never know for sure though, because the fall was stopped rather abruptly by a spiked fence right beneath her. She died upon impact, one of the barbs of the fence skewering right through her. The triumphant and liberated smile was still frozen upon her bloody and eyeless face.

Hours later, the poor fools who were assigned to clean up Mag's corpse could only stare in horror and confusion at that smile, still etched upon her face. They simply could not understand why Mag was so happy. Why was she smiling after suffering such a horrible and painful death? Well, had Mag been able to, she would've replied with 6 simple words:

"It's always prettiest after the fall."

But although Mag's time on Earth was done, her time in existence was not. Not even close. Instead, the eyeless woman woke up again, though this world was cast in total darkness. The moment she woke up, although she had no idea where she was at all, she could already sense that this place was some place new to her. And it wasn't just new in the sense that it was a world to which she had never traveled before, but that it was a place entirely beyond her previous realm of existence. This might've seemed like an outrageous conjecture, but Mag was certain she was in another world entirely. Maybe it was just the atmosphere, but Mag knew for sure that neither she, nor anybody else she knew, had been here before.

"Hello?" she tried at once as she came to. "Is anyone there?" she waited for a reply, but nothing. This new, strange world was as quiet as it was dark. But then suddenly, just as Mag prepared to call out once more, a stage light illuminated her world. Suddenly, she could see. And at the same time the light illuminated her eyes, memories illuminated her mind. After only being aware of her existence in a new location, she could suddenly remember all of the events that led to her being here. She remembered everything! Her birth, her blindness, the surgery that cured it, the slavery that followed the surgery, and the brutal death she'd forced upon herself in order to escape the bondage. All of it came back to her in that one split second of literal and figurative illumination...

But wait a minute! Hadn't she gouged her eyes out right before she died? If that were the case, why was she suddenly able to see again? Had someone give her more new eyes? Or was she going crazy? Both were equally likely at this point. Mag carefully raised a hand and traced her fingers across her eyelids. There was nothing behind them. Her eyes were still gone. And she thought she could even feel what must've been dried blood right at the rims of her eyes. So she really had gouged them out... But then, why was she able to see? What was going on? Who had given her this gift of sight again? This was impossible...