When we fell from Earth

The Trapped Lights

The light shall engulf the darkness of the river,

they shall lose someone they treasure.

-Fourth Stanza in the RulersOFall prophecy of the return.

Nour screamed as she fell, and her mind was swarmed with so many questions that she felt sad she was going to die with these questions unanswered. As she fell, she was somehow forced to fall face-first, even though she assumed she'd be doing 360s until she hit the ground and broke her neck. Nour looked ahead of her but her eyes were watery. The wind came rushing to her from downwards and it was so very cold. She assumed that this wat sky-divers felt, and she had been right when she refused to go sky-diving with her younger sister.

Nour squinted against her teary eyes and found a mountain at the distance. The mountain was made of a crystal-clear material that had the northern lights shining inside of it: Green and purple and blue. It spanned all of the enormous crystally mountain, moving inside it like smoke trapped in a bottle. Nour thought that this was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. And for a moment, the world quieted around her: Her friends had stopped screaming and wind stopped rushing to her face and her eyes stopped tearing. For a moment in time, she felt as if she was hovering there. The light inside the mountain shifted and moved. Nour squinted, and she could have sworn that the light moved in specific directions. The green overlapping the purple and the blue forming in circles, and in the matter of second, a face was formed. A face with childish features and eyes so blue that Nour couldn't help but to praise God at such beauty.

Wake me up. I am waiting for you.

Nour had only seconds to thing about what was happening as the wind started rushing to her face again. Her eyes became teary and the screams of her friends returned to her in a rush that—

Nour hit the ground face-first.

Nour groaned. And then she flung her eyes opened. She groaned; she wasn't dead. She felt with her hand around her and found that the thing that had cushioned her fall was snow. A think layer of snow. With reluctance and protests from her bones, she managed to get herself on her knees. She looked around, and, thank God, her friends were all alive and counted for. Nour sighed in relief, and at that moment, Yuto called for her. Yuto called for her again, and she turned to him, her eyes going wide. His legs were crossed under him, and Youssef head was on his lap, his shirt taken off, revealing the huge wound in his shoulder. In his hand, the alcohol bottle he used for his glasses and in his other hand she found tissues. He looked at her and she blinked multiple times. She looked at Youssef and his face was an irritating shade of grey. Nour remembered with a jolt the wound Youssef had, one Yuto was trying to sanitize with the alcohol.

"Nour! You have that extra hijab with you?" Yuto asked. She remembered the incident were Laila spilled her coffee on Nour's hijab accidently and Nour changed her hijab. It was a peaceful day: Nour was sitting down, contemplating why she chose to further her education, and Laila stood behind her, drinking iced-coffee and wondering the same, when someone pushed Laila and she spilled the coffee all over Nour's hijab.

But today Nour didn't think she will be needing it, since their day, supposedly wasn't long enough for her to need it. She couldn't take her own Hijab off, that was certain. And even if she had an extra Hijab, she couldn't find her bag anywhere near here. She stood up, and looked around. They were in a clearing of some sort. Beyond it Oak trees rose, thought they weren't as tall as Nour expected them to be. As short as she was, she could still see the peak of the crystalized mountain she spotted earlier.

Mohammed and Yasser were already up, searching for the bags. Gina and Mariam had their phones out, trying to get a signal, most probably. The others were huddled around Yuto, as he was scooping up snow, turning it into snowballs in his hand, then putting it on Youssef's forehead. It turned to water in an irritating speed. Youssef started coughing, which didn't make sense. A wound could cause an infection, yes. But coughing like this?