Caesaria

I

May

Lucy fell down the waterfall and died.

In those last few moments, her brother knew she was doomed. There had been nothing to grasp, nothing to stop her powerful course downriver. Jackson would forever have to live with the guilt and shame that he had simply failed to save her life, no matter how fiercely he raced the current. He'd ran the riverbank to the end, unable to do anything but watch her fight, choke, and call his name in terror. He watched her go over, the last he saw of her her head of raven hair. She did not scream.

What came out of him was a howl of anguish, more animal than man. It echoed around the canyon, piercing the sky and striking the trees. He peered over the edge, risking his own death at the hands of the crumbling rock. He expected to see the mangled corpse of his sister, dashed open upon the rocks below.

But the thick morning mist betrayed nothing.

Jackson closed his deer-brown eyes, holding his head in his hands, fists full of his brown hair, praying that this was all a nightmare. Part of him expected to hear his little sister shout, "Jackson, I'm okay! I'm safe! I'm alive!" But his heart knew. His heart saw it. His little sister, impaled upon the sharpened spears of stone, the frothing blue waters tainted by her blood. His mind, struggling to understand, had never seen such a crystal clear image, one that made him vomit, writhe, rage.

He dreaded what he would find when he found the composure to venture below.