Lies, Buried and Bound - A Dramione Story

Part Eleven

Charlotte Granger screamed as the world spun around her. The glass goblet in her clutch buckled inward and shattered, but the violent eddies blew each shard straight into the little girl's face.

Taking several shallow hits of glass to the cheek, she released the goblet and cradled her face, tears mingling with the open wounds, making the side of her face sting even more.

But letting go of the goblet had its own repercussions. She was thrown from the sky and began dropping tummy-down toward a field of sharp grass. She screamed, the gush of wind opening her mouth wider and wider and she reached her hand out to break her fall, but just then - snap!

"Umph - "

Rather than hearing herself hit the ground with a sickening splat, her ear heard only the grotesque sound of the bone beneath her wrist fracturing entirely.

Still, attempting to break her fall was for naught because Charlotte's diaphragm went paralysed as her tiny body slammed into the field with nothing to cushion her fall.

Instinctively Charlotte curled into a tiny ball, feening for the air in her lungs she so desperately needed. She opened and closed her mouth, whimpering and moaning almost soundlessly - evidently losing more air than could be recovered. She couldn't breathe! The wind had been completely knocked out of her upon impact and she struggled with her whole body to fight for that air! All she could do was grunt and exhale.

A mental image of her mum rested her hands on Charlotte's tummy and stroked her hair, "C'mon, breathe, Cricket, breathe!"

She balled her fist and hit the dirt ground wildly, groping for a purchase not found, until at last!

She heaved one tiny breath and rushed to exhale.

Then another...

Finally, she could breathe again. But with her newfound air, she hugged her arm and wailed. She was terrified and frantic. Not only was she clueless as to where she was and terrified she might never see her mum again, but she knew she needed help. The angle at which one of the bones in her arm protruded under rapidly swelling skin frightened her. This wasn't normal and she was in a great deal of pain and distress.

Charlotte looked down at her light blue overalls and noticed deepening water stains inside her legs and up her front. She'd gone potty without even knowing! Disheartened, the poor girl sobbed even harder, crying for her mummy.

With her good hand, she felt around the tapered grass that needlessly poked and assaulted her. A few metres in the distance she spotted her mum's shawl. She whined and scrambled to her knees and feet until she all but collapsed into the black fabric that emanated with safety.

"Mummy," she quietly cried, wrapping her body tightly in the shawl, "I'm so scared! Please come back and find me..."

Hiccuping and breathing raggedly, Charlotte rose to her feet again and surveyed the field around her. The grass underfoot and stretching out for miles was peculiar to her, hard rush. But not the most pleasant to touch.

There was a tall wobbly structure (she couldn't be sure if it was a house or even a building) amongst a clearing in the grass and not too far to the left was a domed building.

The big tall structure unnerved her, so she opted for the dome.

Along the outside edges of the small building were burrow holes Charlotte recognized as belonging to rabbits or even a cat. They looked old and wide and just big enough to fit a little girl her size. She stuck her healthy arm into the dirt burrow and it curled upward, revealing that the hole led directly inside the garage or barn-looking building.