Together Fallen [#Wattys2015]

Prologue

DEDICATED TO @CHRISROCKS247 FOR THE BEAUTIFUL COVER THAT IS ON THE SIDE, AND FOR BEING SO AMAZING.

[A lonely girl roams this earth, trapped in her own past forgotten misery...]

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Prologue

~April~

Flashes. Sirens. Anguish. That was all I could take in as they lifted me gently out of the leisure centre on a stretcher and onto the cold floor outside.

Less than half an hour ago, I'd been standing high above the deserted swimming pool, the air conditioning humming gently and the familiar scent of chlorine invading my nose. So much had changed in that short space of time that I found myself unable to contemplate it.

The constant pain I was feeling was beginning to cloud my mind.

Suddenly, my breath hiched once, then twice before the world began to slow. I felt surreal. Nothing seemed to be making sense as I lay there. I felt detached from everything, including what had just happened.

Paralysis.

Even the word gave me goosebumps.

What would I do if I became paralysed? How was I going to carry on diving and compete in the finals?

In my eyeline, leaves brushed slowly across the pavement and the bright morning sun crept along the street as it rose against the bricks of the houses. It couldn't have been any later than six in the morning but the beautiful scenery was lost on me at that point. The gentle breeze of the air was the only thing that I could register.

How had this happened?

Across the street, the small crowd of the one or two that had gathered was steadily increasing in size. I could even begin to recognise certain individuals, including the local pastor. Each of them looked shocked and appalled, their expressions frozen in place and foreboding. My accident would no doubt become the talk of the town. I could see them whispering already.

A slash of pain made its way up my spine and I winced. They could all talk about it being an accident, but I didn't believe that it had been. Something had pushed me, I'd felt it. One moment I was doing a perfect arched dive and the next; mid-somersault, I was sailing off course. It sounded crazy, I know, but something had thrown my body so that it had crashed into the concrete poolside. There was no way I'd miscalculated my dive. None.

I fully came to my senses when I was placed on the stretcher and lifted into the ambulance, moaning loudly. Everything hurt; my body was stinging from the base of my back which reached outwards like a slow, all-consuming fire. Even the nerve endings in my fingers burned. They responded to my moans by injecting me with something that numbed the pain, and my body soon relaxed. As I was pushed in, the view of the cloudless sky above was replaced with the dull ambulance ceiling, but I barely had time to notice before the drugs made me sleepy. Just as ambulance doors closed, I fell helplessly into an endless darkness.

From there it all began.

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