Her heart pounded against her rib cage. The blood roared in her ears. The past year flashed through her eyes. It had been a hurricane. Whipping and lashing and sucking the breath out of her lungs and everyone she loved. Everyone she knew. Or she thought she knew. Just when she thought the winds were calm it came back, promising never to let her rest, never to let her breathe.
Or had it been like a cliff? She was being dragged closer and closer to the edge and after the past few hours she could feel the energy running out until she was just powered by adrenaline, crashing blindly through the darkness and the fear and the blood.
She could feel the edge of the cliff digging into the single finger that hung on and kept her alive.
And just as the adrenaline had run out it had been replaced with panic.It was panic that made her drop her phone and run. It was panic that kept her going till her feet hit the grass. And though she was exhausted, her quick breath and the tightening pain in her ribs weren't because of exhaustion.
It was because she was here. And he wasn't.
Because all around her were faces that looked like they had lost hope. It couldn't... He couldn't...
The snapping of twigs and a shadow in the moonlight snapped her back to consciousness and suddenly the hurricane froze. The roaring blood in her veins stopped flowing.
And she saw him...no it wasn't him... not that thing....not that lifeless mutilated sack. That wasn't him. That wasn't the boy she loved. She couldn't look at it, that thing, but she was frozen. She must have cracked. This couldn't be real. That wasn't him.
As she saw the tears rolling down, shining in the moonlight, she felt wetness on her own cheeks. Her vision blurred. She heard a shaky breath rattle through her and her knees buckled, like her body had understood what she had not.
And finally, she felt that last finger let go.
She was falling.