Wish (Chapter 1.1)

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Gritting her teeth, Kay opened her eyes and stared at the gravel beneath her cheek in a mixture of despair and amazement. Despite falling hundreds of feet, she wasn’t dead. The darkness had begun to lift as the deep indigo began to shift to the lightening that signaled dawn. Kay remained still for a few minutes as her internal debate raged. Then, with a hiss of pain, she leveraged herself to her hands and knees. (*1)

Kay paused for a moment and then began quietly cursing herself, cursing her own stupidity, her own impulsive act. “Come on Katie,” she whispered to herself, “you survived falling off a mountain, not every day someone can claim that.” She laughed, a wheezing laugh that bit off in pain as she lifted her head. Her eyes dialated as she saw the first shadows in the distance.

“Times up,” She got jerkily to her feet and began stumbling for a nearby grove of trees. The shadows continued to contract as the sun slowly rose from behind Stone Mountain. (*2) Kay groped her way deeper into the grove, even as she fought the lethargy that pulled her down to sleep. She glared balefully at the shifting branches their motion permitted shards of sunlight through, occasionally brushing and blackening her skin.

Kay paused for a moment and then with an upwelling of hope as she spotted a few pieces of plywood. working quickly she pulled the pieces against a tree and huddled under them as the deepness of slumber pulled her into oblivion.

Her dreams were feverish, she dreamed she was discovered, her body pulled into the sunlight to burn her away into ash. She woke with a confused start drops of water trickled across her body. With no moon or stars, the darkness was complete. she tried pushing the lean to off of her, and was alarmed to find her strength barely up to the task. Panting heavily she rolled herself over onto her stomach and lay there for long moments. She felt the mud under her fingers, the smell of damp earth, and the pattering rain as it filtered through the trees.

Her memories were confused as she lay there. she felt her ribs and hissed as she realized they were broken in several places. She couldn’t place why they were broken until, in a rush, she remembered the conversation with her mother, the jump, and the crushing impact. As her head cleared a little more, she began to realize the dire nature of her situation. She propped hersef against the tree and took stock. remarkably her legs and head were intact; rowever, her arms were in terrible shape, she feel hardness in several places as the impact had broken bones and pushed them through the skin in the arms and ribs. Her Hands weren’t in much better shape as she felt the loose flesh from the scraping nature of her impact with the side of the mountain and ground.

“I’m so sorry, mother.” she whispered, then closed her eyes for a moment. “what am I going to do?” she wondered to herself. Her body clenched with anger and pain as she thought of all the things she’d done to extract revenge. Only to find that, as she crept closer to her victory, It had brought her no satisfaction. And then, to find the reasons invalidated, had almost been too much for her to cope. In fact, she was sure she had broken under the strain. Even so, she mused to herself, I’m coherent now….

***

Note *1: leveraged or levered? which would work better?

Note *2: She fell of the west face, as she was looking out towards

Atlanta at the end of “Disintegration”

It’s a musing, I think this would make sense as the start of the next book in the series. I’m visualizing splitting it half and half, though, we’ll have to see. Maybe Kevlar and Lauren can make a reappearance in “Wild Mood Swings” I really think Kay would be an interesting character to examine. so I’ll putter around with this idea for a bit and see if it takes me anywhere.

and why in the heck is it easier to write at 5:45am? ugh