So... This started out as a short story assignment for my Comm. Arts class. But thanks to my very talented beta, Rani36, and her current obsession with Sailor Moon, it kinda morphed into a fanfic. ;; She blackmailed me into posting it, too. Just a warning, this is VERY AU. As in, no senshi-ness at all. That being said, I hope you enjoy it Please r&r!
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN SAILOR MOON. Good thing, too, or I'd have to fight several of my friends to the rights for it...
Just one more step...
Balanced on the narrow ledge with all of a dancer's grace, just one step from a long, probably fatal drop. Even with the hospital, all of the dozens of stories of it, directly under her feet, it wasn't likely they'd be able to do anything. Not with what would be left after a fall like that. If she moved just that last little bit, she'd be one step, one rushing fall, one more instant of pain away from freedom.
One more step, then nothing.
Game over.
The end.
Even in the dim moonlight, the bruises on her arms were hard to miss. Dark blotches, blacks and purples and blues, stood out starkly on the otherwise pale skin revealed with her sleeves pushed up. Though they were far from the worst she'd ever had, the sight of them still left her wincing.
One step.
He'd always been careful to miss her face, her hands, her neck; anywhere that long sleeves and jeans couldn't naturally cover, anywhere that people would see. Not that they didn't wonder. She could hear the whispers tailing her, through the halls at school, between the shelves at the bookstore on her way home, from the doctors and nurses in the hospital below. But no one knew for sure whether or not the rumors, were true, and no one would dare accuse her famous father on anything less than proven fact. He certainly wasn't talking. And her mother had always stuck by him, kept her mouth shut, no matter how much he hurt her.
And now she was gone.
The shock was still fresh in her mind, too strong for the pain to reach her, the cool numbness that had spread through her still keeping away the tears. Her strong, beautiful mother, her best and only friend, was dead, not from one "accident" too many but from one careless driver in the rain.
Do it.
Her mother was dead.
And she was alone.
The air was chilly this high up, the breeze a bit more cutting now that the sun had set. The lights of the whole city were spread out below her; streetlights, business signs, car headlights. It was too bright to see any of the stars that had to be studded through the sky somewhere... even the moonlight seemed dimmed. But the little corner of the building she stood in was coated in shadows, out of view of the windows.
One more step, dammit... Just one more...
One step, and this little piece of hell, this waking nightmare, would all be over.
One more, and she would be free.
One more...
Out of sight of the people below, of the people she'd volunteered with inside the hospital, of her father, who'd finally deemed his dead wife worthy of his love and his grief, she took a deep breath.
And with her decision made, Hotaru Tomoe closed her eyes.
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