Prologue

In our darkest moments, when life flashes before us, we find something. Something that keeps us going. Something that pushes us. -Lara Croft

It was the waves that she first remembered. It was the salt and the freezing water running down her throat that she remembered feeling. The cold saltiness of the sea water, rushing down her throat and nose, blocking her airways from breathing, was the first memory to surge in her brain when she found herself lying on a damp beach. She remembered the fall after, from the darkened sky and the stars dancing before her eyes as something, no, someone, carried her through the night.
After, as her throat tightened with the pain, she recalled the wind, the whistling of the air as her body fell, and fell, and fell through an eternity of darkness. She remembered the way her body exploded in pain when she hit the water, and the scream that was muffled by it as she crashed through the waves. The waves were bringing her up and down, down and up, until her frantic eyes caught sight of land and she found something inside her that pushed her to swim, despite her screaming muscles and aching airways.

When her feet hit sand under water, it was as if her brain gave a signal for the rest of her body to simply shut down, and she collapsed on the beach. Sand grated the left side of her cheek and she coughed, sneezed, groaned, and rolled over so she faced the sky. The stars seemed to mock her in their perfect stillness, glowing with a light so intriguing that she found herself laughing. When her airways couldn't take the laughing anymore, she started coughing. The darkness tugged at her brain to fall into oblivion. But just before she succumbed to it, the girl held on to the only sane memory she could manage to pull out of the blank abyss of her mind; my name is Cheri Regan and I don't know how I got here.


Hi :) first, this a prologue to a OUAT fanfic, so it wasn't supposed to be long :) review if you want, I take criticism very well, so don't be shy! First chapter up soon!