The Red Strings of Fate 1

The small fragile paper flower sat delicately in the palm of Andy's hand. It's beautiful pattern of purple and white swirls danced across the intricate folds of the paper held together by nothing more than hot glue. It looked so pure sitting against the stained crimson palm of her hand.

With each passing car, the flower became more jostled, and threatened to fly away over the edge of the highway overpass where the eighteen year old now stood. The flower shook and shivered in the passing wind currents of the speeding commuters, until finally, a passing SUV sent the flower careening over the edge of the silver guardrail. Andy's hazel eyes followed the dancing flower down into the traffic shooting under the concrete bridge. Her eyes continued to dance along with it until another air current from an electric blue Mercedes pushed it under the bridge and out of view.

Now it was her turn.

Stepping up carefully onto the weather-worn safety railing, she took one final look at the world she was leaving behind. The scene in front of her was nothing more than a long stretch of highway with a spatter of abandoned warehouses along the sides. Every shattered warehouse window and bit of highway trash reflected a memory in her past, but sentiment was the last thing she would feel in these last few moments of her life. Unconsciously clutching her bloodstained T-shirt, she allowed herself to feel the flood of emotions that welled inside of her at the thought of her family, of Natali, of him…but she did not allow herself to revisit those memories, not even for a second. She couldn't, not this time.

It was time for her to let go, let go of her past, her sorrows. She was done with the pain and the horrors that had plagued her heart and mind. Her very being seemed ready to fly away with the paper flower that had once been a thing of beauty and happiness in her eyes. It was time to let go of the hate and fear that boiled inside her threatening to singe her very soul.

Andy blinked away the tears in her eyes left by the summer wind. The small salty beads tickled her cheeks as they streamed gracefully down her fair skin. Her long brunette hair danced around the edges of her face as if it was beckoning her forward to her final seconds. Looking past her worn converse and the broken edge of the concrete overpass, Andy gazed down at the cracked grey stone ready to embrace her fragile body. All sound fell away, she had become weightless and, with one final intake of breath, Andy closed her eyes and fell forward into the open air over the rushing Highway.

Harry Potter Fan Fiction