Sabira ran. The wind whipped at her face. The rain fell hard. It streaked her features, and flattened her hair against her forehead. She struggled to keep her eyes open, the hard concrete sidewalk coming up to slap her bare feet every now and then. She was running away from home. Nothing anyone did or said would make her go back to that living hell. The home that consisted of two tent like sheets thrown over 3 wooden rods. The occupants were her and her mother... a mother that took to beating Sabira every day when she came back after her daily begging ritual. She didn't even stop to see how much money her daughter had collected. She went straight to beating her.

Sabira clenched her teeth in anger but the girl kept on running, buildings blurring by, the dark clouds shaking above her, heavy with thunder and lightening. Her sharp green eyes watched the ground; the same ground she had walked over hundreds of times begging for money. Tears stung her eyes, but not as much as the rain did. Her tears of sorrow merged in with the rain that dribbled down her face.

She began to shake.

The young dark-haired girl was wearing hardly anything. Just a long black t- shirt and torn up shorts. She shivered from the cold, she shivered from fatigue, she shivered because she believed living was of no use. She stopped, looked out into the deserted street and wondered. Just down that road came a bridge, and under that bridge there was water. 'Deep and fast- flowing water. Water in which one could easily drown.'

A crooked grin crept along her face as she trudged forward into the street, past the countless houses and stores. The sidewalk finally stopped and there loomed the bridge. It was a small wooden one, not that lengthy, but it was sturdy enough to support a few cars at a time. She felt herself sigh with relief as she moved forward and slipped her hand over the railing. She stood there looking down into the deep swirling water below. The time she had wished for, for so long had finally arrived. It would all be over in just a few seconds. No more suffering, no more pain, no more want for the Angel of Death to visit her. She would leave all those countless days of beatings behind, the days when she had starved, the days when she yearned to be like everyone else and not an outcast from society; all of them forgotten.

Slowly she clambered up the railing and teetered there, staring down at the fast current below her; the usually clean water caked with bits of mud and debris. Rain poured down all around her, not a thing moved. The streets seemed deserted for it was nighttime, and no one was hardly out at this time. Lighting flashed, thunder rumbled overhead, and finally with a satisfied smile upon her lips, the girl let go.

Down she fell... down, down, down, into the churning dark waters below. Her head went under, and her whole body followed suit, but she soon hit the creeping dirt below and felt herself float up again. 'No!' she thought. ' No... please don't leave me... I want to die! Please don't let me go...' The girl's head bobbed up above the water, and she looked around for something to hold onto while she held her head under water. She grabbed onto a stray log, held onto it tightly while she plunged her head deep into the water again. This time she took in a gulp of water... it tasted horrible... her lungs filled with the grotesque liquid and before she knew it she had emerged, holding her head high and coughing out water. Her eyes scanned the shore and she swam forward, coughing out water at random intervals. Her deep brown eyes filled with tears as her raw throat contracted with pain.

Drowning wasn't a quick and easy way to die; she hated it. Water in her lungs... the feeling itself was foreboding. She clawed her way to the shoreline and dragged herself up the bank. A colossal forest lay before her and a replica of it lay on the other side of the river. Her eyes veered to look the way she had come. The bridge was long gone; the river had carried her into uncharted territory... for her that is. She had never been this far from her so-called 'home'. Begging was easily done in the town alone.

The girl dragged herself further up the bank, her body shivered unstoppably as cold seeped in through the scarce clothing that stuck to her like paste. "Perhaps I will just die of the cold then..." It was a much better notion. Not having to breathe in gallons of water was a relieving thought. Just shut your eyes and sleep... forever. And so Sabira lay her head down upon the cold, rain sodden earth, mud covering her figure as she sprawled herself out. Her heavy eyelids tried to fight against the rain... but soon they had shut, and the shivering form of Sabira lay there, waiting for deaths merciful hand to welcome her to life after dead.

But she had spoken too soon.

A commanding roar resounded in the air and Sabira bolted to her feet, as unwillingly as a lazy dog caught chewing on its master's dinner. Her eyes scanned the forest and she spotted something out of the ordinary. She held her arms around herself as the rain began falling in torrents. She squinted through its massive sheet and found herself gasping in disbelief.

A lion with a majestic golden mane stood just inside the safe hold of the trees. Its grandeur didn't end with its mane but carried on to the way it held itself and to its unusually generous looking eyes.

Sabira felt herself fall to her knees in reverence. 'This is not an ordinary lion...' she knew this from the second she lay eyes on it.

She had seen pictures of lions all over the place from the years she had forced herself to go to school. A true lion lunged at its prey and did not stand idly by as the one before her did. And neither did it look so formidable as the one before her. She watched it, with an indescribable awe. It moved forward, out of the shelter of trees and walked to her, taking slow deliberate steps as if daring her to turn tail and run.

She did not budge.

She figured if this lion was going to eat her then she'd let it, she was planning on dying anyway and if the lion ate her, at least she could die with the forethought of helping a lion (who somehow made it to London) by supplying her body to his nutritious needs.

She sat there and soon the lion loomed above her. Fright consumed her and she shut her eyes, hoping that the lion would just throttle her and get it over with. Nothing of the such occurred. Instead she felt its warm mane tickled her face as its velvety wet nose came in touch with hers.

"Come child..." the lion whispered, its warm breath washing over her face and that was when the girls eyes shot open, for she now knew this was no ordinary lion, for it had just spoke to her. "Do not lie down and die just yet, life is full of adventures you have not yet lived." Her confused brown eyes looked into his cool blue orbs of wisdom.

Somehow she trusted him, and so she nodded agreement - for if this was a dream then she was in no trouble at all - and she slipped up onto his back, and held onto his golden mane – lightly though, as not to damage its beauty- and then they were off.

The wind rushed against them and the dark sky seemed a blur, as did everything else. Seconds passed, then minutes, then minutes turned to hours and Sabira found herself nodding off on the back of the lion. Her eyes lids closed, and before she knew it, everything went black.

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Please R/R... My first fic. ^____^

('.')Luv............. Divya )

BtW: All the characters belong to C.S. Lewis except for Sabira and a few others...^^ Don't sue please.... *sniff* I love Narnia....