For a moment there was nothing but tranquility.

Horror and serenity filled her, two diametrically opposed sensations resisting like oil on water. Her heart beating in her chest faster than any living thing imaginable. Yet all she could do was softly lower her eyelids, readying herself, preparing for what should have been a quick and certain death. Or so she had hoped. Cold, sharp winds bit at her bare legs, vision obscured by her dark hair flying in her face. She was weightless as a delicate feather, cradled by the hands of the cold muted night. The only sound, her beautiful pink dress flapping wildly about her, the dress she had chosen for what she believed would have been a special night. How her stomach felt twisted...and light, like hitting turbulence mid air.

She wasn't floating.

No.

She was dropping, crashing down to earth. Forced over the edge of Suicide Hill.

A flightless bird about to meet her demise.

Crunch.

The bones in her body made a sickening sound at the moment of impact. She hit the ice dusted ground, shattering every bit of her. The reality of it had yet to come, for her mind was still processing, sending signals of burning pain to her nervous system. With her mouth hung open she let out the only sound her body could produce, a dry croak. Not loud enough for anyone to hear, no one was around to hear. She was dying in the middle of the Beacon Hills Preserves. It was unlikely anyone would be able to find her, not here. Fingers desperately grasped at the dirt, as though she could use the hard soil to sit herself up.

She should have listened to Walter. She should have listened to Derek. They had warned her to stay out of the woods, they had warned her of dangers. If only she had taken heed of their words.

Was this her punishment?

In that moment her rampant thoughts sounded like a thousand tortured screams filling her head. So much she should have done, so much she should have stayed away from. Shoulds, should nots. At once those thoughts went silent, her mind escaping into a shallow void, allowing her to envision Stiles' smiling face; a second's respite. A thread of hope to hold onto.

That delicate thread snapped along with the initial shock of her fall. The only thing she could envision now...those horrible red savage eyes.

Then it hit her, like a swan dive into an ice filled pool. Inevitable was the pain. Every inch of her, skin and bone, drumming with it. Affliction shot through her body, a bolt of unfathomable agony. It was as though someone had soaked her bones in kerosene and lit the match. Death would have been merciful, death would have been better than this hell.

Pain raked its jagged little claws from the back of her skull to the base of her spine, it sunk its many crooked teeth into her flesh and penetrated into her bones. It squeezed and it squeezed at her lungs, strangling her of breath, wrapping its cold hands around her slim pale throat. The whites of her eyes showing all around with sheer terror and excruciating agony. She could feel the warmth of her own blood pooling around her head, the ground greedily sucking at the crimson like it were the first rain of the season. She could taste blood, the hot metallic tang coated the back of her throat and loomed on the tip of her tongue. The bleeding would not stop. This was it for Nikita. There was nothing for her to do but to yield to death, let it consume her into an oblivion.

And she thought to herself...

You foolish girl.

You did this.

You lead yourself to your own death.