Everybody knew that she was going to die. Sooner or later we all bite it and we all knew that it would be sooner in her case. But still. Nobody saw it coming. Nobody could've possibly seen it coming. Well, nobody except for me.
FLASHBACK
I'm walking through the forrest. As I walk, the trees, once of rich browns and bright greens, get darker and grayer, with each step I take, the noises of the woods get eerier, despair seems to settle down on the lifeless leaves of the trees and on me. My left leg starts to hurt and the pain gets worse with every step I take.
I'm dreaming. I know that for sure. I have no idea how I know, everything feels so real, but I know.
All of sudden the light shining through the leaves gets brighter. Without me noticing the leaves have regained some of their original color. I come to a halt. Im standing on a meadow. When I turn around, the forrest lies dark and with an eerie glow behind me, but when I face the direction I was walking in, I see bright light, I hear the quiet noises of small animals shushing through the forrest, I smell wood and green leaves.
I start to walk again, but when I take one foot off of the ground I stumble and fall. I look at my left leg. I look where my left leg is supposed to be. Nothing. Just shimmering air where once were flesh and bone. I look back to the dark forrest behind me and see that my left leg has somehow grown into one of the trees. It's a part of the forrest now. The forrest took it from. I try to stand up. I fall. I try again. I stand. I grab a long and thick stick from the ground and start walking again. I don't even know where, I just want to get away from that sinister forrest.
I look at the gap where my leg used to be. I notice that with every step I take something continues to form beneath me. It's not my leg, it's something mechanical, like a prothesis. It's not the same as my leg, but at least I don't need the crutch anymore. As I keep walking through the now bright forrest a creature begins to form beside me. The form of a girl. She somehow looks familiar, but not in a good way. But then she smiles at me and the familiarness is gone. At first it's a shy smile, but as we keep walking the smile grows bigger and more trusting. But as her smile grows, her eyes loose their gleam, her skin looses color.
Suddenly I notice that the forrest on her side of the path we're walking on is getting darker and moresinister with every step she takes. Her breathing hitches and every now and then we have to stop so that she can catch her breath. And suddenly I know. I was supposed to die in that other dark part of the forrest, but I didn't. Something saved me from my fate. And now this girl is supposed to die. I don't want to loose her. I want to stop, want to save her from her fate, don't want her to take another single step further, further towards her certain death. I can't stop, but I manage to walk slower and does she. Even though we are walking much slower now, we soon reach the end of the path, the end of the forrest and step into a clearing. At first I'm relieved, we're out of that creepy forrest, but then I see that we're standing on the edge of a cliff. A pitch black bottomless whole yawns thirty feet in front of us like a pit of despair opening right before our eyes. The girl starts to walk towards the cliff. She doesn't look like she wants to, more like she's accepted her fate. I don't want her to go, but even worse than seeing her go is seeing her go alone. I catch up with her and take her hand. She smiles up at me. Cracked lips, pale skin, sunken cheeks but seeing her smile eases the pain I now feels in my heart a little. At least we have these last precious moment together. And all of sudden she's gone. I don't understand. We haven't reached the edge of the cliff yet. She still has some time left. We still have some time left. I don't understand.
I wake up.
END OF FLASHBACK
