2. Forsaken City.

Prompt: Scary

There were at least three reasons to why Madeline struggled so much to move forward right now.

First: She found herself in an unknown place, getting herself more and more lost in this dead city every time she turned around a corner. Second: Madeline was still in a state of shock after her near-death experience. And last: She had no idea how to control her new…power?

She could only describe it as some sort of big jump that allowed her to places she could never reach on her own. Something like a dash. Which would be optimal and ideal even if one wanted to climb a mountain.

But Madeline had no idea how to control it in the slightest. She did involuntarily like if she had hiccup. In the most inappropriate times and when she needed to focus the most not to fall dozens of meters to bottomless pits.

At least she could be grateful she didn't have it worse, right?

Right?

The cold was not as freezing due to the adrenaline shot after the incident at the bridge. She had not broken any bone. Or had cut herself with anything. Or lost her backpack. Or fell down that pit. Or–

"Please…stop…too much…" Madeline cried out. She put her hands over her head strongly and shut her eyes kneeling to the floor. She pleaded and beg her mind for just a moment of piece. Why had she even convinced herself to do something so stupid?

She didn't even know where she was or where she came from.

It didn't help her this mazy city was at such absolute silence. Countless buildings empty of life except for the darkness inside them that made Madeline sweat cold. She could not shake off the feeling of being observed. She wanted to believe it was just unjustified paranoia. She didn't even know if she was up or down…wherever she was at now.

She didn't know if she could do this, or even continue a little longer, and if she didn't know, why didn't she just leave? Why not she went back to her car and drove back to her miserable life after another failure? Why was she so attached to this struggle?

What had she come to prove to herself? No one would know she did this if she succeeded. If she died, who would notice until past several weeks? The elder woman she met at the foot of the mountain? Madeline was convinced she'd die first for her own stupidity than the elder woman for her advanced age.

If something happened to her…she didn't want to think about it.

And even if she managed to come out alive in more than one piece, most likely she would not speak about this with anybody.

Not even herself.

After all, she was making this journey out of spite and doubt. She was incapable of dealing with her real problems, so what she did instead? She put herself to face even more problems.

It terrified Madeline to look inside herself, she preferred to get herself lost in the deepest corners of the world than those of her own mind. Not because she was scared of looking inside. No. She already knew what was in there. There was nothing. And if she searched for anything inside herself it would be just herself and the voices she ran away from in the first place.

A breeze of cold air hit she finally felt hitting her face brought her out of her mind for the first time since she had stepped into that ghost city.

Madeline found herself in what used to be a plaza in one of the countless avenues. Wherever she was at, she knew she was far from walking out of this uninhabited city.

After exploring a bit more, Madeline found in the center of the plaza a memorial carved on stone old as the mountain in which she could read a message written in it.

"MOUNTAIN CELESTE: This memorial dedicated to those who perished in the climb."

How fitting.

It was not until she read the memorial and stopped for a second she realized how tired she actually was. She had no idea for how long she wandered.

With her last bits of energy, she scouted the plaza and recollected sticks and branches and she used them to make a little bonfire near the memorial to the fallen ones. Watching so many survival videos and tutorials to procrastinate her trip to the mountain finally came handy.

It would not last long, but hopefully long enough for Madeline to fall asleep. If she knew her depression well enough, she knew tiredness was a perfect bypass to get some sleep. Among other methods Madeline rather not relay on tonight.

She pulled out her sleeping bag and laid down between her bonfire and the memorial. The fatigue would appease the doubts in her head. But when she believed she would fall asleep soon. The same blue bird she found at the now decayed bridge rested on top of her head.

Madeline sighed deeply and rubbed her face with her cold hands. The mountain must be watching her every step, if it was not by her fatigue Madeline would be shaking in fear instead of cold. If the mountain wanted her dead so bad, well then, they were there at the memorial so she can be added into the list.


I might have passed over the word limit just a tiny bit. I could simply increase the limit, tho that sounds like cheating. Maybe I have to look into that.

By the way, there will a lot more chapters that initially planned! Yay me.

Anyways, the same stuff, fav, follow, comment, tumblr.

See ya.