The small body of the eleven year old girl plummeted down the shaft, rather like Alice in the rabbit hole, her eyes taking the numerous oddities as she passed them. Discarded rubbish tangled in dead electrical cables. Broken furniture perched on the edges of side shafts. The refuse of an entire city eventually found its way here, to this shaft where - where what? It was oddly not her own fate that concerned the plummeting child at the moment, but this ambiguous fate of all that had come before. It had to go somewhere. Otherwise it would have to be a great pile by now. Unless someone came along and cleaned it out. But she'd never seen anyone hauling piles and piles of things out of the sewers. Only pieces at a time, other people's garbage being recycled to create homes and furnishings for the 'less fortunate'. Tomorrow, she'd ask Srahi. Only...
Rays of amber light shone through the cracks in the rotting boards of the shack they called home. Voices, ones she didn't recognize, came from near the fire outside. The softer voice of her sister she heard, though she couldn't understand it because it was too low and quiet. It was just the tone, like music, drifting through everything else. Srahi. Her sister. The only mother she'd ever known. Srahi had been looking out for her as long as she could remember. Srahi had found her a doll yesterday. A birthday present. Srahi had always found something new to give her as a birthday present. She couldn't quite hear the words, but she didn't have to. Something in their tones. They wanted something. Something in Srahi's tone. Srahi wanted something too. They were arguing. Srahi never raised her voice when she argued. It was a rather clever way of getting what one wanted, she'd realized years ago, and tried to keep her own voice as soft as Srahi's. She'd be just like Srahi someday...
The next thing she noticed was how much of a very long time falling seemed to take. Of course, she was a very small person, and everything here was large. She was rather used to everything being much larger than her, but this was bordering on the ridiculous. It was as if time itself had slowed, or her thoughts had sped up to move as fast as that thing Srahi had told her was a motorcycle. Srahi was smart, and clever. Srahi would no doubt be able to explain why falling took so long. She'd asked questions, many, many questions, always having been very afraid that she'd be too stupid to understand the world and how it worked. Stupid people didn't live very long. That was one of the first things she'd come to understand. The first thing she'd come to really understand had been death. One didn't go on living forever. Unlike how one seemed to go on falling forever...
Srahi must have gotten what she'd wanted from the strange voices. Her tone perked up a little. And one of them, a large man, she guessed by the deep tones of his voice, laughed rather heartily. She didn't like his laugh. There was something frightening about it, despite its blatant attempt at sounding cheerful. Yes, that was it. The laugh was trying too hard to sound cheerful when it really wanted to be... sinister. Sinister. Dark. Wicked. She was rather proud of that word. That was a good word, she'd overheard Srahi say it a few days ago, and learned it. Srahi knew lots of large, pretty words. She was determined to learn them all. And be just like Srahi someday. ~Eyh, Bennie! Come out here!~ Srahi was calling for her. Bennu smiled, eagerly shoving aside the blanket she'd been under, and darting out of the shack to attend. It wasn't often that Srahi called for her this late in the night. Perhaps she was getting more grown up after all. Growing up. Just like Srahi...
Falling. Perhaps she was falling through the center of the Earth into China. Srahi had made a joke once when she was very small and in her phase of digging deep holes in the muck and mud outside their shack that if one dug straight down, they'd end up in a place called China, where people walked upside down and spoke a funny language and drank nothing but tea. People who walked upside down, Bennu decided at that moment, must be mad. But here she was on her way to join them. She'd be having tea with the mad Chinese any minute now, once she fell out of the other side of the hole. What would it be like, with the whole world upside down. Would there be a sky? A sun? What if she just kept falling forever out the other end and down into the Chinese sky till she eventually collided with a Chinese star and... And Srahi would tell her she was being utterly ridiculous. Srahi, would be right. Bennu chuckled dryly to her doll, and kept falling...
Stepping outside the hut, Bennu's dark eyes went wide with curiosity as they fell on the men Srahi had been talking with. The eagerness in her pace wore off a little. Somehow she just -knew- which man had laughed. He looked as sinister as he sounded. Her eyes trailed to Srahi. There was something in her face. She'd seen it there before sometimes, spying on her older sister. A kind of annoyed weariness. Tonight, that weariness seemed to have set itself in a new direction. "Srahi?" she asked softly, heading towards her sister. She found herself grabbed roughly by one of the men. Instinct - Srahi had said to always trust her instincts - Instinct sent that man flying over her small form, landing in the dirt a few paces away. Picking up her doll, Bennu backed back towards the shack, eyeing the men warily. They were laughing. All but the one she'd deemed as sinister. "Srahi... What's going on?" It was no more than a whisper. Srahi's face darkened. ~Don't be a nuisance. I'm done taking care of you, you worthless brat. You belong to them now...~
It was actually quite possible to turn oneself over in mid air. Something else she'd learned from Srahi. How to fall gracefully, and fall how you wanted to fall. Srahi had taught her everything she knew about survival. How to throw someone bigger than her. The best places to hit someone. How to use certain weapons. How to get yourself out of a scrap. All the important things one had to learn, one could learn from Srahi... Somehow, though, Bennu found herself posessed by the odd feeling she was getting from not knowing exactly what she was slowly falling into. It was starting to get warm. It was pleasant. Winter had been cold, summer hadn't seemed much warmer. Falling into summer. That sounded like something Srahi would have said. Clutching the doll closer against her chest, Bennu smiled, pleased. She was indeed growing up very fast. Srahi would be proud...
Them? Who were they? Whoever they were, they weren't going to be tossed with some leverage trick a second time. Before she could react, she'd been lifted off the ground. Kicking and biting did no good. As she was carried, her lips screamed Srahi's name, her eyes frantically seeking out her older sister. Srahi was walking away. The shock of abandonment silenced Bennu. The man who was carrying her stopped. The sinister man grabbed her chin roughly, boring into her eyes with his own, despite the lack of pupils in them. ~Scan her again...~ There was a humming and beeping, but Bennu found herself unable to take her eyes off his. This made the man smile. That smile sent a tremor of fear to her very core. ~Flatscan, sir...~ the voice was as timid as Bennu felt. She also felt the man's rage quite well through his hand on her chin. ~What?!?~ he hissed, shoving Bennu, and through her, the man holding her, back. The man fell. Bennu was too terrified to squirm out of his lax grasp and run away. The sinister man had taken the device, and had it pointed at her. The same sounds were heard again. The man hissed. ~The older girl. Find her. She's the one we want... Leave this one. She's useless.~ Roughly, the man under her shover her aside, pulling himself to his feet. And just like that, Bennu was alone...
The comforting warmth was slowly getting uncomfortable. Just like summer on the worst days, the air thick and heavy and unbearably hot. Somewhere in the falling she'd closed her eyes. Bennu opened one of those eyes now, finding that the shaft she'd been falling down had an orange flickering glow to it. She'd reached the core of the earth at last, it seemed. Srahi had told her once that the core of the earth was fire. So she had to fall through the core, then twice as long as she'd been falling to get to China... Ridiculous. She wasn't going to China. She was going to... Tucking her body, the force of the air turned her over. Below her was a great, amber light. A pool of radiance. A pool of fire. The fire consumed her. The smell of burning killed all other smells. The impact of her body against the floor of the incinerator shattered it. She felt her soul wrenching itself from its moorings, wanting to drift. Falling again? She was tired of falling. She wanted to stay there and be dead. Spectre-Bennu clung to her body. And in the next instant, she found herself drawn back inside. To discover her body was burning. But unlike it had been before that, it was a pleasant sensation. She felt more alive than she ever had. She felt like she could run for miles and not loose her breath. The feeling of her body as it pulled itself back together was less pleasant. But detatched as she was, it was interesting. And in her grasp... what was this? The doll. She could feel it against her chest. She wasn't alone...
A jarring explosion in the incinerator had propelled her body to the surface in a torrent of flame. Smouldering she lay where she landed, the odd flames around her body gone, having seemingly extinguished themselves in the explosion in the shaft. The doll was still clutched against her chest. Melted slightly. Mangled more than it had been before, and charred looking. But still recognizeable as a doll. It started to rain. It rained for days. The wetness was a contrast to the fire. But the wetness worked to her advantage. She was quite alive when she should have been dead. Now she had to find out if Srahi was alive as well. Stealing clothes, and trying again to make the flames burn that she knew were inside her, Bennu crept through the places she knew Srahi went. Srahi hated rain. Srahi would be inside. A week later, Bennu found her. And spying on her sister through the cracks of a building brought all of Srahi's lessons to mind. The strong will survive. The smart will survive. She'd survived, she must be both. Never trust someone who betrays you even once. That was the thing that came most forcefully to mind. Srahi had betrayed her. There was only one thing to do to a traitor...
"I am not worthless..." Bennu hissed lowly, staring at the dead body of her sister. Her sister, mangled, like the doll. Bennu clutched the doll against her chest one last time, then tossed it on top of the mangled heap that had raised her, and walked away, into the rainy night...