Work Text:
It started with a girl. Alone. Her hand reached out, curling against nothing but air. The silence ate at her like she was just another snack to chew on, another half-finished meal.
Maybe the sky was a clear, vibrant blue. Maybe it was swarmed with white, puffy air. She couldn’t see. Coffee-stained wood hid her from view. The bark was rough and jagged, bugs and fungi thriving freely. Sticks and leaves crunched under her feet, making her wince as the sound penetrated the peace and echoed through the dirt. The trees felt like a mirror maze, the exit just out of reach.
The scrawny branches seemed to reach out to her, thin, cooked fingers grazing her clothes and face. This wasn’t supposed to happen, this was all wrong. He said he’ll protect her, he said he’d be by her side.
She could feel her throat closing up as she turned, and turned, and turned. Her brother always told her she was a genius, able to solve any code, able to escape any place. He has to be wrong.
"Help!" She cried weakly, her voice hoarse from hours of yelling, "Please!"
Light was dimming, marigold turning sandstone, the sun hiding away, as if disappointed. She could feel wetness on her cheeks but still she pushed on, desperate to escape. She had to find her brother.
There in the distance! Graphite smoke curling, turning, swirling, stretching, reaching, towards the cold darkened sky. Silver shining down like a beacon of hope, promising freedom.
The sound of feet against dirt, toes against sticks. Her feet were burning, her legs were burning, her lungs were burning. Branches grabbed and snatched at her clothes and hair, ripping, tugging. She pushed on. Dips in mud, up hill, down hill, jump, duck, trip, get up, just keep running. She was going to make it; she had to make it.
She thought she heard her brother's laugh, high-pitched and contagious. He laughed a lot, unlike her, filling the air with joy. He laughed when she beat him in Uno again, fourth time in a row. He laughed when she would catch him sneaking back into his room after a late night partying. He still laughed when hungry flames licked at him; maybe she saw tears when he pushed her out the window, promising he was right behind her.
And so she ran. She headed to the forest, deeper and deeper. The biting cold breeze seeped into her skin as she crawled into a ball and slept.
As she looked into a barely-surviving puddle before the ash-blackened ruins of the place she once called home; she saw a pale face and red-puffy eyes. It was too late.
Someone walked towards her, a stranger. The woman reached out her hand; an offering. She took it.
It started with a girl. And it’s ended with two. Both no longer alone. Their hands curled around each others as they walked to their new found home.