Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 113

This week's prompt taken by photographer Silena Lambertini from Italy. She has some fantastic photos on her site, with so much atmosphere. We will be revisiting her work. 

This was one of those stories that I had no idea was going. I also didn't know how it was going to end until I wrote it. I love it when that happens. 

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There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Free Fall

She was trying to work out how she got here. It was cold and everything was snow covered. The last thing she remembered was lying back to sleep on the plane. Had they crashed? If so where was the wreckage? Had she been flung out somehow? Why couldn’t she remember?

It was foggy, maybe that’s why she couldn’t see any of the wreckage. And although the sun seemed to be up in the sky, it was diffused and muted. Everything was a dull white.

She waded through the drifts of snow. Her legs numb with the wet cold. She had no real sense of direction other than moving towards the sun. She could see something on the horizon but it was just a smudge. Was it a house or some kind of building? She hoped so. She’d die if she stayed out here too long.

As she drew closer she could see it was a stand of trees, a small copse forming a tight circle. Maybe she could shelter inside, but there was something odd about them; despite the snow everywhere they had none on them. There was no breeze shifting the dense fog, so what had moved the snow off? Their sharp twig-like branches reached up to the skies resembling people up in arms, frozen in mid argument. There was no rustle from the branches, the snow and fog muffled everything.

She approached, the silence felt like something tangible as though waiting, pregnant with expectation ... but for what?

She stood on the edge looking into the circle. It looked no different from outside: the snow was thick and undisturbed. But there was something caught under the snow, an edge peeking out. It was red, it looked like material. Was it something from the plane? Some evidence that she’d been on a plane and it wasn’t just in her imagination?

She stepped inside the ring of trees and immediately felt the air shift. The fog was gone the sunlight was bright, even glaring. The item was still there, if anything it was more apparent. It was definitely material.

She stepped to it carefully, the crunch of her feet the only sound in this lifeless place. She squatted down. It looked like part of a coat, a corner sticking out. She put her fingers on it. They were numb and she couldn’t be sure of what she was feeling, so she tugged it and it resisted. It wasn’t small, and the weight of the snow had pinned it. She pulled harder, taking more of a handful of the material; it still didn’t give. She brushed some of the snow away, revealing it to be what she had thought: a coat. But it also revealed a hand; a white alabaster coloured hand.

She stood up with a jerk, her cry blunt and short. The little girl was wearing a ring – her ring. She looked at her fingers, she had no rings on. And despite the cold, a chill ran through her. The coat looked familiar too, like one she’d had as a child. It had been her favourite.

She knelt this time, working the snow away where she thought the head must be, and sure enough blonde hair was revealed, just like hers. She slowed as she uncovered the face, brushing gently, and revealed her eight year old face.

She stared into it. The eyes flew open causing her to jump back with a yell. They focused on her face.

‘You’re here, at last. Come, join me.’

The hand with the ring lifted up and reached out. Dumbstruck, she took it.

Then she was falling, tumbling over and over, the ground rushing up to meet her, the air around her full of debris and screaming people. The plane had crashed; she just hadn’t experienced it yet. She knew where she would land.