It was following me with brutal intentions; I just knew it. Why else would it be following me at all? For some reason when I’d gone from the open field I had been running through trying to dodge a lion and I had made it to the woods, a bird decided to take chase.

I still couldn’t figure out why there was a lion in the first place; it must have escaped from a zoo. I heard a loud screech from the sky and I shot my eyes upward. I saw a massive underbelly and then the bird was suddenly beside me.

I tried to glare at it but unluckily for me that was right when I came upon a log. My foot caught the edge of the wood and my body was thrown forward. I tried to catch myself but failed. I saw the waterfall right in front of me.

It wasn’t a huge waterfall, just a gradual decline but the stones were massive. I tried to take some sort of preventive measure but it was useless, there was nothing my pounding heart could do.

*

For some reason when I regained consciousness I wasn’t wet or shivering. My head didn’t even hurt. On the contrary, I felt warm, dry, and comfortable. I stretched out my limbs and felt no fear or worry.

I breathed in deeply, blinked my eyes, and decided to look around. I felt something soft against my head. I sat up in surprise. I was in the middle of a field somehow. The sky wasn’t brooding with rays of sunlight barely able to seep through the clouds, instead the sun was shining brilliantly and the sky was a dazzling shade of blue.

The warmth soaked into my bones. I turned around and found the source of the soft feeling against my head.

It was a young and beautiful lamb without blemish.

~Part 2 of 2 of "The Waterfall"
Grace Marshall

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“She’s dying,” I barely heard my father say.

My mother was going into hysterics. She had been by my side for the past several days and had held my hand with every drip of chemo but it was no use, I was dying.

I had already lived past their expectations. The doctors had said three to six months and I was on my seventh month, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer. I had only held on this long for my mother, but I was weak and I was tired of trying; my father knew it.

The hospital room was blurry and so were the shapes of my mother and father and trying to concentrate on them just made my head ache so I closed my eyes.

*

‘No! No! No!’ Rushed through my mind as I desperately plunged onward. I was exhausted. The air I fought to suck into my lungs burnt with fire.

My legs ached and my ankles were burning. Each oncoming tree, branch, or bush was just another obstacle to dodge or leap over. The woods itself seemed to be an obstacle to overcome. I could hear the wind whistling past my ears and feel the shadow following me. It was a black and looming shadow even though there was hardly any sun to cast the shadow on the ground, as the sky was dark and sinister.

Sometimes I could see it from the corner of my eye, swooping through the trees. I wasn’t sure what it was anymore. Somehow it had gone from the initial lion in the field to some type of predatory bird.

~"The Waterfall" Part 1 of 2
Grace Marshall

 

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