TW: DEATH AND SLIGHT BLOOD MENTION.
She crawls slowly on the ground, cuts across her knees and hands drip of fresh blood. If only she had some ambrosia, what it does she doesn't know. But her mind and her body call for it, beg for it even. Should she beg the gods to live? Beg for them to spare her, she doesn't want to die here. The ground shakes and her arms give out, her head slams against the twigs and leaves of the forest floor. She hears a crack and hopes to gods that wasn't her head.
She wakes up and she's gasping for air. Blue walls and stuffy air, quilted sheets on the bumpy mattress. Her eyes flicker back and forth desperately. She's in her bedroom where her ceiling fan groans above her with every rotation. Nothing is wrong, so why does she feel as if black smoke is crawling through her lungs and throat. She claws at her throat and she's so desperate to breathe clearly aga- it stops.
Just like that. It stops.
There is no smoke and it's just her breathing deeply. Her and her greasy hair stuck to a sweaty forehead in her bedroom. The clock ticks on the far wall, her only other companion besides the nightmare that chases her. She looks at her bedroom door, waiting for it to creek open, for a mother's smile, for a father's worry. For them to see how shaken she is, to have them curl up on either side of her, hug her close and tell her it's alright.
She looks at the door, waiting.
Her wall clock ticks: a second, a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month.
The ceiling fan groans above with every rotation, it threatens to fall on an empty bed.
There's a girl dancing in the street. She's twirling and the silver jacket around her waist flashes in the moonlight. She's never seen anything more beautiful. She thinks this girl could make her happy, in the ways that matter. The Girl turns to her and flashes a smile and gestures her to come closer.
The Girl tells her that she is weightless, she is so happy because she isn't tied down, she runs with the rain and swims with the moon. She's enraptured with the girl and when she says she could live forever, alongside this beautiful girl and with a family that cares for her. Away from the taunts of the neighborhood boys and disgust and pity of the adults.
When the girl offers, she doesn't hesitate.
A silver parka that shines like moonlight rests on her shoulders. She's sitting next to The Girl and their shoulders are touching. She feels lightheaded and warm all at once and she knows it's not from the campfire. The Girl tilts her back and laughs at the moon goddess's joke. The other hunters' laughter float into the night sky. She knows she should laugh too but all she can think about is how The Girl's hair looks as though it's been braided with stars.
She's smiling at The Girl and The Girl is smiling at her. It's one of those soft ones she sees sometimes, out of the corner of her eye…when The Girl thinks she's not looking. She sees it head on now, maybe it's because the water runs down her face, and they just laughed and splashed water at each other. The Girl wades closer and closer to her. This is where she thinks, when their foreheads are centimeters apart and she can see the rise and fall of The Girl's chest as if it were her own, this is where she thinks she can get her happy ending.
The horn is loud and it shatters the moment into glass shards.
The shards stab at her heart when the The Girl's eyes stare lifelessly at her. Her body is twisted in all the wrong angles, her hair loose around her face. Don't you see another huntress hisses. This is what we're here for. The huntress rises and runs into the battle.
She shakingly stands on her two feet. Her palms sweat and the grip on her daggers are loose. She walks one step in front of the other, silver arrows fly overhead and cries of battle ring around her.
To her they are silent when she is blasted back by an explosion that rocks the trees and sends her crashing against the rocks of the mountainside.
Her body aches and she can't move her legs anymore. She crawls slowly on the ground, cuts across her knees and hands drip of fresh blood. If only she had some ambrosia but she left it behind in her tent, confused to why she would need it if her and The Girl were just going to washen up in lake. She wonders, as tears sting eyes and the trees blur together in front of her, clouded by her vision and the smoke, if she can ask the gods to spare her. She wants to go home to unloving parents and a time before she even knew The Girl, before she was crying on the forest floor; about losses she never wanted to have. The ground shakes and her arms give out, her head slams against the twigs and leaves of the forest floor. She hears a crack and hopes to gods that wasn't her head.
