Friday 24 January 2014

Dark Fiction - Reach

Reach

By Casey Douglass

as part of #fridayflash

The little girl floats through the air, the tassels on her mittens knocking against the undersides of her forearms. It is like some graceful slow motion replay of an Olympic swimmer beginning their dive. 

Breathtaking.

Her face is still smiling, her tongue protruding from pale little lips, her eyes a sparkle. She is enjoying it! 

She reaches the apex of her flight and then begins to dip, the expression on her face creaking into a rictus of terror. Now she is scared. Down she falls, lower and lower. In mere moments, she is beneath the level at which I myself am standing, a cacophony of noise billowing out behind me.

A deep booming rumble percusses her landing, but it is not her that causes it. The train rounds the bend, the noise of lots of tiny metal wheels rat-a-clatting rat-a-clatting as it draws into the station. 

A scream sounds to my right, punching through my time dilation. I am about to turn but pins and needles draw my attention to my right arm. I gaze along it trying to fathom why it should ache so. Realisation breaks my confusion and I see that it is outstretched, elbow aching, hand grasping, fingers splayed, the digits partially hiding the girl from my sight.

The train squeals and churns and chews at the metal tracks as it tries to reduce its momentum. It fails. 

--THE END--