Who's that girl?

Welcome to the Spot Writers. This month’s prompt: “A story that involves someone, not a stranger, standing on the edge of a precipice.”

This week’s story comes from Chiara De Giorgi. Chiara dreams, reads, edits texts, translates, and occasionally writes in two languages. She also has a lot of fun.

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Who’s that girl?

by Chiara De Giorgi

I was quietly walking, lost in thought.

At some point I looked around. I was surrounded by a thick, white fog, I could barely make out the tree lines at both sides of the road. Where was I? I thought back, but couldn’t remember what my destination had been when I’d left home. Weird.

I kept on walking, hands in my pockets, white puffs of breath leaving my body and mixing with the fog.  

Slowly, the fog dispersed and I realized the sky was turning dark.

This isn’t good, I thought to myself. I did not know where I was, and with the darkness it would be impossible to make sense of that place.

I stopped  and took a good look around. It was a forest. There were trees everywhere, but it was eerily silent. What forest is that silent?

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, I spotted someone walking far ahead of me. Luckily, they had a red coat on, otherwise I might have missed them.

Knowing I was too far away for them to hear me calling, I started running in order to catch up with them.

When I was almost running out of breath, the person luckily stopped, so I slowed down and kept walking briskly towards them.

Wasn’t the coat red? I though. It was clearly blue. I shrugged. It wasn’t important. Now that I was getting closer, I could tell that she was a woman with long, dark hair, falling neatly over her shoulders. There was something familiar to her shape. Did I know her? I was still too far from her to be sure.

I was about to call out to her, when I realized she was standing over a precipice. A cold hand gripped my heart and I closed my mouth. Was she about to jump down the cliff? What was a cliff doing here, by the way? And where was ‘here’ anyway?

I slowed down, my eyes glued to her back.

Suddenly I was standing next to her. I turned my head and looked at her. At first, I couldn’t see who she was, then realization kicked in and I gasped. That was me! How was that even possible?

She – I – slowly turned her head to look at me. She had a smirk on her face; her eyes – my eyes – were clean and clear, not a trace of concern in them. Her skin was smooth, no frown lines marked her face. She was me, but a neater, more defined version of me. She looked confident, brave. It looked like she was in charge and she knew it.

“Are you going to jump?” I whispered.

“What if I fall? – Oh but my darling, what if you fly!” she replied. That was one of my favorite quotes, but I honestly wouldn’t be willing to put it to the test, not literally at least. I was about to tell her just that, when she opened her arms and took a step over the edge.

My hands ran to my mouth and I stifled a cry. She disappeared under a thick layer of white clouds. Not a sound could be heard.

Seconds ticked by and the sun rose from behind the mountain facing the cliff.

Suddenly she resurfaced from the clouds with a glorious cry, the sunlight was painting golden shades on the white sea and on her face. Her arms were wide open, her smile was big and pure, her coat was blindingly white.

I smiled. She’d done it. And if she could do it, well…

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The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/