Today I looked in my inbox and found our
challenge: pick one of the opening lines
from the contest from last week, and use it in a story. We can’t use our own. So, I’ve picked out Rebecca Shuttleworth’s and I hope you like what I’ve done with it.
Plummeting, Daria closed her eyes and
resigned herself to the fall, concentrating only on the effort of becoming
lighter, weightless, free. The force of the freefall from the aircraft
was terrifying however she felt as though she had done this all before…
Somehow…
Somewhere…
Her hair pulled
off her face and her clothes flapped out behind her as she pulled her body
tight, arms out to her sides – as though she was on a crucifix – felt the wind
stop as she hung in the air for a moment.
And in that tiny
moment in time, she felt as though something happened to her… something amazing
she had never experienced before.
She was no longer
falling.
She was flying!
Daria felt and
heard feathers around her shoulders moving… flitting around her shoulders… and
yet couldn’t see them. Only a moment
ago, was falling in fear and now? Now,
she was floating through the air effortlessly.
A smile crossed her face as she relaxed and let this happen, let it take
over… how many times in life does this kind of thing occur where you control
your surroundings? Not much!
A gunshot shocked
her!
It came from
above!
The hi-jackers
who had taken over her twin-engine, grabbed her from the cockpit and shoved her
out without a parachute were trying to kill her!
She didn’t have
time to think as they shot again and a sharp pain in her shoulder made her
roll, causing her body to fall like a stone to the ground!
Daria woke on the
ground in the middle of the highway.
She should have
been dead. But she wasn’t.
“What the hell?”
she sat up, looked around just in time to see an eighteen-wheeler screaming
towards her! She raised her hand up and
a shining light emanated from her whole body as she closed her eyes for a
moment and then found herself on the side of the road.
The truck had
stopped nearby and driver was standing next to his cab looking at her, “Exactly
how did you do that?”
“I was…”
“In the middle of
the road a few seconds ago.” He said, “And now you’re here.” Then he frowned,
“And where did you come from?”
She looked at
him, then looked up to the sky, “I don’t think you’d believe me.”
“I’ve seen some
really strange things behind the wheel of that thing.” He said, “Try me.”
She pointed up
into the fading sky, “I was pushed out of the plane I was flying… I was
hi-jacked.”
“We have to get
you to a hospital.”
Two days and a
myriad of tests later, Daria was given the all-clear from the doctors. She sat in her room and looked at herself in
the mirror as she got dressed, wondering how she came to fall from a plane
thirty-five thousand feet up and didn’t have a single scratch on her.
“Hi.” The
familiar voice of the nurse said at her door.
“I’m wondering
how I survived the fall.” She said.
“We all are.” She
walked in and closed the door, “But I have your X-Rays back and there’s
something strange on them.” She pulled out the films and put them onto the
light box on the wall and switched it on, “You have something engraved into
your bones.”
Daria took the
films down slowly, “Shit.”
“Do you remember
anything happening on the way down?”
She laughed,
“Yeah, I was shot at and wounded.”
“Where?”
“Left shoulder.”
The nurse turned
her around and looked carefully, “You have no such injury. Are you sure you took a bullet?”
She nodded, “Yes,
I remember pain and how fast I fell after it hit.”
She nodded, “Okay,
so you should have more injuries or…”
“Should be dead.”
Daria looked back into the mirror as she pulled her dressing gown from the
hospital closer around her body, “But I’m not.”
“Do you feel any
different?” the nurse asked.
“No.” she lied.
The next morning,
Daria was released to go home. Her parents
picked her up and took her to her Grandmother’s house; which she had inherited
and now lived in. She spent the day out
in the garden looking at the flowers; just staring at them before going into
her studio and writing in her journal about what happened to her that day:
‘17th,
April, 2014… I came home today. I’m at
my place. It’s strange, as though I’ve
never been here before. I don’t know
where anything is… and yet I’ve lived here for over a decade. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But today, I was out in the garden and I
found the flowers talking to me. They
whispered to me the secrets of the galaxy.’
Daria looked down
at the page, “I’m going crazy.”
“No, you’re not.”
A voice said behind her.
She turned to
find a man in a suit in her studio. He walked
up to her desk, moved the book she had written in closer so he could read it, “Wait,
that’s private.”
“No it’s not.” He
said, “I found you, Haniel.”
“Who? I’m Daria.” She put her hand out to him and
he awkwardly shook it, “Who’s Haniel?”
“The Archangel
who has been protecting you since you were young. Now, things have become a little more…” he
gazed out the window toward the house, “… complicated.” He looked back at her, “Haniel
has given you her Grace, thus making you an Angel and she’s out there
somewhere.”
“So, what am I?”
“That’s what I’m
here to find out.” He said, “I’m Raphael, a friend of Haniel’s, and you are to
come with me now.”
