Caroline Brighton (kittycaro) wrote in rrinitiative, @ 2012-10-22 18:57:00 |
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Entry tags: | autumn, brady, cal, caroline, day seven, edan, grace, group scene, jae, rebekah, reece, wu |
All Fall Down
Characters: Caroline and open!
Setting: Courtyard, just before dawn
Caroline had fallen twice already. She had ripped off two fingernails – one of which was still stuck in a crack above the level two balcony. There was a blood smear halfway up the wall, but the roof was almost in sight now.
Every muscle in her body was burning. Each limb felt like lead and her arms and legs trembled with the effort of keeping going. She had been right – the climb to the roof had been almost impossible. But she’d made it.
She flung an arm up and over the guttering, forcing her fingers around to clutch at it, bringing her arm up to add her elbow into the mix as she pushed against the wall. Her fingers had taken the brunt of the climb. With no proper footwear for this sort of thing – oh and how she missed her rubber-soled climbing shoes that would have gripped the vertical despite the lack of any real holds – she had had to haul herself up mostly by jamming the very tips of her fingers into the smallest of available places, stretching her tiny body to the limit. It should have been impossible, yet so many of her jobs should have been impossible.
She had pushed herself to the limit, through the pain and she hauled herself up onto the roof in the pre-dawn light, feeling the fresh breeze blow across her skin.
Her breathing came heavily for a few minutes, but then her mind kicked in through the exhaustion and the pain. She stood, favouring her right foot, off balance for a moment as she got her bearings.
It was that moment that did it. Already off balance, she had no time to react when the helicopter suddenly rose up before her, searchlight flicking on. They were there to stop her escape attempt, but Caroline was standing on the very edge of the roof, and surprise made her take a step back.
It was a step back into nothing. Her arms pinwheeled for a moment, but she couldn’t regain that balance. The fall was swift. The crack as she landed reverberated around the courtyard. Her neck was broken, her body askew. Death came immediately. The helicopter hovered for a moment, but then was called away, leaving her body behind as quiet and stillness rolled back in