7: The Fall and the Return

~ Days before.

Sabrina was falling—endlessly falling.

Air whipped at her clothes and past her ears, her lips parted in a noiseless scream as she twisted mid-air, tears streaming down her cheeks. She plummeted fast, but for her, time felt unbearably slow.

There was nothing to grab onto, nothing to break her fall. She was going to die. At that thought, Sabrina gave up.

She accepted this reality, her inevitable end. What other choice did she have? Her will to live had already been stripped away. Everything she’d ever cared about—her mother, her trust, her family’s legacy—was gone. Now her life would be taken, too.

Sabrina thought of her mother and smiled weakly at the thought of seeing her again. Tears slid down her face, and just as she was about to let her body go limp and accept the jagged rocks below, she saw it—a branch jutting out from the side of the mountain.

With one last burst of determination, she reached for it. Her scream tore through the air as her body slammed against the rocks, but her hands clung desperately to the branch. Her arms trembled with the effort of holding herself up, but she was alive. She hadn’t fallen.

A small sob escaped her lips. Looking around frantically, she spotted vines and a few jagged rocks protruding from the mountainside. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.

She took a deep breath, braced her feet against the rocks, and grabbed onto one of the vines. With a groan, she pushed herself upward. Step by step, she climbed, struggling to find solid footholds and narrowly avoiding several slips. After what felt like an eternity, she finally reached the top—the place where she had been pushed off hours ago.

Collapsing onto solid ground, Sabrina lay flat on her back, breathing in shaky bursts. She clutched the grass beneath her, her body trembling from exertion. As the adrenaline subsided, the cold set in. She was exhausted and terrified.

But she couldn’t afford to rest.

Forcing herself upright despite her trembling limbs, Sabrina looked around. The night was dark, the only sound the faint chirping of crickets. It was eerily silent, and she hoped it would stay that way. She feared what might happen if she encountered a wild animal—or a man.

Stumbling into the woods, she moved as quickly as her weakened body allowed. She had no idea where she was, far enough from the city that she couldn’t hear cars or people. She was lost and starving.

Her stomach churned, empty from the ordeal.

First, she needed food. Without it, she would collapse.

It took her an hour of searching to find a bush full of berries. She didn’t even check if they were poisonous; desperation drove her to rip them from the branches and shove them into her mouth. After eating her fill, she gathered as many as her tattered pocket could hold.

Next, she needed a place to sleep. After another long search, she found a small cave-like formation. As the sun began to rise, Sabrina collapsed into it and drifted into a restless sleep.

For three days, Sabrina wandered the forest, aimlessly searching for a way back to civilization. She fed on the berries, scooped up water from the small stream and managed to wash her face and body in it afterwards.

She was lucky to never bump into any wild animals, though at night, hidden away in those caves, she could hear snarling and growling coming from not too far off.

But as she walked, doubts plagued her mind. What could she even do if she returned? Report them to the police? Tell her father? Would he even care? Had anyone even bothered to look for her while she was gone?

At times, she wondered if returning was worth it. Sitting beneath a tree, she questioned her choices, her resolve wavering.

But at the end of the day, she had no other option. She hadn’t clawed her way up that mountain just to die in the forest.

So she kept moving. Trudging forward relentlessly, she finally stumbled upon a lonely road. With the last of her strength, she flagged down a passing car.

A concerned driver and his wife stopped to help. After briefly explaining her situation, they agreed to take her back to Greenvyle. They gave her some food and eventually Sabrina dozed off in the car, the drive back would take hours, apparently she’d even been heading in the opposite direction of where she’d needed to go.

It took hours, but eventually she was back in her hometown, the rain was belting against the windows of the car and from what she could see from her seat she was home… or at least, in her father’s home.

Her stomach twisted with anxiety.

“Hey,” the driver said, he was a burly man with a rather gentle demeanour. “Are you sure this is the place? If you need help we can…”

Sabrina knew what he saw, the large, expensive house and then the shaken, lost woman in his backseat. She was probably in some serious shit to have ended up in a situation like that.

“I’m fine,” she smiled tightly. “I’ll be fine. Thank you.”

She got down and into the stinging rain. Waving goodbye and thanks to both of them, then, with a long breath, she walked to the door and rang the bell.

The lights were on so they were still awake, they were probably having dinner, laughing and bonding like a real family. The rain stung her skin, she was trembling. The clothes stuck to her body, she was hungry, exhausted, aching and a little more than angry.

Once. Twice. Three times. She rang the doorbell over and over again, until finally, the door opened to reveal her father, standing further behind him were Mira and Reliana. The three of them gawked at her, like she was a ghost.

Sabrina’s shoulders slumped and she parted her lips to say something, but before she could she heard a hiss from her father and his palm connected with her face.