5. Summoned to life again

The sky was dark. The stars appeared like faint grains of light. They were fogged mostly by the thick rain clouds. The breeze was becoming chilly. Slowly it blows off the wind that would send off goosebumps on anyone that would pass.

Little spatters of rain touches Leonore's face. She was woken up by it and felt numb by the so much pain from her back. It felt excruciating. The back of her head was cracked. She tried to move her arm and reached her head. The blood had dried, but there was a portion as she had felt was still bleeding, blood was spurting from a little hole made along with the crack.

Leonore tried to put pressure on her palm to the hole. It was very agonizing. She felt nauseous and dizzy with the sensation. Her tears added mist to her eyesight causing her vision to get blurry.

She tried to picture out her position. She was lying down, head on the gutter. The only way for her to stand up is to bend her body upwards.

She made a try of it, but she screamed for pain. Her back bruised a lot, and her spine and ribs were broken.

She closed her eyes and cried. For one moment, she thought how can she still be alive. 

I could have just died from all this torture. But why am I still alive? Leonore has these thoughts in her head. How can she think if her skull was pounded and was cracked?

She didn't know.

But what prevailed in her mind was to survive from her current situation. 

It would be impossible for someone to find her. The only way to get help is to find help. She had to get up first and move.

Slowly, she moved both of her arms and flapped it like a bird's wings. Vertical flaps, good. Horizontal flaps, good. Though she was struggling with her left arm because it was slightly dislocated, Leonore didn't mind it. The next thing she moved was her legs. She paddled both like a dog striving to swim, keeping its head above water.

So far so good.

Leonore taught herself to be very critical and systematic. It was part of the nature of her work, as an editor in chief. In her current situation, those two attributes are highly applied. She made sure she has both of her legs and arms well-conditioned first, even if she looked like an ill platypus struggling to be alive.

Well in the first place, she is indeed struggling to be alive. She just thought of the right metaphor. 

When Leonore was satisfied, she balled her fist and strengthened her legs for support. She gathered all the might she had. 

Slowly, she had lifted her torso a little off the ground.

Leonore breathed deeply and smiled for her little progress. I can do it, she repeatedly said in her mind, convincing herself that she really can get out of this misery. 

She let out a desperate breath. So far she is doing well, she will just have to curl it a little bit more for her to stand up on her feet.

With her remaining energy, she curled her back upwards, trying to make a curve line out of her drastically delicate spine, so her hands could reach her legs and she could now manage to stand.

But what happened what.

There was a cracking sound. Leonore felt a torn muscle in her spine, as well as a bone, had cracked. She stayed still in that position. If she would move it would hurt a lot. What had cracked was the last part of her spine that had remained intact. It is what helped her still move.

But now, only shattered pieces were left of her. She felt very incapacitated. She felt very helpless and hopeless.

Suddenly Leonore remembers every pound of the hammer on her back. Every hit of the hard metal on her backbone and ribs. It was very paralyzing. That's what she is now, totally debilitated, and disabled.

While weeping, Leonore heard a scream of a woman crying for help.

She panicked and rushed to find where the scream was coming from. Despite her condition, she still thought of others' welfare.

She started to crawl. It was painful with every move but she kept going. She listened carefully if the voice aroused again.

"Somebody help me he's trying to kill me!"

There goes the scream again. This time, the voice became clearer. It was coming from a woman, probably young because of its high pitched scream.

Leonore assumed that the woman is somewhere near.

"Here!"

Was all Leonore could scream.

I hope that had helped, she said in her mind. She could only talk freely in her mind, in that way it wasn't much energy-consuming. And besides, her voice when she talked was already sounding hoarse. Leonore was falling out of energy.

She waited for the woman to come over, or at least say something in reply to her one-word scream, but there wasn't any.

Leonore started to worry. Maybe something bad happened to her already. Maybe she had been killed by now, screaming in her own mind, or talking to herself just like me.

Leonore had all these assumptions in her mind. She was worried because the woman might have been fighting for her own life at this very moment. Yet she could do nothing, but to listen to her own thoughts.

She's also worried because that woman’s killer might come after her as well. She has called after that woman. She just showed a signal that someone else is there at the crime scene, and that is her. Leonore was afraid to suffer again from pain inflicted by people she didn't even know.

If she could just stand up, it would be much easier to survive. But all she could do now is to crawl. 

That's it.

That is her last draw of cards. That is her last chance. She would crawl till she can find the road or anyone that could help.

There was just the sound of Leonore's hard breathing and the rasping sound of her body dragged on the ground while she continued to crawl. Other than that, there was just silence.

"Hey."

A woman's voice broke the silence. Leonore stopped crawling when she saw two feet on worn-out sandals standing in front of her. She looked up and saw a young woman she presumed as the one who screamed for help.

She looked so frail and delicate. The surrounding area of her eyes was blemished red. Her hair was all frizzy. It was dyed blonde and there were a couple of strands which had stiffened from being dipped with mud. She also had some stains of blood on her worn-out clothes.

Besides that, there wasn't much. Leonore was confused. She was expecting, but not literally hoping, that there were stabs or shots on the woman's body. But there wasn't any she saw. 

Leonore supposed that this woman could be her shed of light, her hope to survive. 

What she didn't know and saw, there was a screwdriver stabbed on the back of the woman's neck. Half of the metal shank was thrust. 

"Help me... "

After uttering those words, the woman fell to the ground.

It was not long after when Leonore passed out as well. 

...

Leonore woke up feeling very light like her body had lost weight. No, not just weight, her mass had also changed. She knew that a person's mass cannot be changed, but she can't deny the fact that she's feeling very different. Like her age had rolled back to youth, her heart and mind younger again; like she just had a change of body.

Leonore opened her eyes wide. In an instant, she stood up, feeling very renewed of her reflexes. She dropped her jaw in amusement, it's a miracle! 

She remembered clearly of her miserable state. Broken spine, broken ribs, skull pounded crack. She stood no chance as she has recalled. 

But, there was something wrong with the situation.

She saw another body lying on the ground. The clothes were familiar to her. The posture and the face seemed all very familiar to her. 

Leonore saw herself, dead. 

What intrigued her the most was that, she was alive, but she was not on her body.