MVTay
He couldn't really think about the enormity of the situation. He just had to strip it down, simplify it so that he could push the concept through his brain. His coffin shone in the bright sunlight, and he was just glad that he couldn't see his pale face inside.
Ahead she could see the wreckage she'd cause through bleary eyes. Her red car seemed ever smaller, curled around an SUV and as they wheeled her into the ambulance she couldn't stop thinking of his twisted face and what she had done. He'd never come back, he'd had everything ahead of him and now he had nothing but an empty shell of death.
The ship's horn pierced her ears and the drum of footsteps pounding up the ramp made her eyes blurry. She could smell salt so vividly in the air it reminded her of the fish her father used to hang whenever he returned from his lengthy and dangerous trips at sea.
As she looked up at him her eyes filled with tears. His mouth was set into a hard line of cold malice and she knew that her tired frame couldn't take another beating.
'Yes master...' she whispered, grasping her sparrows knees to her chest and rubbing her thumb against the thick coating of dirt on them. As he bent towards her, eyes glinting, the stale smell of alcohol mixed with the urine stench on her ragged dress and made her stomach turn.
As the last rose petal floated to the bottom of the jar and landed with a soft ripple in the water she felt a tiny fissure line etch its way across her heart. He'd promised her, promised that he'd be back to save her from the torment. And now his time was up and she had to chose between the waring explanations in her head. Either he had moved on and given up on her. Or he was dead. She couldn't decide which explanation was more painful, even though she knew it was horribly selfish to think that way. That somehow she'd rather have him dead than with another woman.
There really was no option. She either had to jump across the crevice and die trying, or fail to jump and die at the hands of his men. It seemed an obvious choice, and anyone else would have just made the leap. But she couldn't. Her brain wasn't wired that way. Her legs shook as she coiled them, preparing for the strongest form of rebellion against her brain, the one they'd manufactured and moulded - the one they made sure would never rebel. She was going to do it. She was going to disobey the code. And she had no idea what was waiting on the other side. For a brief moment, as she leaped and the wind rushed against her face, she considered that maybe she would just cease to exist if she broke the coding. Maybe there was nothing beyond it. But there was nothing but empty space beneath her anyway, so she hurled her hands forward, propelling her momentum faster and smacked chest first into the jagged rock. She registered the pain, but what coursed stronger through her veins was an alien feeling, like sweet hot butter running her. Rebellion.