Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
I walk down the vacant, gray sidewalk, surveying distance between cracks. My arms goosebump, but I don't pull out the coat from my backpack. I try to make my mind go numb; it's so much easier that way. But despite my best efforts, I find myself lost in a memory, of her of course...
"Delia, hurry up, or the evil witch will cast a curse on you!" I hear Katie's five-year-old voice shriek, and find myself running, on the same gray sidewalk, to catch up with her, my dress blowing in the wind behind me. "Oh no! my ankle's twisted! I won't make it! Save yourself!" I exclaim, sinking to the ground as I nurse my ankle and dirty up my new white dress. I know Lilly will kill me when I get home for messing up my bridesmaid dress, even though the wedding was 2 weeks ago. I just love wearing the flowy thing, feeling so pretty. "Never! I must carry you back to safety!" Katie, headstrone even then, says stubbornly.
Hmm...well this is quite some start. I am right away getting a bit of a childhood imaginary game sort of vibe from this and I'm assuming that's what this is an not actually some sort of life threatening situation. There's just that atmosphere of nostalgia in the air and it just feels like that has to be what's going on here.
Hooking her arm around me, she hoists me up, her elbow under the crook of my knee, in what we call the "princess hold". Even though she's smaller than me, both of us are gymnasts, so we have strong arm muscles, even as small children.
I bob up and down as she runs back towards the back of the house, cutting Mrs. Peterson's front lawn as she bakes a B-line for the rope ladder hanging out of my window.
"Hurry! The evil witch could cut it any moment now!" She exclaims. I'm about to climb down off of her, but she hoists me onto her back, and to my amazement, begins to climb the ladder. "No, Katie! It's too dangerous! You'll fall!" I exclaim in objection, but she huffs dismissively, and continues to climb each step.
I feel a sneeze coming on, but hold my breath, knowing it'll unbalance us. But to my dismay, the sneeze comes through, shuddering my body, and Katie can't hold on. We both fall in a heap on the ground, my left arm tucked under me, and I feel it stabbing with pain. After a minute, the pain really begins, and I begin to scream. I scream until my lungs are raw, and Katie rolls off me in alarm. "Delia?.... Delia!" She screams, as the color drains from my face. "My mom..." I choke out, and she nods, breaking into a dead run to the garage.
AHhh...well considering how stories like this tend to usually pan out I was expecting something much worse to potentially go down here, but luckily it appears its only going to be an injury and not horrible like death, but ahh, this is still a very powerful transition here that you've gotten down. Seeing this shift from a wholesome bit of playing to that one horrible moment where you know something is off to then this horrible end there. You've really painted a powerful little picture there.
I black out, and wake up the next day in the hospital with a cast on my arm, and a splint on my right pointer finger, that apparentally got crushed by my shoe when I fell. katie sits in the hospital chair to my right, and I grin, "Hey, Katydid." I croak, my throat dry, and gulp down some water that sits on the table beside me. "Hey Delia. Sorry about your arm. I didn't mean to fall on you." "No, it was my fault." I reply assuringly.
Yeah. It was[i] my fault. I knew what was coming, but I didn't help her. I just walked away. I know you're new to this and stuff, but you should know; I'm [i]not talking about the broken arm.
The ending has a lovely mysterious tone to it as well. I didn't quite see that coming. I feel like perhaps the formatting there got a bit messed and hence why the italics seem mildly out of place, but in general, that's quite the ending, you definitely find yourself wanting to turn that page and find out what that's all about and with that I think overall, this makes for a pretty solid opening piece here.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
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