writing_shadows

This is my first attempt at publishing any of the fiction I have written in any way, so please be gentle. Criticism is welcome.

Tonight Tycho had to find her, the girl of his dreams. More accurately the girl he had seen in his dreams.

She's probably not even 20 yet.. Tycho thought, following it with a disappointed sigh.

Granted she had looked younger still in his minds eye, pictured then as a naked child. Lost she seemed to hover over the black precipice, porcelain white skin stained with black tears, her back gnarled under the weight of malformed and broken wings. From his dream he knew this lost angel would fly only once, too soon, and then find no more tears in a death too young or a fate far in his Lady's arms.

Omen dreams, terrible terrible dreams had brought Tycho to the bridge that night, and there she was, the angel on the edge, hovering, ready to dive into oblivion.

........................................

There on the bridge was the angel Lynn. They had spoken for over two hours and the story was as bad as he had come to know and expected from all of his angels. No quick fixes, there never where. Tonight was his first chance and his only chance to save her, to save both her and to save himself.

This was what being alive felt like, this is where I feel hope...

..................................

Its nearly dawn and Lynn still hasn't jumped. She keeps resisting his subtle suggestions and urges for her to live. She's so sure that there's nothing left in the world, she's useless, she has never been anything but a footnote in life, the world will not miss her no one will miss her.

Tycho has little to say, he admits that he is not the world nor society nor her loved ones, but from tonight onwards his life would be worth nothing if Lynn where to lose hers. Fate and pain had brought him to another ledge, another beautiful terrifying moment of resolve passes over Tycho's mind and he prepares his farewell.

"Tonight you have to live Lynn. Tonight you matter. Save me...."

........................................

My world is a knife edge, this is living! I hear Lynn screaming, further and further I fall from her as the black waters of the river rush to meet me, the river welcomes her latest meal. From this height I might actually make it, if my luck hold just a little longer, if I can save Lynn then I get to live too...

...........................................

A heartbeat rings in his ears. The beat that seems loud enough to deafen him to the rest of the world.

Tycho tries to smile as the first of his senses finds purchase in the world and then comes the taste and smell of blood, dirt and wretched water.

I'm probably alive.

He struggles to remember the immediate past, always the same after a near life experience. For now everything was that taste of blood in his mouth and the hot yet dulled throb of masked pain.

Savour this moment, remember the feeling, the elation at being alive, and pray; Pray that little Lynn saw the miracle and was saved from Her who I do not name, She who waits for the lowest of moments and reaps those already broken for whom only deaths release remains.

Eventually, after minutes that feel more like hours, the pain reached Tycho through his numbed nerves.

Pain is good, pain lets me know I'm alive..

As the wretching started, he registers the sounds of the shallow breathing close by.

It could be Lynn, and he might have won this time.

It could be Her, watching her broken Tycho and soon will come the clapping, for he fights fate once more, like She taught him once, like She made him.

He opens his eyes a crack, the pain is like hot needles, but he forces himself to focus, he needed to be sure.

There was the bridge some distance away, silhouetted on the dawn skyline, reflected again on the surface of the river.

Hope...

Tycho forces his broken body to roll, grimacing as he suppresses the thousand shooting pains of fates punishment. Slumped and exhausted he stops at the prone body next to him.

There she lies sleeping more soundly than he could have wished, clothes still damp from swimming out to him, covered in muck from hauling him onto the banks.

Exhausted Angel. She found a reason to live tonight.

I still have reasons to live each night..