The Ruins of Nothing / Untitled

Untitled: Sierra Williams

The Ruins of Nothing: Sarah Fromm

There wasn’t much left. Just a girl. A pretty girl, to be more precise, with ringlets of sun ray hair and icy ices, in a black cloak, standing off the edge of a cliff.

She was the last one. All the others had gone over. But going over would mean jumping over the abyss, and she was young and afraid, barely ten years old. 

She had heard stories, too. Stories of how the people who jumped through were changed. The girl’s only friend, Ava, had jumped through months earlier, and she never made it. They recovered her small body a week after she left. Buried her. She was just seven years old. 

What if, she had wondered in the night, her thoughts protected by the darkness, By jumping through, we become into monsters? Do we give up our humanity just to live? The thought made her cry. 

In fact, she cried usually every night, but she didn’t hate the gloom of the evenings. In fact, she enjoyed it. She was with her mother, protected: the menacing shadows couldn’t hurt her. 

That was the reason they had made a camp, in fact, to gather with other people and wait for the best time to jump through the portal (with lots of procrastination ). The camp wasn’t so bad, and she didn’t regret her days here; otherwise, she wouldn’t have met Ava. 

All that really didn’t matter for the future. If her humanity was about to be stolen, she shouldn’t fill up on memories. It would be an easier transition. 

Her mother had went three days ago, and she would have gone too, if she hadn’t insisted on tugging her hand and screaming for her to stay. Her mother was desperate to leave, though, and eventually left with the last group of people. Since then, she had eaten nothing, anxiety filling her stomach. 

Join us, the river below hissed, steam pulling her back to reality. Join us. She backed away from the edge, but the whispering of the water grew louder. Just do it, she told herself, who knows what lies out there? The risk is better than wasting away.

Sucking in a last, deep breath, she retreated and then flung herself forward, over the cliff. 

The steam from the river seemed to grab her and toss her across through the purple glassy disk, so opaque she couldn’t see what was through it. She half expected to slam right into it, so solid it looked. 

But she didn’t. And for a second, as she passed through it, a brief fire sizzled her lungs- burning- until her hands found a coal-littered floor. She collapsed, steaming, trying to catch her breath, even more dirty than she had been before. 

She got up and adjusted her cap, lost in the swarms of people. So many people. Where to go? She knew no one. She started to turn just as a voice sounded. 

“Welcome to hell.”