The Ones That Are Broken // Willne

66| The Fall of Heaven

Suggested Song: DNA by Lia Marie Johnson

Carmen's POV

I walked down the busy highway road with music blasting so loud I couldn't hear my thoughts. I didn't want to go home. But I didn't want to be at school. I didn't want to be anywhere. I wanted to be dead. Like so many times before.

How do I explain the feeling of nothing to someone. I didn't feel sad, or happy, or even angry. I felt nothing. But somehow nothing was worse then any other emotion.

The nothing was crushing.

I clenched my phone tightly in my hand as I walked through the forest down to the building I knew so well. I jumped over twigs and moved through recently burnt tree stumps as I got closer.

The ground was damp and muddy from rain the night before. I could feel my feet slip and slide as I walked.

I looked down at the track I knew and saw familiar footprints. They were mine. I could tell from the very noticable patterns at the bottom. I knew Will wouldn't be back at campus for another hour. So that meant no one would be looking for me for at least a while. That means I could be alone.

I had no interest in happy words from people that didn't understand what nothing was like.

I push through the last bushes to the familiar. But I'm not met with a quiet and beautiful scenery that I was used to.

No.

I ran over to what was now a pile of rubble lying on the forest floor. My heart stopped as my eyes filled with tears.

It was all so wrong.

They must of torn it down while I was in Ibiza. I wasn't ready to let that place go. Not now. Not in my lowest pain. I fall onto the damp grass and curl my knees up to my face. I didn't want the only place that made me feel happy again go.

I closed my eyes and cried. I could feel my tears run down my legs.

****

"Carmen! Carmen!" I heard a familiar voice call from behind me.

I opened my eyes to see I was in a random part of the forest. I could tell it was the same one because of the plants around me. The scenery wasn't burned and battered though.

It was growing healthy. I touched the vines that lined a roof over the forest floor. I wasn't in the place I just was. I felt strange. Like I wasn't really there.

"Carmen! Where are you kiddo!?" I heard again.

I pushed through branches and trees to see where the voice was coming from. Suddenly, it hit me. I knew who was calling my name.

I walked out into the clearing of where the building was. It wasn't as torn and broken as it once was. You could still tell it had been abandoned for a while though. I stopped at the tree line and my eyes filled with tears.

A couple metres away, my Dad was standing and waving at me. Like he had all those years ago. I felt myself smile.

"Come on, Char... Don't you want to explore the abandoned city in the enchanted Forest?" He said with a mysterious tone like he had always down when talking about it

I slowly moved into a stumble, which turned into a jog towards him.

"Haha come on kiddo" He says as I get closer

Suddenly, I feel a breeze run through me that made me fall to the floor. I held my chest as I looked up and saw a younger version of me run into the arms of my Dad.

I held my heart as I watched him pick me up and swing me around. I wasn't in this dream like all the other ones. I was watching it.

I looked so happy. He looked so happy.

I stood up as I watched them go into the building. I jog over to the building and watch as they walk through the entrance. The air was cold and musty. I followed them up the staircase as he led me to the hole in the wall that we had watched the sunset through so many times.

They sat down and swung their legs over the edge. I stood in the door entrance and watched, but that led me into a sit as well.

I felt like I was watching a recording of my own life. But it was like the first time I had seen it. Like I hadn't loved it all those years ago. I was 9 when this happened. And I remembered it. But I felt like I didn't know what was going to happen next.

"You know Char... Up here... It's like the sun set for us... Like the big man up there... Made this all for us to sit here and watch" He smiles as he points out and makes hand gestures out at the sky

"I think that it was..." I reply, falling for his crazy schemes

"Me too, kiddo... Me too" He says, putting his arm around me

The memory starts to become blurry... And suddenly it fades slightly. But it stops, and I see Dad turn around, nine years old me doesn't seem to notice. But Dad looks at me dead in the eyes.

"Carmen..." He says quietly and I stand up in shock

"Carmen!" I hear him yell and suddenly everything goes black

****

I wake up in cold sweats. I unfolded my legs and notices the claw marks all over my legs and arms. I must have fallen asleep. I stand up and look at the pile of smashed concrete and broken glass next to me.

It was heartbreaking. This building meant so much to me. Too much to me.

I grab my phone and bag from beside me and start slowly stumbling back into the tree line from the way I came. It was windy. I could feel my loose hair brush passed my face as I walked. I know it sounds crazy, but I swear I heard Dad's voice call my name in the distance. Like the wind had carried it to my line of hearing.

I kept looking behind me. It started to get more clear and I began to feel nauseated and anxious. I looked at the trees around me, and swear I could see shadows running passed in the corner of my eye.

I didn't even notice my phone ringing in my hand as I stop and stare at one certain tree.

A shadow slipped behind it, and finally I saw it in my frontal vision. I rubbed my eyes and open them to an empty forest again. It was gone.
I frown and start to walk slightly faster.

"Carmen!"

I heard it clear. It was beside me this time. I moved into a Sprint. I leapt over broken branches and muddy puddles as I ran. Slowly the voice calling my name became further and further away. The shadows got less clear and by time I reached the edge of the highway again, they were gone.

I lean over and breathe heavily as I try to comprehend what I had just seen and heard.

I sit down next to the road and try to catch my mind and thoughts. I continue to look back into the tree line in hopes to see something again to confirm I wasn't going crazy, but there was nothing. What sort of psychological torment was my mind putting me through?

After a few minutes of tossing small stones onto the highway, I stood up and began to walk back the direction I came from.

What sort of demons in my closet were I dealing with?

I didn't want to see the day I would witness the death of that place. A dirty old hospital to some, but a place of peace to me.

The Fall of Heaven was taking a toll on me.