A Choice

Written as a companion piece to "That the Blind Might See" .  This is from Skie's point of view and was actually written first.

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Am I alive? Skie wondered.  She felt nothing. No pain, no fear.  The fall from the top of the falls had to have been at least a hundred meters.  Had she succeeded?  Failure was not an option: escape, even death, was her only goal.  The battle with her inner demons, the voices, the veiled visions of a place she had never seen, but knew as home.  She could no longer live in one world, wishing she were in another.

"You're alive." The tiny voice tickled the hairs on the back of her neck, as if the words had been carried upon the faint breeze. Skie’s eyes fluttered open at the sound. The sun’s glow was overwhelming in its brightness, and she waited for her eyes to adjust. 

Skie frowned. Day had long since fallen to night when she’d leapt from the dam’s edge; she’d not intended to see daylight again. Surprised, she realized the darkness had not lifted at all, yet rich colors emerged in her vision as easily as if it were noonday: the midnight blue of the sky, the fresh spring green of the grass at her feet, the deep red of the mountains stretching above her head. Her eyes were opened to a new world.  Skie examined herself with the new vision.  Her clothing remained unchanged, but her skin radiated an unearthly glow, emitting the faintest blue light.

Skie glanced to her side to the owner of the voice.  She saw another woman, a possessor of an unearthly beauty Skie couldn’t understand. The woman’s ebony skin emitted a lavender glow, complimented by a lime green pixie cut and glowing violet eyes.  She wore very little, only what looked like a small leather tunic and skirt, both tied at her sides with leather thongs.  Skie stared in awe at the appendages sprouting from her back.  They resembled nothing so much as a cloud of green smoke, gently shifting to and fro in the breeze, vaguely coalescing in the shape of wings.

"Like what you see?" the woman teased.

Skie blushed. "You're....beautiful," Skie responded, incapable of more eloquence. "What are you?"

The woman smiled mischievously.  Skie raised her eyebrows in confusion. "I am that which you long for every night as you fall asleep, that which you see in all your dreams but forget come morning, that for which you yearn so greatly that you longed to abandon life rather than live it without."

Skie could only stare, mesmerized by the woman’s eyes. The woman stood, reaching her hand for Skie's.  "Now is your moment of truth, Skie. You can die here, never knowing what might be, or you can let me show you things you never imagined."

For what felt like the first time in her life, Skie smiled.  She took the woman’s hand, released her fear, and flew.