Angela awoke when her head hit a rocky outcropping. Was she falling? She didn’t remember. Her eyes fluttered open, heat licking her cheeks and forehead. What she saw frightned her.
What happened? How did I get here?
It all came flooding back to her. Her best friend trying to help, her overdose. She realized now that her hair wasn’t black anymore. It was her natural strawberry blonde. And she wasn’t wearing her black clothes. She was in a white dress. As her vision cleared more, she realized she was dead. Surrounding her was jagged cliffs, spires of black onyx jutted towards the sky. But there was no sky. Only billowing clouds of ash. Flames sprang from either side of her perch there on the side of the mountain.
She tried to save me, Angela thought to herself. I should have listened.
“No time for self-pity now, my darling,” came a booming voice from the clouds. “You have to get to work! No breaks here!” There was a whip crack, the mountain shook, and she was falling again.