The fall began with a moment of wrongness.
Not panic. Not fear.
Just the sudden knowledge that the ground beneath my feet was no longer trustworthy.
Stone shifted, my balance tipped, and the world seemed to hesitate — as if deciding whether to let me go or give me back. I reached out instinctively, fingers grasping for something solid, but the earth slipped away all the same.
And then I was falling.
The ravine opened beneath me, wide and empty, air rushing past as the world dropped out from under my feet. The sound that tore from my chest wasn’t quite a scream — it was breath being stolen, fear arriving too fast to shape itself.
I struck the slope hard, momentum spinning me sideways. The impact knocked the wind from my lungs, the world blurring into flashes of light and dark as I sli
