Barefoot, she stepped lightly across the roof, minding the sharp tiles and keeping to the shadows cast by the night's ghost moon.
The apartment building - twenty stories high - stood on the edge of a cliff; the edge of the city and indeed the whole country of her origin. It felt wondrous to stand so high at the end of a nation so great.
Walking, filled with passion, she gripped the pearl necklace that never left her throat. It was the only reason she could do what she could. Passed down by her grandmother, the elderly woman who lived with her inside room number 200. One floor below, that woman lit the oil lamp in her bedroom and opened the curtain slightly, awaiting the fligh of her granddaughter.
The girl walked carefully, until she stood at the end of the long building facing the sea, and felt the roar of the tide against the rocks so many feet below her. She felt the glory of the night, and happiness filled her heart, with only one small thing that saddened her. If only I knew another who could fly along with me, she though, I wouldn't be so lonely amidst the sky. Behind her, her white chiffon dress flapped in the cold night wind.
Then slowly, raising her arms until they were tall above her head, her face was hit by a beam of moonlight, and she dived.
Down, falling she went, her hair as straigh as a sword behind her, she fell towards the rocks below, before pulling up at the last second, smiling as the wind picked her up. She screamed with delight as she rode the wind. "Be careful Alexa," the grandmother warned, before she shut the curtain and went to bed.
Carefree was the only feeling Alexa had inside her as she leapt amongst the breaths of the Earth, laughing as she soared out towards the ocean; twirling, diving, dancing. A hundred miles went past in the flurry of her freedom, away from her homeland and the terrors of normal life where every snatching hand could take away that necklace. There was nothing to stop her at night, alone in the ocean. No criminal to take her, no bully to whip her, no rules to prevent her from flying away from all her troubles.
Yet the wanderlust that took hold of her distracted her from the danger ahead. A typhoon, twisting and heartless, was roaring towards the city, wanting to punish it for taking over the body of his Brother Earth. Slapping the sides of Brother Water, on he went. Brother Water was useless; he simply tapped the shoulder of Brother Earth and sent empty threats to the people.
Alexa only saw the typhoon when it was too late. Her recent cries of joy became cries of fear, as she tried to stop herself from getting caught in the typhoon's fist. "Sister, save me!" she exclaimed, praying that the goddess would take her from this place, back home. She had gone too far, there would be no one to save her.
Then suddenly she choked, for the wind had taken hold of the necklace and was using it to strangle her. She would die if she didn't take it off, but she mustn't lose it, never! Desperately, she tried to take it off and succeded. Holding onto it tightly, she tried to ride the wind away, but the typhoon was too strong. She felt herself losing consciousness, she would lose both the pearl and her life at that place...
The necklace then left her hand as she became too weak to hold it. High up in the sky and no longer without that pearl, Alexa plunged into the cold hard ocean, shattering herself as the force knocked the air from her lungs. Slowly, she drifted further underwater, the world disappearing from her mind...
When what looked to be a ghost came towards her, and she realised it was a boy about her age, and as he reached out, he gripped her arm tightly. Confused, she tried to read his face, but then it all defeated her, as she passed out.
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