The sky darkened and the wind picked up. Rain was imminent.
I still have some more time before it starts, she thought. Her long, dark hair flowed behind her, and her feet trembled below her. She looked around and took in the beauty of it all. She had never been this high up before. And I probably never will again, she thought and exhaled.
She closed her eyes and blocked out the rocks and trees around her, and the expanse in front of her. Her mind started replaying her friends ridiculing her. She blocked that out too.
It’s time, she thought.
She took a deep breath, inched a little bit towards the edge, and leaned forward. The earth pulled her down and she embraced it. Her eyes remained closed, and her hair fluttered behind her.
Her hands reached first, and then the rest of her immediately after. She pierced through the surface of the lake and heard faint cheers and claps from somewhere around her, just before getting engulfed by the cool water.
***
‘Whoa, she actually jumped’, the boy exclaimed.
‘Way to go Beth!’, the girl beside him shouted.
A few other friends clapped and cheered behind them.
‘I thought she wouldn’t do it’, one of them said.
They waited for Beth to come back up, but nobody came. The water bubbled and then calmed down. The lake had been hungry and now it was fed.
***
A father and his son after their fishing trip, a few weeks after the jump, said they saw a blob of black hair floating a couple of feet away from their boat. It had floated away and disappeared.
A group of kids on a school trip, a few months after the jump, started screaming when they saw a dark head pop up out of the water on the horizon. Their teachers hadn’t seen anything.
Many people caught glimpses of Beth in the months to come, but her body was never found.
