The sand flung around, her hands slipping on the rough wall as she tried her hardest to stop. Her fingers dug into the sand, but it didn’t do anything.

She tried to use her magic, pulling the air around her to slow the fall, but nothing changed. Exhaustion quickly overcame her, and she felt the rough sand ripping around her fingers, giving way for gravity to sweep her into the endless void.

This is… fucked up…

I’m gonna die either by hitting the bottom of this, or starvation if I believe this thing doesn’t have a bottom. Honestly, not that far-fetched, at this point. I just slipped off a magical ice bridge after consoling my crush about someone else possibly killing herself.

This way to go kinda sucks… if I really had to die at this age, was it really necessary for me to do it here? Nobody’s gonna find my body, my friends are gonna work through it and move on, and probably forget about me when they leave.

I never confessed. I think that’s what I’m most annoyed about. Maybe I was hoping to, when we got out. Maybe before then. Probably not, actually. I really would’ve liked to have a chance at it, though.

She fell for probably 2 or 3 minutes, absorbing her own thoughts about the situation, before a burst of noise rang through the pit, echoing bottom up.

Hey… It’s kinda been ages since I fell, and that came from even further down… Is it really bottomless? This has taken longer than it would even take for a skydiver to hit the ground with no parachute.

Amity used her magic again, attempting to light up the surroundings with a flame, but it extinguished immediately.

Right, the whole falling at like 140 miles an hour thing.

Water this time. It formed, but it didn’t carry the inertia from her fall.

Note to self: If I don’t die, magic doesn’t carry my momentum.

Maybe a healing power would up her magic strength?

Nope, doesn’t work on myself. Hard to remember when I could die at any time.

She finally tried wind again.

It’s not exactly slowing me down, but… I can still the air around me. A shield, or something.

Using a shield of wind, so she can actually open her eyes properly, she pressed a fire out.

The surroundings weren’t quite sand anymore. There was a hollow network of pipes and wires around the sides, and a bit further into it, a few catwalks. They were mostly inactive, and hard to focus on because, y’know, she’s falling at hundreds of mph.

A second bang, similar to the first but noticeably closer, forced upwards through the rising air, slowing her somewhat.

A third followed, shortly after the second one.

A fourth.

They sped up, becoming quicker and lighter as she fell further and further.

“What the… fuck?”Yet another bang, and something extended out beneath her. Quite far down, but she could still see it.

Great, an escape, of a kind.

She accepted it, not trying to move away from the lightly colored platform awaiting her.

The soft bangs of shoes hitting metal echoed in the tight space.

She managed to open her eyes.

What… the fuck? I don’t think… I died..?

A hand touched the cold metal of the railings. Soft footsteps. A door creaked open.

“God damn it… More trash… Fuckin’ royals, using our labs as trash cans… Why is this my job… I gotta-”

A man in a lab coat stepped out from the door, just as Amity got her footing again.

“Uh, hello! Who are you?”

“I’m… Amity. What about you?” She brushed herself off, sand having gotten all over her through the fall.

“Oh, I’m Dr. Morton. Are you okay? How did you get here?” He tentatively tracked towards the teen.

“Better than I thought I would be, falling for like 6 minutes…”

“YOU FELL FROM THE SURFACE?” His clipboard fell from the shaking hands.

“Uh, yes, I did. Do you know how I’m not uhh, dead, by the way?”

“I’m not quite… Do you wanna come inside and sit down? I’m working alone on this level.” He picked up the clipboard, opening the door to allow her in.

“Sure.”

A cold cushion molded itself beneath her as she sipped on a cup of tea.

“So, what exactly happened?” Morton loaded his clipboard with a new sheet of paper.

“I slipped from a bridge on the surface, and I just fell. I couldn’t really use magic to sto-”

“You have magic? You look human… No offense.”

“None taken, I am. We found an old book that advised injecting a solution of neutral medium and water, and now, when I hold any other medium, I can use magic.”

“Interesting… I’d never heard of this. We don’t get humans every day here.” Pencil on paper scratched unending through their ears.

“Anyway, I fell for probably 6 minutes, but it’s hard to keep track of time when you could die at any second.”

“Understandable” He continued scrawling notes on the paper.

“I couldn’t slow myself with wind, and it wasn’t really feasible to slam myself into an ice wall to stop, so…”

“So…?”

“I mean, I kinda just thought it was the end, y’know? Stupid slip because of a root cause consisting entirely of myself.”

“Hey, are you… okay? Most people aren’t like, indifferent to realizing they’re about to die.” He took the paper off the clipboard and slotted a new one in place of it.

“I’m fine, it just had time to settle in, and it became a little unreal to me, I guess.”

“That’s still concerning… You’re the human that dealt with The Broken Divine a while ago, right? Breaking out a few others?”

“Y- Yes, actually… Is my name well known?” The last few drops of tea slipped from the mug to her mouth.

“Not well known outside of the facility, but this place is technically a part of that group, so you’re probably the most well known person here.”

“That… is quite disconcerting!”

Amity placed the now empty mug on the table beside her, and stood from the chair.

“Is there a way for me to get up, to the surface?”

“I… think there is. I’m going to hand you a few papers, and I need you to look at them when you’re back on the surface. For now, step on the landing outside.”

Morton turned away from her, and reached into a drawer. He pulled out a few sheets of paper, some with decoration and color print, others a stark black on white. Between them, a small index card with hastily written text from the same pencil he was logging Amity’s thoughts with.

The door creaked open, and Amity sat patiently, back towards the railing keeping her from falling down again.

“Here you go. Please, look at all of them when you reach the top again.”

“Thanks.”

A bang echoed from below her, shaking the landing.

A second bang, and her hair floated in the still air this far down.

A third, lifting the cold hand from the equally cold railing and sending her slowly up.

Amity corrected her angle almost automatically, her feet pointing towards the new bottom, gravity switched from her usual perspective.