Accidental Surrogate for Alpha

tfChapter 240 - Vision

Trigger warning: suicidal ideation - please take care!

Ella

I'm about to hoist myself up onto the frozen railing when two robed figures appear on either side of me, their faces both familiar and strange. There's something about them that sets off alarms in my mind, but not the usual kind. It feels as though I'm trying to remember something from another life ... from someone else's life.

I don't have the faintest idea where they came from, and I don't really care. Cora's safe at the orphanage and it's not as if they can do worse to me than what I've already survived. Maybe this is even fate answering my question, giving me a way out in her typical morbid fashion. Perhaps an icy plunge is too easy an end for me, perhaps I must know one final agony before I go. "Are you here to kill me?" I ask in a voice I don't recognize.

"Do you want to die?" One asks, leaning his arms against the icy metal.

"It's not that I want to die.” I hiccup, tears falling from my lashes and freezing against my cheeks. "It's just that I don't want to live if this is all life has to offer... and I’m afraid that this is truly all there is for me. I have no reason to believe otherwise." I shake my head forlornly, "they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. So I would be crazy to think I can keep meeting the sun each morning without inviting more heartache... wouldn’t I?"

'That depends. What you call crazy, others might call hope." The second man replies, making no move to look at or touch me. The three of us simply stare out at the frozen expanse with the same melancholy spirit, watching the river rushing below the ice so far below.

"Hope is a privilege for those born in the light." I reply, not entirely understanding where these words are coming from. "They know that the darkness is only temporary because they don't belong there... but how am I to believe in light when I've never seen it?"

"And if we were to give you a glimpse of the future?" The first man offers." If we were to show you a vision of the life you might have one day, if you find the will to believe despite your experiences?"

turning to look at

brave enough to take the risk." The second

one in a hundred - of the person you might become if you refuse to give up. It is not guaranteed, and it is not entirely

as magic. Perhaps I've lost my mind. Perhaps I’ve already jumped and this is all a

shut my eyes against the glare, but it does not hurt - it does not burn me as

belly is not bloated with hunger, her skin is not lifeless and pale. She's clean and healthy, wearing a dress which must cost more than everything I've

woman is looking at something I cannot see, grinning with an overwhelming joy I can't even begin to understand. In the next moment I see a man more than twice her size, who is as handsome as he is terrifying. He moves with the lethal grace of a predator, and there's a vicious edge to

a rush of pure exuberance bursts into the serene scene, and three bundles of energy come zooming into sight. There's a boy around five years old, who is the spitting image of the huge man. He races forward and crashes into his parents' legs, wrapping his arms around each and grinning mischievously up at them. A pair of toddlers quickly follow, one who appears to

is foreign to me and yet so contagious, merely watching them makes me feel as if I've swallowed the sun. Is that what they feel every day? Is it possible to ever

again they're full of tears. "That’s me?" I

are willing to fight for it.” The second man repeats. "Nothing is handed to us in life, especially not this. It will be a difficult road ahead, but there are rewards at the end

wondering why some people do seem to be handed everything, while others

strong enough to win the fight, but you have to enter it yourself. You have to want to win, Ella."

and walk away, and ten minutes later I don't remember meeting them at all. In fact, I don't remember why I’m out here in the middle of the night or what I'm doing standing on this bridge. Certain I'm going to catch my death from cold, I hurry back to the orphanage and my sister - praying no one noticed

me back to the present, "Come back to us, now." He encourages. 'You

his lips grazing my tear-stained cheek. "I’m