Triple Trouble Double Dead

It was beautiful that day. The sun shined bright, the air was warmer than it had been the past few months, and all around it just seemed better. Autumn Strekker was dancing in the field, singing and frolicking with the creatures she found. With her was her cousin Eloise, and though the girls were nine years apart they could still think the same way. The two girls spin in circles, eventually falling to the ground giggling. They loved it, the bliss that came with the day, and the clean air that smelled so fresh. Slightly damp, but beautiful.

“That cloud looks like a butterfly,” Autumn says, pointing at the sky. For a moment Eloise squints her eyes, then she smiles and agrees. “The one next to it is a rose,” Autumn continues, and Eloise joins in on the game. Sometimes they didn’t see the same thing, but it was amusing them. The giggles and laughter coming from them would fuel a car. Eloise flips onto her stomach, and soon Autumn does the same. Nose to nose, they giggle again and begin to talk about their friends, the blades of grass.

“Why hello Mr. Greeny-Shmeeny-Bobeeny-Leeny-Heeny,” Eloise says, rubbing her finger over a piece of grass. “Where is your wife? Oh, you had another child? Greeny Weeny Beeny Dadeeny Speeny?” Autumn smiles, and plucks the blade out of the ground. “Hey!” Eloise says, grabbing it and carefully placing it back on the ground. When it doesn’t go in, she sits up. The girls eventually stand and go to a tree. “Let’s climb it!” Eloise recommends, and Autumn hooks a foot over the bottom branch.

“Come on,” she says, helping Eloise up after her. Branch after branch, the girls get higher. “This is so fun, we’re going to touch the sky!” Autumn yells. The girls continue to giggle as they get higher, until the branches begin to get thinner and wobbly. Eloise wants to go back down, but Autumn doesn’t let her. “Are you scared?” she asks, taunting the eight-year-old a branch below her.

“No! Of course I am not!” To prove her point, Eloise jumps onto the next branch, which wobbles and creeks. “Autumn…” she says, looking down then back up at the sky. “Autumn I’m scared now.” Autumn laughs, and keeps climbing, thinner and thinner. Eloise gets closer to the trunk and carefully follows, until she hears the snap. She screams, believing it to be her own branch that was giving away, until a body comes flying down past her, the familiar voice of her daydreaming cousin screaming for help. But no one could help. She would break a leg, Eloise believes, but fear wipes over her still. “Autumn!”

She looks down. They had gotten very far up on a very high tree. From below, her cousin’s body makes a terrible thump, but from above, Eloise can barely hear it. Someone does come, takes a look at Autumn and begins to yell at Eloise to come down. If only she was a climber! She was stuck up there, but no one could help her. Maybe one of those light, monkey girls that were everywhere around here could come up and get her down. But there was no way Eloise was going to jump or crawl or anything.

After a few minutes of being yelled at by a handful of adults and a peacekeeper, she begins to get scared. If she went down that peacekeeper was going to be angry. Autumn was not moving, she was still slumped in the position the man moved her into. Her head looked funny. The peacekeepers yells, loud and clear, for her to come down, but she does not. Had Autumn died in the fall? A bird lands next to her on the branch, and she stares at it. It bounces once. Twice. Another bird lands on it and the branch creeks. A third birds, and it breaks.

Screaming, Eloise falls down, down, down, certain to die or break too many bones to count. But at the perfect moment she slams into a thicker branch. Oof, is all she can say as she is stuck on a lower branch, maybe five meters from the ground. Her wrist was sprained now, but otherwise she was safe and she would get down fine. The peacekeepers begins to threaten her to come down and Eloise understands. He thought she was being rebellious by not listening to him. “Is she…” Eloise begins to ask, and the man holding her cousin nods. Oh, the horror that follows.

Cousin Common joins by asking what was happening, only to be shaken off by the peacekeeper He yells at her once, twice, before giving her a good smack on the head with his rifle. Eloise yells at him to stop, tumbling forward and onto the ground, hitting her head and snapping something. Common runs to her, but the peacekeeper knocks the girl off. Then she snaps, yelling at the peacekeeper. “She is eight!” and “She was stuck!” are the things she focuses on, but she does not refrain from insulting the peacekeeper. Over and over and over. A shot. Eloise yells again, scrambling for her cousin, but the lights go out before she ever reaches them.



[Autumn and Common Strekker are now dead. Eloise has a broken left arm, a sprained wrist, and one heck of a headache.]