Jena was everyone's dearest, undeniably. Men, women and children of all ages gave her a smile and a hello as she did the same with all her pearly teeth showing off to the world to see.
"Good evening Jena! The regular?" The shopkeeper of the small grocery stall asked. Jena closed her eyes and nodded softly with a hum, requesting the shop lady to arrange her basket of fruits and vegetables along with daily commodities.
"There you go."
"Hey, aunt Wills, I actually want to go buy something from the pharmacy really fast. Keep my vegetables aside, would you?"
"Sure dear. But isn't the pharmacy somewhere near to your school? It is miles away, dear!" The older lady exclaimed in concern, looking at one of her favorite costumers. Jena smiled and walked a few steps backwards, starting to wave at the lady
"I am acclimated to walking for miles by now, aunt Wills. I go to college everyday and walk for miles for that, remember? Oh, this completely exited my mind, but I graduated today!" She said, jumping happily in her mind as a few around her wondered how the peasant girl graduated today. The two women spoke for some more and Jena took off to the journey to the pharmacy to buy her mother some medicines.
Her small purse hung by her shoulder as she merrily walked further off from the market and slowly, she was beginning to grow invisible to the village's view.
She has to walk through the rough road built slightly against the valleys of the several hills. It was a tough journey, but neither her nor her parents could afford a horse nor a vehicle for their family because of the scarcity of the vitamin M.
Poverty truly does teach everyone everything that life needs, expect for the ones bought only with the power of money.
Crude rocks and dirt, the roads were mercilessly built at one point of the road. One side was a steep slide and the other had a narrow, edged cliff. The most fatal point of the entire journey, we could say.
Not only Jena but everyone from the village had to swallow their hearts back down at every single step they took on this horribly built structure. No government or kingship authorities ever considered the amount of damage this single several meter road did to the village which had no other connecting thoroughfare.
"Just like everyday, Jena." She said and encouraged herself in a meek voice, the tremble becoming obvious because the roads looked damp.
[SENSITIVE TOPIC AHEAD. MENTIONS OF TRAGEDY. PROCEED WITH CAUTION]
Jena was fully aware of her surroundings.
She adjusted the purse around her shoulder and clutched it with the hand on her chest. She lifted her pastel skirt slightly upwards to watch and make out her steps with precision.
She had been doing this for years together anyways. But why was she feeling so bad about it today? Maybe because not once did the roads looked damp or too dry for her slip, she thinks to herself.
She wasn't capable of controlling her shaky breaths for now, each step being highly calculated and immaculate for her to be safe against the probable damages.
A shiver ran down her spine at the negatives of the situation. Out of curiosity, she peeped down to her right to see the steepest cliff she's never seen all through her journey of the past years.
But what did she never know was a speeding mustang with its reverberations all sounding broken and squeaky. Jena didn't know what to do in that moment.
Neither she could hang herself into the mouths of death by moving to the eight where the edge of the cliff welcomed her, nor she could climb up the dusty steepness of the hill on her left.
She felt her heartbeat rise even before she could process what she was thinking.
Was this what her father was getting so worked up on?
Now it all made sense to her.
How did her father know that something bad was going to happen to her? Maybe the universe was just playing games. She is a strong woman who can tackle any situation in an instant.
But that was what she believes she is, which is nothing wrong about.
The mustang was closing dangerously, there she saw an abandoned tree branch, rooted to the ground strongly, below the cliff.
The road was too narrow for her to possibly keep walking and ignore the rash driving of the mustang, but that wasn't the case here, so she had to adapt.
She sprinted with careful steps to the branch, but it was too late to even reach there.
The mustang squeaked with the brakes being pushed onto forcefully, the back tires screeching along with the entire cabin of the automobile. The inertia was nothing more evil, the mustang's front deck hitting Jena by her legs. Her screams terrorized the entire scene, horrific, scary and painfully blood curdling.
Her balance had long forgiven her for failing her, her body slumping backwards in the air and hitting the road dangerously...before gliding down the cliff.
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"Oh god. Oh God what did we do!!!!!"
The man yelled, frustration reaching its apex and the lady was down on the ground with tears and blood trickling down her forehead.
"I TOLD YOU NOT TO DRIVE SO FAST GEORGE! LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE DONE!" She yelled, her handkerchief wiping the vigorous amounts of tears and snot with shaky hands.
"W-wait...is she- is she dead?" He asked, desperately. The female sensed his concoct.
"N-no...NO!" she protested against his hold. He want the world to know what he had just done, and so, he wanted to silence his wife once an for all.
He raised his hand up, illusioning that he would hurt her and so naturally, she hid herself from the monster. This male in front of her her was no longer her husband.
He was a murderer.
His felonies were silenced, as he wished.
The wife remained silent for years, decades, and until the grave.
The ill fate of Jena Williams was uncalled for, her parents crumbling to the ground upon hearing the news from the authorities of the roads and transport.
Everything flew by so quickly.
But it remained everlasting for her soul.
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Jena woke up at an unfamiliar place, too bright for her tired eyes to open and gaze her surroundings properly. She rubbed her eyes, squinted them, but the light was just too bright.
'Where are my clothes? What am I even wearing?' She spoke to herself.
"Where am I?" Her voice was gruff and dry, her throat out of order and she felt needles pricking inside her throat at every chance it had on her gulping on her scarce saliva.
Wait...
"Am I dead?"