I watched 'Bridge to Terabithia' on an aeroplane back from Tanzania thinking that it'd be a lovely light hearted fantasy. By the end I was almost in tears and desperate not to cry in case an airhostess wanted to know what was wrong. Typical.

Disclaimer: Don't own it, the characters I mean, nor the movie. I guess the Nixaquas are mine but whatever

Fragility

He let the tears fall without regard and watched as the fragile droplets of water fell into the river, making no available sound over the hissing roar as it foamed over the rocks, forcing its way through the earth, cutting itself a path.

This…this was what had killed her. A person you could strike out at. Hurt. Take revenge. You could not hurt water. It was alive, but not in a human sense. It did not breathe. It could not be killed. It was living enough to move, to take life but it could not be punished. It could not be blamed.

It was natural therefore for the blame to turn inwards. Someone had to be responsible for her death. You cannot blame the one who has died. She never intended the rope to snap. She never intended to hit her head. She never intended for the water to fill her lungs, choking her, slowly take her life with malicious intent.

Jesse scrambled back from the water, eyeing it suspiciously. How could something that looked so harmless be so deadly?

What would Leslie have said about it if he had been the one to die? No…that sounded wrong. She wouldn't have said anything. The fantasies and illusions only worked if there were the two of them, together. But if in some strange paradox she had been able to comment on her death, he was sure she'd say something like…

'It was the Nixaquas. Strange half shark, half human, creatures that lurk under the surface of water. They work for the Dark Master. He was furious at our interference so, at his bidding, as I took the rope they grabbed me and held me under the water. Now the Terabithians are in mourning for their queen. Their spirit is broken and they no longer have the will to fight. You must return Jesse for you are their King and they need you!'

Jesse scrubbed at his eyes ruthlessly. It was no use thinking of that. Look where indulgence in fantasies and imaginary lands had got them. There was no Dark Master he could blame for her death, only himself and his overwhelming selfishness.

If only Terabithia were real. No Queen of such a land would be able to die without leaving a trace. He would've been able to talk to her, better yet, bring her back.

It had all seemed so real though. Overwhelmingly so. He'd fallen from that branch…what had caught him? Was their make-believe so perfect that he only imagined that he'd slipped? That they'd imagined that black, grunting figure? The battles? The troll? The leaping, running, climbing?

"Get your head out of the clouds boy," Jesse whispered to himself, watching the dark water swirling, tugging at trailing plants on its surface like it must have tugged at her.

Furiously he snatched the tubes of paint out of his pocket. Her gift to him. It made him sick to think of. Angrily he unscrewed the lids and tossed them into the liquid death. He squeezed the life from the tubes, watching the souls spread out in their bright colours, and disperse in curling threads, until the current took them too.

Life was colour.

Death was black and white.

These colours had painted their world and now died with her, as she had died. Swallowed up by the river.

If he could have just been there…he could have saved her, and they would've laughed…or he could have died with her like his parents had feared.

Life was a strange concept. Something that was fragile. It could disappear so easily and hurt so many with its absence.

"Never," he whispered to himself. "Never…"

Never what?

Never be selfish again? Was that possible?

Never lose anyone again? Who dictated that?

Or never again love someone so much that their death could hurt him?

Jesse bent his head over the water, his breathing hard, sobs catching as he desperately tried to swallow the lump rising in his throat.

Sometimes it seemed that life should just stay still for a moment, that it should stand and pay its respects to one that it had recently been robbed of, that was so full of it and added so much to it that the air around them glowed with the sparks thrown off from their joy at simply breathing.

Yet life still went on and at a horribly sluggish pace so that the very air seemed to be suffocating, and there he was only one way he could remember to beat that…

Jesse got to his feet and started to walk, faster, and faster and then he just let the desire break free in an explosion of speed until he was running through the woods, letting the trees rip past him in a multicoloured blur and leaving the pain to follow behind at a slower pace. He knew that when he stopped it would catch up to him and engulf him again but for now he was just free to run…