[color=9294FF][center][h1]Petra Davis[/h1][/center][/color] A sudden clap of thunder snapped Petra out of her thoughts, and deep in them as she'd been she had to spend a moment to reorientate herself before taking the opportunity to glance down at the time indicated in the bottom corner of her screen. 4:46. Blanching as she realised just how much she’d let time get away from her, the young woman hurried to close the browser window before giving a furtive glance around the library, feeling a sudden mixture of guilt and anxiety as though she might’ve been spotted with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar. Thankfully, the library was always pretty quiet at this time of day and of the few students that were still around, the majority seemed more concerned with waiting out the rain than in paying even the slightest bit of attention to her, though that didn’t necessarily mean that none of them had noticed… Wait. What was she worried about again? It suddenly occurred to Petra that she hadn’t actually done anything wrong or even particularly out of place given the environment, and if anything, acting the way she was almost certainly more suspicious than anything she’d been doing. Rather than doing anything anyone would find objectionable, she’d more or less simply failed to do the thing she’d promised herself she would – no one would call her out for that at least, though that did little to ease her guilt. Turning her attention to the report she’d come to the library to work on in the first place Petra grimaced. It didn’t even take her a whole minute to read all of what she’d written, it was after all little more than a working title, some sub-headers, and a few sparse notes on the details she intended to eventually include. It wasn’t that she had a problem with the content covered – in fact, she thought the content was pretty awsome – no, the problem was the content was so much more interesting than actually writing the damn paper. If the task had been to talk about the topic, she’d have been able to talk about it all day and then some, but no, they wanted her to write it as a report, with word limits, and specific structuring, and formatting, and all the other things she wasn’t good at. Each and every time she sat down to write something, she inevitably ended up just doing more research into the topic without making any real progress on the paper itself. At least her references would be robust when she finally did the thing. [i]This was fine.[/i] Closing her laptop Petra assured herself she still had a few days before the report was actually due, besides, if history was any indication, panic would set in over the next couple of days and give her the motivation to actually get the work done so making sure she knew her stuff before then was, if anything, probably the best course of action! Petra’s thinly veiled self-deception did nothing to convince her of its truth and she knew full well that she was just trying to make excuses for herself, but that certainly wasn't going to stop her from trying anyway. In any case, it was actually getting pretty late, so excuses or no, she should probably start heading home. Glancing at the window as she packed her bag, Petra couldn’t help but grimace. She’d forgotten about the rain and if the sheet of water currently obscuring any clear view of the outside was any indication, the walk to the station was probably going to be pretty miserable. She briefly considered waiting for the rain to let up a little, but ultimately decided against the idea – she had no idea how long that’d take, and the station wasn’t too far away, besides, it wasn’t like a bit of rain would do her any harm. A flash of colour caught Petra’s attention as something landed outside the window. Was that a bird? From where she stood, Petra could see that it was a tiny red thing, probably not much larger than her fist, though further details were obscured by the rain and condensation. Intrigued, Petra approached the window and slowly pried it open, being careful so as to not spook the bird and completely oblivious to the otherwise obvious annoyance of the student seated behind her. The bird was seemingly unbothered by the heavy rain and Petra both, having perched itself atop a ledge in the building’s façade where it eyed Petra with seeming curiosity. What was it doing up here? Petra had thought smaller birds tended to shelter during rain like this, was she wrong about that or was this particular species unusual? Maybe it was foraging for food? Birds need to feed quite often, right? But if that were the case why up here? There weren’t any nearby parks or gardens that she knew of. Even up close, Petra hadn’t been able to identify the bird’s species – something that kind of bothered her a little since she’d been pretty confident she could identify all the local birds. Oh well, she could try to ID it on the train. Fumbling in her pocket for a moment Petra produced her phone, rising onto the tips of her toes and leaning out to try and get a decent picture of the bird - heedless of both the rain falling onto her and the annoyed student packing his stuff behind her. Almost in sync with the artificial shutter sound of her photo, Petra felt something bump into her from behind. As her body teetered forward dangerously, Petra’s free hand instinctually shot down to catch her fall, only to slip uselessly against the water-slicked tiles. She saw the bird fly off – startled by her sudden movements – and the ground below was rushing up to meet her. … When Petra came to, it was to the sound of sirens. She was lying down flat on her back and seemingly in some kind of vehicle from the jostling – an ambulance judging by the sirens. Each bump in the road sent shooting pain down her arm and back, her head hurt like hell and she felt nauseous too. What had happened? She vaguely remembered something about a bird and… oh that was right, she’d gotten carried away and done something stupid causing her to fall out a window. This situation was entirely her doing. Opening her eyes Petra confirmed that she was in fact in an ambulance. She tried to sit up but the movement only served to send a wave of pain shooting throughout her body and to prompt one of the paramedics to gently hold her down lest she exacerbate her injuries – not that the gesture was necessary, she’d given up on moving the moment she’d started trying. “Good you’re awake, that’s a good sign. You’ve had a pretty nasty fall, but we’re taking you to the hospital. You’re going to be fine. Okay?” The paramedic’s voice was gentle, clearly intended to be reassuring. After a moment Petra managed to give him a grunt that she hoped sounded at least mostly affirmative, the action triggering another burst of pain, though at a far more manageable level than when she’d tried to move. It was kind of funny really, she could do something egregiously careless and stupid and then not suffer any lasting consequences for it. Just another one of the wonders of modern science. Not that she’d complain about that; as far as she was concerned the less she or anyone else had to suffer the better – even if they were only suffering the consequences of their own stupidity. The paramedic started to say something else, but he never got to finish, his words interrupted by the horn of a truck. Petra felt the ambulance swerve violently to the side and then she felt something hit the vehicle even harder. As she watched one side of the ambulance cave in towards her time seemed to slow to a crawl to Petra and she couldn’t help but think that this situation was unfair; she’d just been told she was going to be fine and there was so much more she wanted to learn and discover! She hadn’t even gotten to learn what species that bird was… Petra's body was mangled and crushed beyond recognition.