Broken - Flash Fiction Entry Winner

She awoke to the crescendo drone of helicopter blades. The cloudless day that beckoned her to try her first solo free climb had yielded to the dark as she slept.

She clenched her teeth as the pain came in waves from her broken body. It had not been a bad dream, after all. The rock, the betrayer, in whose firmness and strength she had entrusted her life, had come to rest against a nearby tree, as content in its new home as it had been in its stone wedge 60 feet higher. She remembered it floating in front of her against a backdrop of vivid autumn leaves as the earth rushed at them from below.

The flashing LEDs on her portable radio pierced the night, dividing time into bright, monochromatic moments. She gazed up at the cliff that had conquered her so easily, raising doubts where there had been none, robbing her of the independence her new hobby had come to represent. She remembered the dozens of times she had reached the top with Charlie. The wind, the undulating trees in valley below, the hawks floating, effortlessly, cradled in the gentle updraft. A natural high unlike any other she had experienced before.

"Are you sure you're ready?" she could hear him say when he called that morning to tell her about the cold that had come on the night before, precluding him from their weekly Saturday morning climb. Of course, she had replied. She was born ready. She had been annoyed by his protests. What was there to worry about?

The helicopter's searchlight fell across her at last. She felt illuminated on a stage, unable to see the laughing crowd beyond delighting in her failure. She found herself wishing for the dark curtain of unconsciousness, which never came.

Word count: 298
Prompt: Write a story that includes the words: radio, dark, teeth