Question... how old do you think Corlett is? I haven't decided yet...
My mom once told me that falling into water at the height that I was at, was the same thing as falling onto solid concrete. Either way, you go splat.
I could feel the wind rushing past me for several seconds as I fell before I finally hit the river below. The impact almost made me black-out, but the icy water prevented that.
Chaos.
I couldn't keep my head above water, and the rapids pushed me under making the sharp-edged rocky bottom of the river scrape my legs and back. I tried to swim up for air, but in the midst of the confusion, I lost all sense of direction. For all I knew, I was swimming to my death.
The few times my head touched the top, I was yanked down again. The river pulled me downstream… at least I thought that it was. My lungs ached for air. As I was pushed down I thought, I'm not going to die, I'm gonna live! Screw this!I instinctively used my legs to push off the bottom and propel myself upward. My head broke through the surface and I gasped for air, just before it pulled me under again. It seemed to go on like that forever, until the water started to get deeper.
Each time I went under it was about six inches deeper than before, and that made it harder to come up for air. The fourth time I went down when it was deep, I didn't touch the bottom. I feebly swam upward but to no prevail. A humming sound vibrated though the water.
The current got stronger. I saw a flash of olive-green.
Then I was falling.
Finally I could breathe, but all of the air that came in went out in a scream. I hit the water again, and all of the air in my lungs went out from the impact. The water was so deep that I almost drowned… but then again, I had been almost drowning the entire time. I kicked my legs weakly upward. There was no current or rapids anymore, so now there were no bubbles to cloud my vision. Light streamed down through the dark water, but my lungs burned. I didn't have any air in my lungs. I fought the instinct to gasp for breath and frantically kicked my legs to propel myself upward.
I didn't go far though. My vision clouded as my mouth opened, the water rushing in. The instant pain only lasted for a second.
Darkness.
ÕÕÕ
Peace.
My consciousness floated about. All of my worries had vanished. Maybe death wasn't so bad?
Abruptly my peace was ripped away from me. No! Peace, come back to me! I thought desperately, struggling to go back to that sacred place. I was torn back to my body when a deep, aching pain spread up my torso. Something whacked my chest repeatedly. I felt my lungs lift involuntarily and my heart thrust. I coughed, water spewing from my mouth.
It took a moment for all of my senses to come back to me. I smelled smoke.
"-re alive," I heard a male voice sigh with relief. It made my head hurt. I tried to open my eyes. They seemed reluctant though. Where was I again?
Memories flooded back to me, and my eyes snapped open. I jolted upright into a sitting position. My kidnappers must have found me, but they were nowhere in sight.
Instead, there was a boy around my age with shaggy blond hair and soul-piercing evergreen eyes. He had an uncanny resemblance to the blond haired man in Legends of the Four Worlds. The same feral shaped eyes, muscular build, tan, and his strong gaze, though there were some differences. His eyes weren't blue, the shape of his head was more like an oval, and he had a ferocious look in his eyes, that was definitely not in the illustration of the blue-eyed guy in the book. He wore strange ragged brown clothing and a silly green Santa's elf cap that exposed extremely humongous pointy ears.
There was a lake by us, and a few feet away, a dying fire. In the distance you could see two floating buildings over the lake, one connected by a bridge that was linked between various islands peppered in the water.
I scrambled to my feet unsteadily and bolted away from my captor, but before I knew it, I was tackled to the ground. A whimper of pain escaped me.
"You are not going anywhere missy! You are definitely not healthy enough to be running anywhere," I heard him say in my ear. He put an arm under my legs and my neck and picked me up. He started to walk back to his camp, cradling me like an infant. I felt a surge of anger. How dare he save me?! I was happy! I was at peace! It was my time to die! If he was going to take that from me and then treat me like this… well, he certainly had shit coming for him! I somehow wriggled my hand out from his crushing embrace and slapped him. Shock flitted across his features.
"Oh ho ho! I knew that love hurts but you really make that point clear, don't you? Just because you like me doesn't mean that you have to show it!" He said. My face turned bright red from anger.
"I don't like you! I hate your guts! Put me down NOW!"
"Hate is just another word for a fiery passion…" He laughed. My face probably looked like a tomato by now.
"I do not have a fiery passion for you!" I screeched.
"So you don't hate me? I'm flattered really. All the other girls who fall at my feet really aren't as designated to show their love like you," He chuckled. He put me onto the front something white and fuzzy. A horse. I screamed and fell of the monster in terror. I hate horses. They have gigantic teeth that could bite off my hand at any second and they are super smart. I scooted away from the monstrous animal.
"What? Oh… Hmn… I hadn't known that 'falling for you' was so literal…" He said and picked me right back up. He put me right back on the horse and stuck his hand into a tiny bag (it was the size of an apricot) and started to pull and pull. In his hand he grasped a thick rope. He just kept pulling yards of rope out of the itty bitty bag. I jumped off of the horse again but landed on my butt.
"I'm afraid of horses you idiot!" I screeched. He looked up curiously from cutting the rope.
"Why? They are the most amazing creatures around here," He said. "Except for wolves…" He tacked on. I glowered at him, but his expression made my glaring almost pitiful. I quoted Sherlock Holmes.
"They are dangerous at both ends and crafty in the middle," He shook his head in amazement and waltzed over to me. He grabbed my hand and set it on the white horse's snout. I flinched. It's going to bite me. It'sgoingtobitemeit'sgoingtobiteme. I thought. He put his calloused palm over the top of my hand and dragged my hand up and down the mare's snout. She whinnied and nudged my face, demanding for more attention.
"See? She isn't going to hurt you," He murmured. I couldn't believe it! Sherlock lied to me, the jerk. Though I still felt apprehensive. I had been scared of horses before the movie came out, and just because this one horse seemed friendly enough, doesn't mean that all horses are. He led me to the side and again put me on the mare. He got on behind me.
"Do I still need to tie you to Day?" He asked. He was going to tie me to his horse?
"No…" I replied questioningly.
"Alright then," He replied. "Heeya!" He kicked the sides of his horse and then everything around us blurred. I almost fell off, but he grabbed onto my waist.
The wind blew my hair back and into this guy's face. I still didn't know his name… but that didn't matter.
Because despite the bobbing, jerking motion underneath me, I was free.
Yay! I'm already done with this chapter? Sorry it's shorter than the others. My sister insisted to end this chapter here. I hope you like it! the quicker you review the quicker I update!
