I know it's been forever!! I'm working on it okay! I don't want to give up on this story because I LOVE IT SO MUCH! So read review, do you thing whatever, and I'll get crackin' on the next chapter. See you later, kids!
3 Jennibelle
P.S I decided to edit it a little bit because this chapter is a teeny bit confusing. Thanks AngelicPirate for pointing that out!! EEh! Well I'll just tell you that the chapter switches from Bea falling to jungle floor to later that day Bea sitting at the Ciudad...hope that clears things up for people! Sorry! Anyways...read on...and I'll get crackin on the next one, but I so have to write a history paper write now...ugh shoot me.
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I watched the crackling fire in a semi-conscious daze. I still couldn't quite comprehend what had happened to me that day. Nothing from the past few days seemed real, but if it was a dream I would've woken up by now, right? I curled my legs to my body and rested my chin on my knees, still staring at the blaze. I was sitting alone on the jungle floor, trying to distance myself from the rest of the older group of the Ciudad. They were sitting in a group discussing something…most likely me. It wasn't like I received the warmest, most golden welcome possible…or maybe it was the way I reacted to them…who knows? I brought my mind back, for the millionth time that night, to earlier that day.
The last thing I remember seeing before I plummeted through the canopy was Peter clutching his bloody shoulder with a look of confused anguish on his face. His eyes were locked on mine as the green forest swallowed me up. I crashed through the branches and the pain of it seemed to bring me back, the blazing inferno going on inside of my mind stopped abruptly. I reached out and tried to grab random branches on my way down, but all this awarded me was a pair of bloody hands. Then…BOOM! Out like a light. I suppose I must have hit my head on a particularly large branch or bumped into a tree trunk, but whatever it was knocked me out. Which was great because by then I'd definitely spent more time on the island unconscious than anything.
Thirty stories and several broken bones later, I landed sprawled on my back. The impact knocked me out of my unconscious state somehow and I opened my eyes to a very blurry world. Pain was rampant throughout my body. I couldn't feel my arms or my legs, and my back twisted at a strange angle. I lay there for a while looking up at the forest greenery, realizing that I couldn't sit myself up. I couldn't feel my body.
I started to cry, but I don't think it was because of the pain. I thought I was dying. I thought that these would be the last moments I'd ever spend on this crazy island. That thought, more than anything, scared me the worst. I felt had something to finish and if I didn't, everything I'd done in the past would be in vain.
I thought of my rescuer, Peter, the way he held me, like he'd done it so many times before that. I thought of his smooth skin, his wild dirty-blonde hair, and those eyes, those beautiful blue eyes. I opened my tear soaked eyes, and the realization that I couldn't wipe the tears away made me cry louder. I don't know how long I lay there before I realized what was going on around me.
Like I said, my vision was blurry and I couldn't see very well. I thought the sparkling around me was the blurred sun shining through the canopy or something, but when it didn't go away after a while…I panicked…Was I dying?! Were those little glinty things angels taking me to Heaven…or was I going to Hell?! "Damnit! I knew I should've let Caroline take me to church more often!" But the lights didn't go away, they just got brighter. I closed my eyes, giving up and inviting what I thought to be inevitable death.
I sat on the dusty ground, still staring into the bright orange flame feeling its warmth settle into my bones. The heat reminded me of the strange moment when I realized that I wasn't going to die. I remembered music; something like panpipes or maybe chimes. I couldn't be sure. I remember opening my eyes and seeing nothing but light. Something whispered in my ear, "Shhh…" The warm breath made me drowsy so I closed my eyes once again. The music grew louder and I felt a tingling moving up through my legs followed by a heat, not unlike the heat from the fire. My breathing grew deep and the heat slowly worked its way from my toes to overtake my body, all the while the music went on. The warmth seemed to flow to the tips of my hair…and then it broke. The music stopped and I exhaled, opening my eyes.
The green jungle canopy welcomed me with all of its greeny sharpness. The world was clear once again and everything seemed normal again. The birds were chirping, and the light was gone. I sat up and looked into the bush immediately in front of me. I couldn't be sure if it was my imagination or not, but I could have sworn that I saw a face smiling at me for the briefest moment before something crashed through the bush. In a blur of motion, the face was gone. It was replaced instead by a rag-tag looking bunch of teenagers.
I shifted a little and leaned against the base of a tree. I hadn't moved since earlier that afternoon and my butt was falling asleep. The discussion far to my right had apparently grown heated. Yelling caused me to look over. An Asian looking girl with black dreadlocks was standing up and screaming into the face of a freckled, red-headed guy. She was yelling something about me being ungrateful and a hassle already or something and then she was screaming off in a tangent at no one in particular about me attracting the Other Kind with my unsightly hair or something or other. I looked around the rest of the group and caught Deryk's eyes looking at my own. I looked away sharply, feeling a prickle of annoyance and anger.
Deryk had stepped out of the middle of the group of teens. He knelt down in front of me with a concerned expression on his face, "Are you okay?" He asked…rather stupidly, I might add.
"Oh yeah Deryk, I'm just great. I almost got hit by a freaking arrow, and I just fell three thousand feet! You do realize that this is entirely your fault right?" The group behind Deryk bristled and started to move foreword, but he stopped them. He tried to give me a hand to help me get up, but I rejected it and stood up myself. After attempting to brush off my very dirty body, I looked up to survey the group of teens. Immediately I felt the tension. Apparently I said something that was a complete faux pas. All six of them were shooting daggers at me with my eyes…well except the one on the end. He was kind of laughing. "What?" I shrugged at them.
The dredlocked Asian immediately got all up in my face, "Do you realize what just happened?! There's not even a scratch on you. Deryk saved your life!"
Very affronted I pushed her off slightly, a gesture which caused a gasp from her posse. "From what I can gather…Deryk almost killed me! First he tries to push me off his balcony and then he shoots the one person trying to rescue me from this HELL!" I screamed the last word in her face, and I won't lie, I probably inadvertently spat on her a few times. Remembering the blood and the look on Peter's face made me angrier still. I whirled around to face Deryk, "Why did you have to shoot him anyway?! You could have killed him! You could have killed me! What if you missed?!" I was speaking fast again, but I made sure Deryk caught every word.
"Bea, you don't understand. The island's dangerous. We've had three disappear from our numbers since we discovered Them," his eyes were serious and his tone grave. "Most of Them have learned to avoid the limits of the Ciudad, but we still have to be alert!" Deryk didn't have to explain who They were. I could guess from the way he said it, They included anything on the island that was remotely less than human, which made me angrier still.
"Oh shut up Deryk. Them? Puh-lease. You seem to be pretty friendly with 'Them' yourself," I looked him dead in the eye. He knew what I was talking about. I'm sure he's had plenty of run-ins with the island's Pixies. He had even thought I was one of them!
But Deryk took my hands in his and looked me dead in the eye and said, "Bea I don't know what you're talking about, but we have to get you out of here. It's not safe." From then on I knew I couldn't trust him. I wretched my hands from his grasp and pushed my way through the group. I didn't really have any idea where I was going, but I trudged through anyway. I found a beaten path and followed it to what I knew to be the Ciudad. I sat myself near a tree on the outskirts of the clearing and tried to ignore the prying eyes of the cities residents. There I sat in silence for the rest of the day. I didn't even say a word when a little blonde girl was sent to light a fire in the pit in front of me. The moment I made eye contact with her, she winced and ran away.
I don't know what it was that made me come back here. Maybe it was the idea that Lee thought I was supposed to stay here. If he came looking for me to take me away, this is where he would look first. Staring into the fire, I didn't notice the boy approach until he was right next to me. I looked up expecting to see Deryk and expecting to yell again, but it was one of the boys from the group in the jungle. He was the one that seemed to find the confrontation hilarious. He extended a hand that grasped a very ragged looking blanket, "We weren't expecting and visitors, m'lady. So with regret I inform you that you're going to have to sleep on the floor this fine evening." His Australian accent sounded mocking but he was pleasant-faced enough for me to disregard this.
I snatched the blanket from his hands and spread it out beside me. I prepared to lay myself down, but I realized that the boy hadn't left yet. I tipped my head back to look up at him and in an equally mocking tone I asked, "Anything else, sir?"
He laughed and bent down, "See you in the morning." Then he walked away. Whatever. I lay on my side and commenced again, to staring into the fire. I hoped, wherever he was, that Peter was okay…
Oh and reviewers guessing about where the story is going....you're pretty damn close...Good Lawd!