I wake up on my back. Good thing, too,
since I'm floating. My ankles just barely touch the bottom of this
little lake. The trees above me, different from my fruit trees, have
broken branches. Lots of them. I'm betting I have a bruise or broken
bone for every one.
At first I can't focus. The pain in my
head is too big. Everything blurs in and out from precisely clear to
vague smears of not-quite color. I float here and breathe until the
pounding fades, wondering at the odds that I would survive my fall.
Eventually, it all fades away. Until I
try to stand. Everything hurts like I've been beaten for hours. No
broken bones, though, on closer inspection, just bruises, cuts,
scrapes, pulls, strains and I suspect a pair of black eyes. And I
have vague memories that being rendered unconscious is not a good
thing.
My ears are ringing. It seems no part
of me was left untouched by my fall. Wait. That's not ringing,
that's the wailing that I heard earlier. It rises and falls the same
way, carries the same note of loss and fear. Comes and goes with
that maddening almost-rhythm.
Lurching to my feet, I wince at the
pain in my skull. Turning circles helps me find the source. There,
somewhere in that direction. Through the woods.
I stumble out of this lake and onto the
shore. Trees and things underneath grab at me, but that wailing
calls me forward. I can't even stop myself to drink or try to tend
my wounds. Forward, only forward.
I arrive, finally, at a small, twisting
cave. The wailing, the voice
comes up from somewhere inside it. Tears blur my vision at the mere
thought of another person being here. I crouch down and crawl
inside.
301
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