I Wish

Chapter 22

It was dark, and warm. Dirt pressed into my cheek, and my hands were tied behind my back with some kind of rope. The left side of my face was scraped up and was dripping blood, and there was a cut on my forehead. I could scarcely breathe, because there was a length of fabric wrapped around my head and cutting into the corners of my mouth and I was… really scared. 

Actually. Wait a minute, too far forwards, let’s back this up a little. The plan was to go and meet with Ivy tomorrow night, and setting a concrete time for that was a big mistake. It taunted me. I was constantly counting down to when I would see her next. It was, to put it blankly, driving me nuts. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. It was like there was a great big tick-tick-tick in the back of my head threatening to turn into a full blown screaming alarm at any second. Actually it was very good at convincing me that it was going to be the next second, every second. It really, really sucked. Which was why the minute I could ascertain that everyone was down, and hopeful out, for the night I snuck out. It was chilly outside, and I zipped my jacket up and eyed the tree’s in the backyard. I knew she’d brought me home through there but I also knew that I wasn’t willing to risk trying to find my way to her through there. That left hoofing it to the rainforest.

It was odd, on the way there. Too quiet, too… I wasn’t sure what the right word was, whatever it was, but it was immense. All I knew was that the crescent moon let in precious little light, and I attributed it to whatever was causing me to feel distinctly unsettled. With the rhythmic thud of my sneaker on the pavement, and an idea that I might just have been being paranoid, I ignored it. Figuring that it was just anticipation, I shouldn’t have. There was no sign of Ivy when I got there, and I shivered because I’d never noticed how much I had sensed her presence until it wasn’t there to greet me. Greet is absolutely the right word, because without it this place was no longer welcoming. At all. 

“Maybe she’s mad,” I muttered to myself, creeping further in. The path that had begun to look familiar was completely unrecognisable now, and I swallowed. She could have been mad, I’m sure she could have invented a reason since our last meeting, never mind the fact that I was completely drawing blanks on what it was supposed to be. That didn’t feel right either though I acknowledged, even mad I didn’t think she’d leave me as unguarded as this, and wasn’t I surprised with how well the word unguarded fit to describe what she was doing with me. Still, I blundered further in like a fool who wouldn’t know danger if it fell from the sky looking like a rabid drop bear, trying to find her. My opinion on the matter was that if I kept walking long enough then she’d have to come and find me eventually. I didn’t have the sense to freeze until the tree’s started hissing.

There were no snakes that I could see, and believe me in the limited light I was offered I did my best to look without having to move. The fun part about Australia was that snakes were common enough that they’d taught us what to do if you come across one. Probably because there were something like 26 deadly snakes on the planet. I was fairly sure that at least 22 of them lived in Australia. Still, no snakes, and hissing. 

“You never learn. You’ll see even if you don’t want to,” the many voices as one rasped out, the one from my dreams. Him, as I’d come to refer to them in the back of my head. I’d almost forgotten, and that bothered me. If Ivy was real, the logic said that they were too. 

“Learn what?” I asked, and not particularly politely. I couldn’t understand the way every bone in my body had automatically gone on the defensive. Nothing bad had even happened yet, and I supposed that there it was. I’d felt the need to use the word yet. They laughed, all of him cackling and I have to say as it echoed around me like a couple thousand possessed dolls I had a thought occur to me. That oh, yeah, that’s an manichal evil laugh alright. 

“That freedom is something you will never have from her,” they crooned, “Aren’t you excited to see what she’s capable of doing in the name of your protection? It promises to be… quiet the show.”

“You’ll have to catch that one without me,” I said fearlessly, even though I didn’t feel anything of the sort. They let out the creepy laugh again, and something rustled behind me on the right. I didn’t turn, didn’t wait to see what it was. I just ran. One moment I was stationary, and the next I was running and already a considerable distance between where I had started and where I was now. Air seemed to abandon me, and there was a distinct sense of shame about how unfit I was. “i***t,” I panted as I ran, because who has the time to process shame when you’re RUNNING FOR YOUR LIFE?! Whether the team would mock me or not was not something I should be thinking about right now, no matter how true it was, all brain power was to go to keeping me alive. No exception. Which was right about when I ate dirt. Narrowly missing a massive rock on the way down. The tree roots weren’t anyone’s friend on this kind of chase,  but the way my stomach dropped when I realised I really did consider this life or death without any conscious thought on my part stole my attention long enough to have me tip ass over teakettle. 

“Omph,” I grunted, hitting the ground both painfully and realistically. Eating dirt was not a metaphor, and with great disgust I was spitting it out and attempting to stand dizzily. I’d gone down hard though, and it had more than knocked the wind out of me. Air was possible, but even though it was necessary my lungs seemed to resent the whole process. I was too busy trying, and failing, to stand. Thudding back to my knees at every attempt. The large thick branch that was snapped right over the side of my head with an almighty crack did not help. Pain blossomed relatively fast, the noise made me feel like my eardrum almost burst, and that rock I’d narrowly missed last time? Not so lucky this time, in fact it was my point of impact. My head threatens to explode in protest, and I grit my teeth as if it will help any. Blood poured from where it spit skin, running down my face and making it harder to see. I twitched futility, trying to get back up despite the fact that I’d felt dizzy before and the new way my stomach was rolling in protest of it all.

“I don’t think so,” a familiar voice said coldly, and there’s a clear sound as the other half of the branch was tossed down near my face. Oooh, it was thicker than my arm. I wasn’t sure that I thought so either. Issac flitted into my vision peripherally, and I wondered if I had imagined it. He and Ivy seemed like friends, certainly not like they were enemies at any rate. I couldn’t concentrate long, my head hurt too much, and it was all moot anyway. 

“Issac?” I said, and it was meant to be accusingly but I was too out of it. It came out like a sad, and just a little pathetic, question. He grinned, I couldn’t see his face, looking straight at it or not, but his overly white teeth stuck in my mind. They were sharper than they should be, far shaper than I had ever recalled them being. Before I could formulate some sort of plan I was grabbed. The squeaked squeal I let out could be forgiven. The hand that grabbed me was big enough to pick me up around the waist like a Barbie doll. It wrapped around my ankle and started to drag me. It hurt. Badly. A splintering sensation crushed halfway down my foot and up my calf entirely to just under the knee. I’d like to say I wondered if it was broken, but I was too busy crying big fat salty tears. My back slid against the floor. Anything in the way, and there was, irrelevant as I was dragged across it. Every cell hated me, and I struggled to think. I couldn’t breath, and my nose was starting to run. Breathe. Breathe! BREATHE!

It was panic more than anything else that had my hand start trying to grip everything I could. It didn’t work so well at first. Plants being torn up, sticks being dragged across the ground and branches snapping. If it was just quiet maybe I could think. What was that? It was so loud, and piercing, and oh… It was me. My throat burned. It was me, and I couldn’t stop. Thud. I wrapped my arms around a skinny tree branch and skidded to a stop. Bear hugged it as hard as I could, both arms wrapped constrictor tight. Whatever was dragging me, I hadn’t seen or maybe hadn’t been able to see them, and I wasn’t so sure I wanted to. They gave a violent tug on my leg, and my muscles screamed in protest, but I didn’t budge. Crying into the trunk of the tree, great heaving sobs wracking my body, and my face buried into the bark. I… I couldn’t breathe… Why couldn’t I… why couldn’t I breathe. 

“Big mistake,” Issac growled from far away enough that I knew he wasn’t the one dragging me. He had a friend. This friend clamped their hand around the back of my neck like I was a kitten and squeezed until my arms dropped. There was a thing, when people throw you. A whistling sound that leaves you reduced to feeling like you’re a problem, and that where you land is irrelevant because you don’t matter. Like everyone else, I forgot that as I hit something. The tree groaned, and everything was black before I realised what happened. Pain. Whistle. Bang. Complete blackness before I could hit the ground.

When I woke I was underground. It was humid and dimly lit. A great caravonous room, tree roots running through the wall. My face pressed into the dirt, scraped up and bleeding. My hands tied behind my back, and in all the pain. It had been beyond stupid for me to have gone looking for her, but wallowing in my idiocy wasn’t going to help me now.