Hailstorm

Fell from the sky - Chapter 8

Hailstorm's POV

Once I've recovered from my overdramatic episode, we were off – just grabbing three jackets and sneakers from the bags. Along the way, Lacy had ripped off some branches from the trees and well, they were our only defence.

Please, goodness gracious – let us just make it to the damn road or to the cabin.

Kira grabbed my hand, pulling me forward.

"Don't want to lose you again" she gasped, her voice nearly a breath. Our bodies were aching, our lungs having caught fire about half an hour ago. Cardio had never been any of our strong suits and I regretted that very much now. As our feet hit the ground, I felt like I was going to collapse at any moment.

But we couldn't. We had no choice. I wasn't going to live with a bunch of mythical creatures. And even if we did turn back, imagine the kind of trouble we'd end up in now.

"We should have brought water" Lacy gasped, she stopping by one of the trees, trying to catch her breath.

Kira and I also stopped, me wanting to just fall on the ground from complete exhaustion.

"Come on" Lacy said, shaking her head. She pushed herself off of the tree, grabbing Kira's hand. Kira grabbed mine just in time and we started stumbling through the trees again. The trees started thinning but I knew we were nowhere close yet.

An hour and a half of running (and we were pretty slow), would not lead us to safety. Not with the vastness of this stupid forest. Another twenty minutes and it felt as if my one lung had probably collapsed.

My hand slipped out of Kira's and I stopped.

"Hayley! Come on!" Kira tried but she was also done. Lacy turned to us, her face red and dripping with sweat.

"When... when... when does this stupid forest end!?" Lacy groaned, punching a tree with her good hand.

"Lace, you're going to hurt your hand again" Kira breathed, going to go sit on the ground.

Lacy was about to respond but then we heard something that should have given us energy but well, only brought us all to the ground with fear and tiredness.

"We're so screwed" Kira said, her face in her hands. Tears dripped off of her palm, her body lightly shaking.

"No, no we're not" I said, getting back up. I grabbed Lacy's arm and pulled her up before doing the same with Kira, "Come on"

"We can't run any further Hailstorm"

"Then we climb" I said, looking up at the tree, "They're going to look for us on the ground. Have we looked up at any stage?"

Kira slowly shook her head and then a smile appeared on Lacy's face.

"Up we get" she said, grabbing hold of one of the trees. She threw her stick down on the ground, starting to scamper up.

"Be careful!" Kira said, heading to the tree next to Lacy's. I also started to climb, thanking the heavens that I had a tree house when I was a kid and a very bothersome brother who always hid the ladder.

"How high do we have to go?" Kira asked, pushing herself up to a branch.

"Next branch and then we can stop" Lacy said, pulling herself up one final time before taking a seat on the branch. She sighed happily, looking over at us.

"Right, so we stay up here until the idiots have passed and we've recovered and then, then we'll continue" she sighed, closing her eyes and drinking in the non-running-ness.