The Lost

33- The Flood

Azure

It was the thunder that woke me up.
When the low shuddering crept in on the breeze I immediately jolted awake. If there was a storm coming it didn't sound particularly close; it was the actual noise trembling in the air that snapped me awake. I sat bolt upright and stared off into the trees, holding my breath until I realised it was only thunder.
For better or worse, I seemed to have developed an ear for loud sounds. Especially ones that sounded like footsteps.

Once I was awake there was no hope of falling back to sleep. How I had ever managed to drift off in the first place was a mystery to me... I tossed and turned for hours at home before managing to claw a few hours of sleep out of the night, and that was at home, in my own bed. Sleeping in a place like this with monsters lurking... it should have been impossible.
Being tired maybe had one perk. It made you fall asleep.

The sky was that weak pastel colour like it was most mornings when I woke up. A mix of grey and some other washed out colour. Before six, the horizon was almost always a faint salmony colour, sometimes orange. Today though, it was red.
A quick glance to my left told me that I was the only one awake. Aspen was bundled into a blanket in his usual manner and his eyes were shut tight. I supposed that at some point in the night Lyn had grow cold or uncomfortable (more likely she had been scared of being alone in the dark) and had run out of her bedroom in the tribe, because there were strands of white hair poking out from underneath Aspen's blanket. When I pried back the tip of the covers with my fingers, I saw the little figure nestled against my friend's side. One of Aspen's arms were outstretched and she was using it like a pillow.

Seeing the two of them like that made me smile. Lyn beside Aspen; both of them sound-asleep with messy hair and too many blankets. She reminded me of him a little bit when I looked at her beside him. Light hair. So happy all the time. Had Aspen ever been as small as her though? Anyway, I pulled my eyes away from my resting family. There was thunder on the horizon, and that worried me.

Whilst I crept out of Lucius' fingers and unfolded my wings, I was looking at him and the other human. The forest was dead quiet and the sky was still a little dark, so naturally neither of them were awake either. Mike had remained more or less in the same position since from when I finished speaking to him the previous night. Not that he could move much. There was no pretending anymore though; he was genuinely out-cold. Same for Lucius. He had slipped down to the bottom of the tree so that he was leant into the huge roots, using their formation sort of like an enormous chair. He probably wasn't very comfortable though. One hand was resting on his chest, where Aspen and Lyn were buried in blankets, and the other was behind his ear. I felt a twang of guilt for making the boy sleep in the middle of a forest without blankets. At least it was summer, and a humid one too, so he hadn't been too cold. He had also changed his grey jumper for a softer, puffier one without a hood, the same fawn-brown colour as the young trees. It smelt different too. Lighter, somehow.
Despite the fact that Lucius looked anything but comfortable in his awkward tree-crevice, the boy did look undoubtedly peaceful. I could only hope he was as content as he looked.

I wasted no more time on watching other people sleep. After giving my wings a good shake and breathing in some of the cool morning air, I pushed hard off the floor. My wings fluttered a little spastically as they usually do first thing in the morning. It was the same sensation as when you swing your legs out of bed and find that you go dizzy when you stand up. That, and there was an undeniable fatigue nagging at my head. It had been another rather sleepless night. But I ignored that as I flew myself up to the tree-line. It was actually a little warmer once I got into all of the leaves. The green clumps were damp and humid, speckled with dew. Then the stuffiness made sense once I saw the horizon.