Mountain [18+] ✔️ Complete

Seven • Reality

It felt like hours before I collapsed to the forest floor, vaguely aware that my knee hit rock on the way down. My body was drained, lungs heaving, sweat pouring from me. I lay there, unknowing and uncaring as to whether the cloud had followed me.

All I wanted was rest.

I woke to sunlight warm on my face, body aching. I groaned and rolled onto my side, and nearly toppled off of the branch I was on.

Wait, branch? I sat up quickly, surveying my surroundings, and realized I was somehow up in a tree. The branch was actually a few branches, jutting out of the trunk together in a makeshift bed.

"What the fuck?" My voice was hoarse, and I winced at the burning in my throat. I needed water badly. But first I had to figure out how to get out of this tree. How the hell had I gotten up here? Sleepwalked? Maybe I'd been so exhausted I didn't remember climbing?

As I studied the trunk below me, I saw there was no way I could have climbed this high. I wasn't in terrible shape but even someone in the peak of physical condition wouldn't have been able to bear hug all the way up here.

I hugged my knees, massaging my calves. What the hell was going on? Killer clouds, sleepwalking, running around a mountain at night by myself. How did this happen?

I fought back frustrated tears as hopelessness set deep in my chest. Now I was stuck in a tree, alone, having to choose between breaking my legs or dehydration. What a wonderful vacation.

My hands balled into tight fists and I screamed, ignoring the searing pain in my throat. I'm not proud of that moment, but there was nothing else I could do but vent my frustration and fear.

When my world seemed to shift, my breath caught and I grasped the wood below me. The tree was moving.

And not just swaying in a breeze moving, the whole tree was bending. I heard a deep groaning sound as my bed lowered, the trunk leaning right over to lower me down to the ground.

I scrabbled off of the branches as soon as they touched the forest floor, staring bewildered as the tree straightened itself. Was that how I got up there? Had the tree literally picked me up while I was passed out? Had I gone completely insane?

Killer clouds and sentient trees, okay. I knew if I dwelled too much I'd get lost in my own head. I had to roll with this, keep my shit together, find some water, and find my friends.

"Thanks," I stammered at the tree, but it didn't reply. Of course it didn't, it was a fucking tree.

I shakily got to my feet, and squinted at the sky. My gut was telling me it was before noon, but I wasn't sure. Of course getting my bearings wouldn't matter all that much, considering I had no idea which way I'd run the night before.

I decided to head North, or South if the sun was setting instead of rising. That had led me to Marius the night before, maybe it could again.

My stomach twisted in a knot at the thought of him. I didn't know what to think. I'd felt such a connection to him, it couldn't have been simple lust over our good looking guide. And he'd known that the cloud had come before he'd seen it, which added to the mystery. Was it connected to him too?

Cold dread washed over me. Had he caused it somehow? He'd saved our asses, that was for sure, but had the purple monster been called into existence because of him?

I wasn't sure how long I'd been walking, but stopped short at the sound of trickling water. I burst into a run, despite the protest of my leg muscles. I tore through a copse of bushes and toppled onto my knees into a stream that was clear as ice.