[System Notification: You Have Entered Regionwide Dungeon The Underworld!]
"WAIT RIGHT THERE, RAT! YOU'RE DEAD!"
Panic floods my body. I stumble to my feet. There's something...almost warm on my face. I'd know the feeling anywhere, even cold, frostbitten, and wet like I am now.
Sunlight!
Though I can't see it, I can feel its heat and rejuvenating light. With that bastard somewhere behind me, I get to my hands and knees beside the riverbank.
Maybe he's floating downstream as well.
Or maybe he's on the other side.
Just have to run!
Sharp pain lances through my chest and shoulder as the broken collarbone reminds me of the shape I'm in.
Ignore it.
Just run!
I find my feet somehow, stumbling away from the river-side. Each step is agony, each breath, misery. But without my sight, I have only sound to go by, and the angry shouts from behind tell me I need to keep going!
"Ahhhhk!" I cry out as my foot snags on something.
Another root?
This one is thicker than the last. When I fall on top of it, this root is almost as wide as my whole body. My arms go around the sides of its girth and my cheek slams into the rough bark. Stars ring out, and nothing makes sense. The sound of water is coming from everywhere. Both in front, beneath, and behind me. Maybe I'm just dazed, but it's like I'm surrounded by gushing rapids. Confusion causes me to freeze as I wonder how the hell my arms are wrapping all the way around a root.
Where's the ground? Is this thing freaking floating in the air?
I remember how the root which saved me before seemed to hang over the water. Suddenly a terrifying thought comes.
Is this thing growing on top of the river?
That would mean...
I have no more time to think as the screaming from behind grows louder.
"Rat! Don't think you can run! There's no escape!"
My pursuer is closing in. There's no time to turn around, I wouldn't even know which way to go. My only choice is to go forwards. I scoot my way across the root on all fours like a sloth. The farther on top of it I get, the louder the noise of rushing water below me becomes. I'm certain of it now. If I slip to one side or another, I'll fall into the river!
"GOTCHA!"
He's got my leg.
CRAP!
I don't think.
Just react.
My other foot shoots out. The muscles are cramping agonizingly but they work enough to hit him in the chest. There's just one problem. I wasn't expecting to hit him. The force of my kick connecting shoves my body unexpectedly to the left. Though my fingernails desperately scrape against the root, the bark resists my efforts to dig into it and I go over the side. As a last-ditch effort, I throw my other arm around underneath the root and try to grab onto my wrist from the other side. But the root is too wide. Both my hands just barely manage to maintain a grip on the root as my legs dangle over empty space.
*Scraaaape*
My hands are slipping. Exhausted and bruised I can't hold on much longer. Up above, I hear a disparagingly laugh over the sound of a waterfall.
