Flight 118

Chapter Twenty-Three

"If the forest has a day of fire and the heat of the flames does not consume a special tree, it will still be changed; charred, but still standing."

- Dan Groat

As I stumbled through the forest in the dark, I continued to hope I was going the right way.

Branches kept hitting me everywhere my skin was exposed; my face and my arms even more so. I just knew I was going to end up looking like someone used my body as a cat's scratching post or a human pin cushion. But it could not be helped. I could not see anything.

Great. Just my luck. The first time I'm about to confess my love to someone and I'll look like someone tried to murder me with paper and leaves.

It was all I could do to keep rubbing my hands along the tree bark to try and keep walking in a straight line. Even though I could feel the bark digging into my palms, tearing at the skin that had begun to go numb from the cold night air.

They said when you take away one of the senses, in my case my ability to see in the dark, that the other senses become stronger. I began to question if I believed that as I stumbled through the black of night, continuing to trip on tree roots and scratch myself on branches.

Just then I tripped over a raised tree root and caught myself on a tree branch with nothing but my hair.

I could not control the pain-filled scream which ripped from my throat as my full body weight, assisted by gravity, went hurtling to the ground while my hair was firmly stuck on whatever it was caught on. My scalp practically screamed just as loud as I did. My hands flew up to grab the base of my hair, where it met my scalp, to try to release pressure on my head and keep my hair from ripping out.

What did I do to deserve this?! I screamed in my mind. I mean, really. I had never had so much bad luck in my life as I seemed to be having recently.

As I managed to get my body pulled up under me so I could stand, I started the tedious task of untangling my increasingly frizzy hair from my sweat, in the dark. It was a process because my curly hair naturally tangled itself badly, but now it had dirt, leaves, and blood caked into it as well. The entire time I tried to untangle my hair enough to get it off the branch I mumbled aloud to myself in frustration. If someone was watching me they would probably think I was crazy.

"What did I ever do to have this much bad luck?"

"'Take a trip on a plane,' they said. 'It'll be fun,' they said."

"Then I get the wonderful opportunity of being kidnapped. Not once, but twice! Three times if you consider being bought against my will. Then again, I felt like I would have chosen my buyers over the sellers."

My chuckle was a bit deranged at the thought, I'm sure. Especially considering one of the said buyers was, as I now knew him, my mate. I shook my head a little, shivered at the cold that was getting worse now that I had stopped moving, and continued talking.

"Now look at me... in the dark, in the woods, bleeding, with my head stuck on a tree."

I sighed and blinked away the tears threatening to fall from irritation and from the pain my entire body was now in. After ranting for what seemed like ages, I finally managed to get all of my hair free from the branch. From what I could tell, at least.

Sighing, I brushed my hands against my pant legs, stood up straight, and smiled. No pain. That must mean I got it all. Taking a step forward, I once more felt my body topple forward. Simultaneously I felt the sharp sting from a few strands of hair being torn from my head and my ankles hitting a hard thing sticking out of the ground. My eyes filled with water at the small burn on my scalp even as I scrambled to catch my falling body. My body did not stop once it hit the ground and instead continued to roll with me both yelling and grunting along for the ride. When my body finally stopped, it was aided by slamming into a gigantic tree trunk.