Mystique {On Hold}

Chapter 6

I scrunched my eyes tightly shut as I felt myself fall backwards, ready to hit the ground. My hands blindly shot forward, in hope of some strong hold and a startled shriek left my mouth.

Suddenly, everything came to a stand-still. I didn’t feel the pain of crashing against the rough tree trunks nor did I hear the thud of me falling.

A part of my racing, adrenaline-filled heart relaxed, while the other kept beating faster. My breath came in strangled gasps. After what felt like forever, I opened my eyes , which were met by a pair of grey ones. That’s when I felt the grasp on my waist, due to this person’s warm arms.

My eyes took in my savior’s face. It was a guy. A guy? In the middle of the forest? From what I knew, no one comes here. Everyone was too busy in their own lives here in Greenwood. What could he be doing here?

I quickly freed myself from his grasp and pushed myself away from him only to end up tripping on my foot and losing my balance again.

“Careful!” he said as he caught hold of my arm again before I could fall.

I looked at him exasperatedly; secretly scrutinizing every detail inched on his face. He had strong jaws which were cut straight into a fine one, with a slight stubble lined around it. His black hair was messy, with a tuft of it falling over his gray eyes which now mirrored concern in them.

His looks were good but not good enough to make me forget that a stranger was holding my hand.

“Let go of my hand, will you?” I retorted back at him, snatching back my hand from his hold and taking a step or two back in order to create more distance between him and I.

Surprisingly, the crunches and the snaps of the twig had stopped. He might have been the ‘langur’ then. Pfft.

He inclined his head slightly to the right as he arched one of his eyebrows at my reaction.

“Excuse me? Looks like the winds are making a lot of noise. I heard your ‘thank you’ as something else.”

“I wasn’t saying thank you. Who will want to say so to someone who just takes hold of you without your permission?”

He took a step closer to me and spoke in a low, threatening voice.

“I saved you from falling. You make me regret doing that ‘cause now I see that you have got quite a thick head that needs some loosening.”

I accusingly pointed at him and snapped back.

“I fell only because I got a little freaked; thanks to the humongous noise that you were racketing in the quiet forest. Anyone could have mistaken it for an attack by the wild animals. You might have saved me from falling but you owed it to me.”

As the last word came out of my mouth, my head started feeling light. Too light for my own comfort.

I struggled to keep balance and soon, even standing straight was very hard or me. His face started going in and out of focus and the world started spinning around me.

My knees wobbled, soon coming contact with the earth underneath.

As I made my way head-chest towards the ground, I caught his voice faintly saying something.

However, I was already into the darkness to catch a word of his sentence.

*****

Awareness ringed my brain as I felt something hard under my head which was hurting really bad. I felt worn out. I didn’t even remember what I was doing on the forest floor. The last thing I knew was that I had been running.