Luminari

Chapter seven

 "Bailey are you alright?" Seth shouted from fifty feet above.

"No," I screamed through my coughs.

"You're going to be okay, just slowly pull your foot out from the board and start climbing you can do it!"

I slowly pulled my foot out from the broken board trying not to cry as the broken wood shards scratched my skin. Once my foot was out, I stepped onto the lower board, and it broke out from underneath me. I gasped as both my feet fell and I was left hanging by my arms, straining under my weight. I accidentally looked down at my feet dangling below, little shards of broken bridge were raining down to the ground. I quickly put my foot on the next board up and felt like passing out. My arms hurt so much it felt like someone was trying to pull them off.

"Just climb up like's it's a regular ladder on the playground," Seth cheered me on.

Seth didn't know this, but I was terrible at climbing ladders on the playground and had been deathly afraid to climb any ladder for the first five years of my life. I looked up at Seth and slowly began climbing the old boards cracking underneath my feet and the rough rope burning my already sore hands. Tears stung at my eyes, but I ignored them pushing on.

I made it to the top of the ladder and would've cheered had I not been so exhausted. Seth grabbed the collar of my shirt helping to pull me over the top. I used the ropes to pull myself out and they broke under my weight. The bridge fell to the ground just as Seth pulled me over the edge. I looked down at the falling bridge and grew dizzy. Before I knew it, I had passed out. 

.  .  .

I woke up to Seth's wet tongue licking my face. I pushed his head away wiping the sticky saliva off on my sleeve. The sun was considerably lower in the sky after I woke up. I must have slept at least a few hours. I didn't want to waste any more time, so we carried on. The trail ahead was surrounded by dozens more of those god-awful purple trees and their deceivingly sour fruit.

"What do you think people will do without the bridge?" I pondered, I felt sort of guilty over being the one who broke it even though it was destined to break soon anyways.

"They'll probably just walk around the gorge, it can't be that far," I got the feeling Seth was just trying to get a rise out of me by suggesting my own idea, so I didn't say anything even though I really wanted too. 

The leaves on the trees soon turned from a deep purple to a light pink soft and pretty like cherry blossom trees. Their leaves rained down like pink snow gathering on the ground in tiny delicate piles. A slight breeze flowed through the trees, and it smelled just wonderful. It would have been the most absolutely perfect place had it not been for that awful sound. A very annoying noise filled the air, a loud tick, tick, tick, sound that pounded against one's skull like a raging headache.

"Will you please knock it off!" Seth shouted angrily his mouth turned down in a scowl and his ears planted against the sides of his head.

"I'm not doing it," I thought Seth was the one making the noise.

"Where's it coming from then because it's really annoying!" 

I looked around and spotted a giant bird the size of a hawk pecking on one of the trees like a woodpecker. He had big pink feathers on his head which blended in with the cherry blossoms, his sharp silver beak creepily resembled a blade as it stabbed its way into the tree. He broke through the thick bark like a sheet of ice and pulled out a tiny little person. She had tiny wings and a dress made out of pink petals, her hair was long and bright white, and her skin was dark gray like the tree bark. She squeaked in a high pitch way like nails on a chalk board before the bird threw his head back and swallowed her whole.