Random Prompts

Prompt Sixteen - I Really Fell

    Have you ever fallen out of a tree?

    I have. Multiple times. Mainly as a kid. 

    But this time was different. 

    This time no one helped me up. 

    No one asked if we should go to a doctor to check if I had broken a bone.

    This time I was alone.

    I laughed softly to myself as I raced to one of the taller trees we had in the park. It was a huge oak, branches splitting outward as if trying to reach the sky and the ocean at the same time. 

    I hoisted myself up onto one of the sturdier looking branches and weighed the options I had in my head. I could stay right here and start reading (not like I had anything else to do), or I could try to go higher. 

    Go higher. A small voice in my mind urged. Get to the highest branch possible. See what the world will look like. 

    I didn't know what made me do it, but it wasn't my brain. My brain would've been smarter than that.

    But I started climbing, finding places for my feet and hands. My fingernails scraped against the bark, which flaked off and fell to the ground. I forced myself not to look down. 

    I paused, taking a small break to stretch out my limbs and catch my breath. I leaned against a rather large stem and let out a breathy laugh. I was really doing this. I was really going to get to the top. 

    I started up again, pushing off both of my feet and jumping into a slightly higher branch, landing with a thump. 

    I grinned. This was going to be the best climb of my life.

    Then I heard the crack. 

    The branch broke, and I was sent flailing through the air. 

    I gasped and tried to scream, but my body hit the ground before any sound could leave my mouth. 

    I choked and blindly grasped for my left arm, a stinging pain zapping through it as if I had just been electrocuted. Tears quickly gathered in my eyes, and I did nothing to hold them back, knowing that no one would be near me.

    That produced my next dangerous thought. 

    If no one is here, what's going to happen?

    I didn't have an answer. Instead, I turned and laid on my back, clutching my forearm close to my chest. Broken, desperate sobs left my lips.

    I don't know how long I sat there before I gathered the strength to stand back up. 

    I don't know how I got back home. 

    My vision had faded to black long before I reached safety. 

    Long before my mother cried as if she had been the one hurt.

    Long before I felt like I could even move without crying myself.