Blood of My Death

Blood of My Death: The Ancient Earthscrapper - Chapter Thirty-Eight

I watched in slow motion as Diane leaped off the side of the cliff into the nothingness below. 'She is going to be okay! There is water below. It's a long way down, but she will make it. I don't know how I knew she would survive that fall, but I knew there was water. We could hear it long before we got to the cliff's edge. We could hear it, and we could smell it. How was this possible? Something was different about us. I survived being backhanded into a massive tree, leaving an immense crater in it. Diane moved faster than the creatures pursuing us. We were definitely different,' I thought as I turned to see the creature that backhanded me hunch down to all fours, running at full speed.

From my perspective, he was running in slow motion. I didn't have long to decide what to do, but a memory flowed into my mind then. It was a long-lost memory of a time when I was still in school. It was on a sunny afternoon at the Springview High School football field. I was with my sister Kristonia and our cheer squad teammates. It had to have been a Saturday because we only practiced on the football field on Saturdays. We were doing cartwheels and backflips, working on the new routine for the next football game.

Our coach reviewed every technique we would use and the chants for this week's game. We grouped into three teams, and my sister was on my team. We practiced doing three to four cartwheels followed by several backflips, then another cartwheel into a full-on run with a final series of backflips. We did this over the entire afternoon until we had the routine down. It would be our opening stunts as we ran onto the field at the beginning of the game. We would also use it at the prep rally on the day of the game. It was all about being flashy and about speed. The coach would pick only the best tumblers to show off the routine at the prep rally and the game. Our Coach had always selected Kristonia and me among the twenty cheerleaders on our team.

We were used to doing this weekly throughout high school and eventually in college. It was second nature to us as these memories flooded my mind. The sound of the creature charging me brought me back to reality. I took the first stance while I calmly waited as time sped up. Within seconds, I jumped up, performing a cartwheel as my hands dug into the muddy dirt. My lead foot struck the creature directly on its mouth, launching it back at such incredible speed I didn't see where it went. My body kept doing cartwheels, followed by backflips and one final cartwheel. I sprinted faster than ever to the cliff's edge, leaping into the dark sky as Diane had done moments before.

I fell through the air into the darkness below. I looked down and could barely see what I was below, but I could just see the water flowing below. 'I knew it! There's a river below the cliff that would cushion my fall,' I thought as I put my arms to the side and positioned my legs together so the impact would cause as minor damage as possible.

The sudden rush of ice-cold water overwhelmed me as I sank below the surface further than expected. 'Damn it, I didn't think I would sink this deep,' I thought, then I remembered, 'Fuck, it's because of my exoskeleton. I had completely forgotten about wearing it,'

I struggled to fight against the current as it dragged me along the bottom of the riverbed down the winding river. I was being tossed and turned by the sheer force of the water. I found it difficult to gain control of my movements, yet I knew I had to before I drowned. I hit a large boulder, sending pain through my entire body. I fought with all my might to hold on to the boulder as I tried to launch myself up onto the surface of the river.

As I tried climbing up, my foot became lodged at the base of the boulder, preventing me from going anywhere. I panicked as I realized that, once again, I was on the verge of dying. 'I can't die here. I have to get myself free. I can't fail Kristonia and Rachel,' I thought as I tried to bend over to free my stuck foot. I could take my leg out of the exoskeleton boot, but I wouldn't be able to swim on my own, and I would drown anyway. If I didn't remove the boot, I would drown. 'What do I do? I am running out of air!' I thought in a frantic attempt to push the boulder off my foot.