The Rift

Chapter 9

                I had to fall asleep eventually, despite my efforts to stay awake. In spite of my confidence that it was just dreams I was still a little…. Uncomfortable. When I did doze off, my sleep was restless, and terrifying.

                As usual, I was sent to my forest, but I wasn’t as happy as I had been here for that last few months. I wringed my hands nervously, glancing around me for any dangerous creatures. I didn’t move around as I normally did, but sat by the base of a tree and tried to fall asleep, which I knew meant waking back up, in the real world. But I wasn’t the slightest bit tired. I hugged my knees to my head and waited for the dream to be over, flinching at the slightest noise, jumping at the slightest movement. I nearly shot out of my skin when a bird called from the branches above my head. I was fidgety and nervous.

Despite the occasional animal noise, the jungle lacked its usual clamour. There were barley any bird calls, no breeze shifted the branches, no animals snuffled in the grass. There was an eerie silence, broken only by the call of some very brave bird. I could hear my laboured breathing clearly in the quiet, made louder by the terror creeping its way into my mind.

“It’s just a dream…it’s just a dream,” I told myself. My whispered voice echoed in the empty trees. The oddly empty trees. There weren’t any animals, as far as I could see. No little mice shuffled through the grass. Even the bird I had heard before was nowhere to be seen, or heard. It was like all the animals in the forest were hiding…

I stood up abruptly, my eyes racking the edge of the trees, looking for the horror that had injured me before. What else would send everything into hiding? I trained my ears, waiting for the thrumming that meant it was coming. I started to move through the trees, attempting to follow the path I had taken when I reached Faith’s valley. If I could get there, no part of The Rift could enter, and I would be safe. I still didn’t hear anything following me, but wasn’t taking any chances. I broke into a run.

That’s when I was thrown off my feet. My tailbone hit the ground, my hands coming down by my sides. Stars flew in front of my eyes, the breath knocked out of my lungs. But it wasn’t that monster that had attacked me.

It was the very ground itself. Swelling up and lashing back, tossing me up into the air and back down. I stood back up, shakily, only to land back down again, flung back by another wave. The ground, this place, was turning against me. Faith was right. I started to tremble, scrambled to my feet, and started to run again, when a sickening crunch causing me to pause. The sound reverberated through the forest, shaking the ground, and almost unbalancing me again. I froze, looking around for the source of the sound, when I noticed the tree in front of me slowly dip downwards. I dove to the side seconds before the trunk hit the ground beside me. I sat up, panting and petrified. Another crack sounded. I looked ahead, and saw another trunk zooming down. I leapt up, and sprinted off. More cracks echoed through the forest.

I ran through the vines and branches, leapt over small rocks, and moved out of the way when I heard a tree falling. It was move, or get squished. But I knew I couldn’t go on forever, and so did the Rift. I stared to pant, my clothes soaked from sweat, but fear kept me going, fear kept me running through the trees. That’s when the Rift pulled another trick from its sleeve.

Smaller trees, too small to make any real damage if toppled, reached out to me, grabbing at my feet and face and causing me to stumble. One false step meant getting crushed, so these were a real problem. The vines that were twisted around all the branches untangled themselves and attacked. Wrappings around my face and arms, stabbing me with thorns. The ground rumbled threateningly, little wave emerged in the grass, making me trip. The forest itself fought against me. I collapsed to the ground, trees falling around me; vines wrapped so tightly around me I couldn’t move let alone see, branches tabbing into my skin, the earth moving underneath me. I lay on the ground, defeated, completely expecting to be obliterated by the trunk of a giant tree. But the impact never came. Instead, the vines receded into the trees, which were now standing straight and tall as if they had never moved at all, the tremors in the ground ceased, leaving the forest still again. . I stood up, terrified of the very ground I was standing on, but the ground seemed sturdy enough now.  Why had The Rift ended its attack? Why hadn’t it just finished me off?