The Winged

17- Breach

My knees felt weak, head faint, heart fluttering. No.
I was mistaken. A dream, a nightmare, a hallucination of my exhausted mind? This couldn't be what I thought it was. I got away, Aspen saved me.

My heart dropped through the floor as a huge shadow appeared in the gap, and the entire world seemed to fade out of focus. Sam.
All I could see was the sickeningly familiar features that formed a face, an enormous eye peering through the hole that had been hacked away. There was no denying that the tremendous shadow, the breathtaking enormity of the gaze looking down upon us— it all belonged to a human.
"Sam." I breathed weakly. My knees wobbled.
The girl seemed to hear me, becoming taut at the sound of my voice.
Rosin curved to face me, her face twisted, "I can't believe you."
Surely she didn't think I caused this? My mouth flew open to defend myself from the terrible accusation, but she was already shaking her head.
"No, no— This wasn't me! I would never- I didn't do anything! Rosin, I-"
"How much did you tell them?" The girl snapped. But before I could say anything more she had given me a snarl and shoved past. Her wings slapped against my face when they washed out from her back. The pink petals that swung around her puffed with air as she leapt from the floor, and the woman was up and hurtling towards the tribe before I could even begin to deny the accusations. Rosin was the least of my concerns though. I had far greater problems to face now...

I watched with terror as a huge hand ripped away more bark, making the tree creak and moan as the terrible hole became even greater than before. The initial crack made by the axe would have been a mere scratch compared to this gaping cavity. My heart stopped dead when the cause of the damage came into view.
This can't be real— it can't be.
He threw the axe that he had used to hack into the tree aside, wielding the huge weapon like it was nothing. As much as my mind screamed for a falsehood, it was a painful reality that we had been discovered. Discovered by a human.

Lips pulled back into into a terrifying smile. I could only watch as those eyes found hundreds of houses hidden within the cavern, and of course, hundreds of tiny people.
Giving a surprised murmur of laughter, those awful eyes just widened, "Oh, wow. Just look at all of you..."
Aspen, my heart was already pulsating. Where are you?

I began to stumble back towards the tribe without even having to order my legs to move. My heart was pounding as adrenaline coursed through my veins. You didn't cause this. You barely told them anything.
As I zipped past Blossom and back towards my people, there were sounds of terrified gasping and panic beginning filling my ears. Rosin doesn't have the slightest idea of anything. You barely said a thing- you didn't lead him here, Azure!
Sam looked in at his new discovery, eying all that he had found with ravish wonder. Something inside me cried out. Perhaps I hadn't brought him directly to the Hollow, but I had practically given the human a map straight to us.

He glanced up to the luminous moss that hung from the top of the cavern, to the weaving vines that lined the walls like paintwork, to the once perfect timber that arched upwards and curved around like a great dome. The human was looking at all that was my home... and then, painfully slow, he lowered his eyes back down to the streets. Where everyone, everyone, was gathered.
The human's glinting eyes were enough to utterly obliterate my nerves. A terrible grin crept onto his face.

People were coming to their senses. Now, a few of them had begun to stumble away from the giant creature. Sam looked down at the slowly panicking crowd, chuckling quietly to himself in a sound that reverberated around us all. He leant further into the hole that was as high as his chest, making more people begin to flee in panic. The real danger of the ghastly situation had only just begun to truly dawn on us.
"You don't need to be scared..." Sam leisurely watched the small people stagger away in a flurry, "I'm not going to hurt you."
Still, I forced myself to run, ignoring how shaky my legs had begun to feel. I watched in horror as he lifted his hand over the gap, dropping it down into the cavern.
"Just don't squirm."