Tell Me... Is It Over Yet?

Part 6

        I turn away from the amazing veiw, heading towards the portion of the platform connected to the tree trunk. I tug on the thick rope tightly tie to a branch a small ways above my head, testing it for stability. After a moment of reasurance, I wrap my legs around the rope, holding tightly with my arms, and begin decending at a decently quick pace. 

        After a few feet, my confidence in the rope grew until I was climbing down about as fast as somone walking. The upside to such a form of travel is that it is often not used, due to its reliability on strength, leaving it as a sort of personal highway. In case of an invasion, not many unsits at a time would be able to climbe each rope, especialy those with heavy armor, and the rope could be cut at anytime. After all, we are not the kind of people to be caught unprepaired, no matter how long we have remained safe. 

        I was about half the way down the trunk of the tree when, at allmost the same level as the tree line, when the rope shook. This is rare, and dangerous. Due to the solid anchors at both ends of the rope, it is allmost allways taut as a bow string. But when it is not, the rope is weakening, coming apart at the fibers, creating a dangerous situation for any and all using them when they finnaly give out. 

        Of course, that is the downside to using the ropes. Posible death.

        And of course, we have precautions against such things. 

       But falling from this hight makes those precautions very feeble. 

        I begin climbing faster then ever before, creating more of a delayed fall than a climb, and giving me rope burn that would definatly cause problems later. If there was a later for me. 

        The rope vibrates again, this time as a continuous vibration like that from when a branch is sawed buy a rugged blade...

        My eyes widden at the thought. The ropes where safe when I tested them, meaning... sabotage. 

        I make a split second decision. I let go, throwing myself as far back from it as possible.

        Just as I do the rope snapes, creating a whiplash that could cut through a few painful layers of skin, but luckily only grazed me just above the knee. I wince at the pain, but know i have a far greater problem. 

        As the rope begins falling, I grasp for it, just barely missing the end as it flys by, giving me a nasty cut on my palm. 

        I hiss, a habit I gained from Talon. Then my mind catches up with that dreaded human emotion: fear. And I reolize I am falling. I swallow down my fear. No time for that. 

        C'mon, get a hold of yourself, fear is for the dead. My mind races, trying to think of ways to avoid a splattering impact. This time, the others don't even know I'm falling. 

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        For a while, I just fell, much the same as my fall from the tower, but this time, there was no exhileration, no staring death in the face and saying, I'm not even close to done yet. Bring it.

        I wish I could say I have a brilliant idea, then atleast the fear would be clouded over with my famous stuborne determination. But no ideas will come. I can feel it, the empty shell known as a brain, not working the moment I need it most.

        I am completely reliant on whatever precautions the Crows may have set up in case of a snaping rope. I have to trust them. It is the only thing that can keep me sane. 

        With my eyes peeled open, my face first free fall is flashing before my eyes in a way that my life should. But, yet again, I don't see my past or a possible future in the falshes. Instead I see the devastating present in graphic detail. 

        I see the ground rising up to meet me, I see the surrounding city, full of possible yet oblivious saviors, I feel my inability to call out, wether pride or sheer terror was keeping it stuck in my throat, and I feel my hair whipping in the wind, being pulled by the air as if attempting to stop my decent. 

        I feel everything in this moment, right here, right now. Falling.

        Then, I hit the ground.

        My bones shatter with an excrusiating crack. My lungs feel caved in, my arm is bent as a sickening angle, and my knee caps feel just as shattered as any other emotion but the pain within me.

         I scream, but not a sound comes from me where a blood curdling screach could be expected. My ribs ache as I continued to try screaming ,for the first time in my life. The world needed to know my pain, to know my agony, in these last moments where I know I am going to die. My scream needs to haunt these lands until there are none left to be haunteed. I need to scream, to leave my wail ringing in the ears of my killer.

        I will not cry. I need to scream.

        The light closes in around me, the pain still throbbing through me as the eternal light envelops me, taking me into the unknown with my last wish unanswered.

        I never screamed.

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