One Shot

Chapter 4

Gasping, I shoot up out of my relaxed slumber in a coughing fit, shaking my lungs as the breath inside them shatter like glass. Luckily, I realise, they have just drifted off to sleep, and I smile as I realise my hair is tied into a loose, simple plait, tied at the bottom by intertwining loose vines into a tight band. Dem - I guess - is the one who did this.
Letting the fact I am finally leaving sink in, I stand over my sisters and mother, looking at them peacefully asleep. I have to leave soon. Staining the sky like watercolours, the sun drifts towards the horizon rapidly in its race to finish its journey and create daylight on the other half of the world. It is almost like my heart, just dangling onto this edge of the Earth, hanging on, but knowing what it must do: venture to further places, despite any longing feelings of regret.
So silently I pace over to the campfire, and place my two arrows on the log, next to each other in a perfect line of symmetry. Unable to stop myself leaving them some kind of message, I drag my arrow in neat curves into the sand like a syringe piercing its way into veins of pumping blood. I speak my mind into the grains.
Sorry.
Bracing myself, I step towards the development of tree-trunks thicker than the atmosphere, so thick, humid and tension filled, so much in fact it's texture could be cut through with a blade no sharper than my nails.
Crunching under my feet, the leaves of the wood gently curl over the tip of my brown, mud-stained boots with laces slithering up it.
I'm a few steps in when I hear harsh breathing. Footsteps.
"Robyn?" A cry lets out. Dem. I close my eyes and sigh quietly while hiding behind a tree. "Robyn?" She continues, louder than before. I breath silently. "Where are you?" She knows that from that distance I'd be able to hear her along the Gold Coast, and I'd run back quickly to tell her everything's okay. But I can't this time. I can't.
Breaking into a sprint, I dash across the forest, unaware of anything I'm passing, just running hard and rapid into a foreign world.
This is stupid. I tell myself: You have probably missed tonight's supper for you and the rest already. You're far enough away now.
Calming myself in vein, I pant as I lean against a tree trunk, my chest heaving up and down. My hairline is beaded in sweat, sequins of shining water lining the edge of my forehead as if in a queue for a desperation that's taking over their lives.
Like me wanting to find out why we're here.
Why do I keep going off track? I'm going to find a sustainable place with plenty of food and water for us to share and we're going to survive here for ages.
Like that's going to happen, I scoff as I tell myself.
Then I look up and see the sky with stars like piercings studded through the darkness' flesh. How am I going to travel through the dark? I am sightless, the only thing I can see is my hand about two centimetres away when I squint, my eyelashes as delicate as a butterfly's wings.
Quick, my breaths are torn out of my throat by the guiding hand of whatever spirit seems to be haunting me at this moment, sure to make me collapse in fear or any other way possible. But I can't. I have to push through this and be strong.
Straightening my shoulders, I breath slowly.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
I lean my head back against the tree behind me heavily, and swallow down the dread inside me as if it's just a normal piece of saliva. Startlingly quick, a heartbeat after my fingers brush the solid trunk of bark behind me - it clicks.
"Finally!" I almost yell to myself, my voice ringing through the bushy trees, shaking leaves like they're tectonic plates buried in a mountain of rubble and everything involved in a mighty earthquake. My mind eventually processes how to at least be a little safer as I turn around and let my hands amble across the chapped surface of the tree's bottom, slowly reaching upwards until I found a branch sticking out to the right. I lift my left arm skywards only to find another block of bark reaching out like raw, sleeted fingers.
Heaving, I pull myself up with clenched fingers and raging, shrilling arms.
Once the branches in my grasp are at the height of my chest, I let out a large breath as I twist one hand, the second. Now in front of me, I push myself up as the thumb of my right hand mildly brushes my hip; I jut my knee up, lean on the branch. After I bring both knees up, I grab the stalk just forward of my face and pull myself up - then I stand up on the two branches I held as I bought myself off the ground, legs slightly apart.
Feeling around, I find (at the height of my waist) a collection of sticks and branches in a hammock-like shape. I place the ball of my foot on the edge of the bed of birches and twigs. Putting my weight on it, I push myself up and place my other foot beside it to steady myself, before squatting. Finally, I twist round and lean back, in a slightly-sitting position.
Closing my eyes, I realise to myself that I'm not even tired, although I have worries about what lays around me I can't sleep. Daydreams soar around in my head, birds, wings spreading as the dreams enlarge in different thoughts and processes as pictures flash in my mind.
I think about when my dad was alive, spending time climbing trees out in the local park. We did that a lot.
He made me, me.
He made me into the warrior that I am.
I feel a tear spark in my eye, but before it can trickle down my cheek, I wipe it away.
I will not cry.
I will not cry.

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