rain

Chapter 7

I woke up to the sound of rain, snuggled against Seth. I looked up at him to find him smiling down at me. "Good morning," he said as he sat up and stretched.

"Good morning," I smiled back. I closed my eyes again.

"So... what are you gonna do?"

I sat up, "I don't know." I wish that someone could make the right choice for me, but this is my decision and I have to do what is right on my own. Right then the wind picked up and I looked up as if the answer was going to fall from the sky.

"Thinking about climbing the tree?" Seth smirked. I nodded in response.

"You coming with me? The view is great."

"Maybe another time, I think I'll just watch this time," he smiled pleasantly.

"Okay, I'll be down in a few. I just need to think this out." I started climbing my usual path, but decided to find a different way. I don't really understand why I did this, maybe I just wanted some more change. Although the last time I wanted change, I ended up running away for almost a week after a huge fight with my Mom and discovered my father doesn't care about me... but not all of it was bad. I did meet Seth, and he helped me get through this hard five days.

Maybe this time I'll get lucky and something good will happen. I smiled at the thought, still climbing when suddenly there was a huge clap of thunder rang over me. It may have shocked me, but I wasn't scared, if thats what you were thinking. There have been storms way worse than this within the past four years. Storms so bad we wouldn't be able to open the door without getting drenched.

Okay, so maybe that's an overstatement, but I'm just trying to say that even though I'm soaking wet, in a tall tree, with thunder roaring, doesn't mean it's going to stop me from climbing to the top. However, I should probably a little more careful in placing my feet. I don't want to accidentally slip and fall to my death.

I was almost to the top when my foot slipped on a branch and I nearly fell I don't even know how many feet, luckily I caught myself before that happened. Maybe the new path did bring luck! Or maybe I wouldn't have fallen if I didn't take it, but i was at the top now, so it didn't matter.

The wind violently shook the tree and I looked out to sea: waves crashing, thunder rolling, and lighting zapping. Then I looked to the forest: tree swaying with madness, dark clouds, and little flashes of lighting. I saw one zap a tree about a mile away. It scared me to think it was so close, that could have been me.

I looked down at Seth, "Carter," He cupped his hands and yelled trying to make me hear him, but it was very faint over the sound of the wind and the rain, "maybe you should come down. It's dangerous up there right now!"

I shook my head and yelled back, "No, I'm fine," but I debated coming down, for I could see the worry in his eyes, even from all the way up here, but I came up here for a reason and that reason was to think, so I tried to let all of the thoughts out of my head and wait for an answer, but I found it hard to do so when there is lighting smashing, and extremely powerful wind. I looked back down at Seth and read his eyes. They said, "Please come down, Carter."

Then I looked back to the sea, still thrashing, and I looked to the forest, looking as if it was trying to escape then I turned around. I had never turned around before and I realized you could see all of Honeydew from up here. It wasn't much but it was beautiful, and it was mine. I smiled at the thought of finally accepting Honeydew and began my descent.

I hadn't even taken one step before I saw the reflection of the blinding light behind me and felt the searing hot pain jolt through my entire body. Then all was black. When I opened my eyes, I felt like an eternity had gone by, and notice I was correct in the case of an eternity being a split second. I began my decent for real this time, but the ground was approaching me rapidly, or was I approaching ground? So many thoughts coursed through my head.

I was falling, and it was not a graceful fall seeming as the pain of my limbs hitting each branch was only adding to the real true hurt that was still coursing through me. I looked to the ground and my eyes searched frantically for Seth. I found him, the realization just settling into his eyes, the panic in his movement. I couldn't stand to see him any longer, but I couldn't bare to close my eyes. As if reading my thoughts, the world helped me, just this one time. I hit a branch and was flipped upside down, or right side up, or I don't know what happened, only that I was now looking at the sky.

To the vast, electric sea of black that had me worried, that would haunt my nightmares, the sky that had hit me with such impact to make me fall to my death. The realization hit me like lighting: was I going to die? My memories replayed my most cherished moments.

I saw me with my siblings playing tag under the tree outside our home in Texas, my parents hugging me when I got back from camp, my friends and I playing soccer in the big field behind Lidia's house. I saw the calming tree I had been in the first real day in Honeydew. I saw the night I ran away, the joy of being free from something I couldn't understand. I saw feet, and a light turned on and yelling, it was the argument between my mother and father, the one in which I was hiding under my bed. I saw last night, my last night possibly?

Then the memories stopped and I was looking at the black sky again. I started to scream. I don't know why. It wouldn't help, but I did because thats what you do when you're scared, but was I really scared? What was I scared of? I saw the bottom branches of the tree distance themselves and suddenly, all was black.

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Short chapter, but rather important, I'd say.