Selene's Prophecy

Chapter 2

A yelp tore out of Gaia when she stepped down too hard into the dense fog. Momentum lurched her forward with barely enough time to protect her head as she fell, rolling down the hillside. Legs over head, she spun. Wildly she tried to stop her trajectory, grappling for anything that could help, but only succeeded in gathering cuts and scratches along. But at least it altered her rolling so she was going down sideways, allowing her to protect her face better.

Finally, after a very painful eternity, the inclined decreased enough for her to skid to a stop.

Coughing from the cloud of dirt encompassing her, she kept her eyes closed, mentally running through her aching body to see if anything felt broken.

Besides feeling battered and bruised, Gaia sat up, brushing the leaves and dirt off as she twisted around to look back at what she thought had to be a mountain side.

It wasn't a mountainside, but she still stared at the steep hillside with wide eyes. It was a miracle the path she rolled down somehow avoided all the thick trees and boulders that littered it. Scanning up to where she first fell, she noticed the two strange stone structures weren't at the top.

Biting back the groan, she shoved herself up. There were a lot of trees near the top, the stone structures probably were just blocked or she was at a bad angle.

But she couldn't see it. Taking a few steps away from the hill, she squinted her eyes, scanning through the trees for even a hint of the gray stones, but nothing.

Staring at the incline, Gaia sighed. She was already dreading all the teasing Drake was sure to give her for falling down in the first place.

She was about a third of the way up the hill when she needed to pause. There was a strain around the ankle that she initially stepped down too hard on. Kneeling to massage the strain, hoping it was nothing worse, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. Twisting to look for the cause, she wondered if maybe it was that black deer again.

Pushing herself up, she shrugged, ready to continue her climb when something darted between the trees.

Stepping back, her foot slipped on the loose dirt, causing her to flop hard onto her stomach and slide down to where she originally landed.

Scrambling to get back to her feet, she stumbled a few times, nearly falling face first at one point. She could hear her blood rushing, the sound like static as her flight instinct commanded her to run, to get far away.

Stumbling again, Gaia realized this wasn't going to work, especially since she had no idea who, or what, she saw. Turning, she changed plans and ran for one of the nearby oak trees.

All the years she and Drake would see who could climb the fastest proved extremely useful at that moment. In seconds, she was at least fifteen feet up, high enough to be partially obscured by its leaves. Though, it was not enough for her to be easy.

A glance up told her the higher branches had more leaves, but they were too thin to safely sit on while waiting for whatever was down there to go away. Hugging the trunk, she peered around to find the other side also had better coverage. Still holding onto the trunk, she extended a foot, trying to see if she could reach it, but the gap was too wide.

Pulling her foot back so she was straddling her branch, she contemplated what to do. Then the branches moved.

Gasping, Gaia jerked away before flinging herself forward just in time to wrap her arms around the trunk again.

Heart pounding, she eyed the leafier branches now positioned below her. They had moved. It wasn't like they swayed from a big gust of wind, they actually changed positions on the tree. Peering around the trunk, she found they were the same branches she had been trying to move to.