Chapter 2

                 It took me a minute to fully register what had happened. Once I did, the one coherent thought in my mind as I plunged down the well was something along the lines of OH SHIT OH SHIT WHAT THE HELL HAVE I JUST DONE. My hair whipped into my face and I could only stare and watch as that little circle of light at the top of the well got smaller and smaller. I was falling much too fast to claw at the wall and try to stop myself. I was about to scream when I was suddenly surrounded by light and blurring colors. That was when I did scream, at the top of my lungs, because I quickly noticed I was, somehow, falling out of the sky. The green blur I quickly recognized as grass, or forest, was coming up fast. I shut my eyes and curled up as best I could, freefalling, bracing for the pain…

                The tallest, bushiest trees broke my fall first. They were maybe thirty feet in height, brilliantly blue-green, evergreen-looking. I slammed into their soft topmost branches, probably taking several with me as I plunged. Desperate grabs for those only gave me fistfuls of needles.Next came the shorter trees, thick with strange blue leaves, wider, less like evergreens and with plentiful thick limbs, one of which I landed painfully on. I finally rolled off and fell another ten or so feet to the ground, landing hard on my stomach but thankfully on solid ground again and in one bruised and battered piece.

                Completely baffled as to how I’d survived that, I began wandering my new surroundings, half-terrified, half-fascinated. I was in a forest, plain and simple: dirt and dead leaves crunched beneath my feet; I picked up a twig and, inspecting it closely, snapped it in half. Still dazed and so confused, I moved forward, touching the clusters of tall, blue-green trees all around me. I grabbed some of the bark and chipped it off; it scraped my palm and crumbled it in my hand. It was real. This was all real. I wasn’t high, I wasn’t dead, yet how else could I explain this? I was standing in awe, gawking at the sky, the sunlight filtered through the leaves above me. This foliage went on as far as I could see.

                The forest looked like it went on forever as I wandered through it, in a trance. It was like nothing I’d ever seen. Every tree, leaf, stone, was in some bizarre shape or had some bizarre coloring I’d never seen in any plant back home. Some plants were moving, slithering, some-I swear-were glowing in broad daylight. I’d have been amazed at it all, but it honestly unsettled me, and the strange pit in my stomach only grew when I realized that I was completely alone. It wasn’t the complete lack of people either (though that was creepy too); I’d have expected to see some creatures, animals, bugs, this deep in a forest. It seemed as though it was only me and the shrubbery. Luckily, or..not, I quickly had a little company.

Crunch.

                There was a tiny clearing nestled in the forest, and my foot had fallen on another stick. This really wouldn’t have concerned me much had the clearing not been a tumbling, writhing, chattering nest of those…things. The creature that sent me plunging hundreds of feet apparently had a big family. They were just there, crawling, creeping, some sleeping in tangled-looking piles, others with necks extended to the lower tree branches. When they heard the stick, though, every single one of those soulless, beady little red eyes turned straight to me.

                “Oh crap.” I turned and ran before any of those birds could blink. Naturally, the most vicious of the bunch began running right after me, making terrifying noises and clamping down so hard on the hood of my jacket that I slipped out of it, stumbled, and never took my eyes off them as I ran from a chimera-thing for the second time in less than an hour. Some of the things had been satiated with tearing the jacket to shreds—they remained behind attacking it—but the smart ones, that is, the two or three biggest, stayed in hot pursuit.

                I wove through trees and barreled through everything else. Like before, only everything was more colorful and I was at least ten times more confused. Finally, another clearing—mercifully empty—and I stopped, leaning on a nearby tree, completely out of breath. My lungs felt like I’d taken a sledgehammer to them, my shirt and hair were dripping with sweat, I wheezed a little.

                They charged, and everything happened very quickly. One of their long, snaking necks reached for me and its fangs were inches from sinking into my throat. Another ripped into my leg, sending a stabbing pain all the way to my toes. Then, a deafening bang tore through the air and the three of them collapsed in a pile.

                Shaking and weeping at this point, I barely noticed the hand that helped me stagger to my feet. Once I'd calmed down, once the pain in my leg subsided a little, I took a good look at my savior and let out a gasp.