You are Walking on a Road

You are walking on a road. Each side is so thickly lined with trees that you cannot see even a foot past. It is a dirt path, well kept, but rarely used. It is a warm day, not sweltering, but warm enough that you toy with the idea of taking off your outer layers. As you walk, you notice the way the leaves on the trees play with the sunlight. You tilt your head from side to side and weave back and forth, laughing as you see the lights dance, but you never wander so far that the light disappears from view.

As the day grows on, the sun stays in the same place, westward ahead of you. Before too long, you tire of your game with the leaves and take to walking very near one edge of trees and then very near the other. You begin to get more and more careless, spinning across the road, and even closing your eyes. The sun goes out of view every time you get near enough to touch the tree line. You don’t notice the roots of the tree in front of you sticking out of the ground. Your foot catches on it and for a soundless second you fall, grasping for anything. The trees are on the edge of a cliff and you are falling. You reach and your hand finds a single protruding root. Hanging there, terror fills your body and the world becomes sharply focused. Everything around you is covered in the shadow of the trees. Looking up, you can barely make out jewels of light through the branches.

Your grip begins to slip. You cry out for help. Looking down, all you can see is the edge of the cliff and darkness below. The root slithers out of your hand and you are falling. You scream into the trees. Then you stop. A hand has grabbed your wrist and pulls you back up, through the trees and onto the path. Your feet land on ground and you look up to see who saved you. But no one is there. Shaken, you walk back onto the path, wondering if you made it back up by yourself, or if someone, or something, saved you.