A Forest of Cryptids and Shadow

I began to pull myself over the stone wall, my body trembling, a throbbing pain shooting up my arms as I tried to lower myself down the wall.

My hands shook wildly at that point, so intensely that I could barely keep my hands gripping the grooves in between each stone which held the wall together, especially with my hands slick with sweat, making it almost slippery for me to keep myself against the wall.

I feel beads of sweat running down my face as I concentrated on holding my body to the wall, realizing I should have waited a bit longer before bringing myself down, to allow myself time to rest. But I was too far down to get back up, and with the growing unease that I would be able to get down quickly enough, the only option was to keep climbing down, even as painful as it was.

I could feel my hands almost losing grip, the hands themselves almost feeling as if they were not a part of my body at all with how little control I had over them.

It made me so angry how weak I had gotten because of the famine, how pathetic I felt as I tried to lower myself down the wall, something that would have likely been such an easy task just a few months ago now bringing the most excruciating pain.

I could feel my hands beginning to slip, my sweat-covered hands losing their hold on the smooth stone.

No!

I put everything I could into my grip, into keeping my hand lodged into the stone. But it very quickly became apparent that I simply couldn't, that my body no longer could support me.

I could feel my hands slip off of the wall despite how hard I had kept my hands clenched to the wall, falling away beyond my control, a sick feeling quickly building in my stomach as I began to fall backwards, the wind whipping at my face.

I immediately twisted my body around with the last ounces of strength I sustained, throwing my hands out as the ground became clearer.

I had fallen from quite a high place in the wall, so the fall felt long, almost like it was happening all in slow motion as my body slammed into the hard forest floor.

I felt a scream tear out of my throat as I felt my leg meet the ground at an odd angle, the sound of my bones breaking snapping across the cool night air.

The pain was almost unbearable as I felt myself collapse into the ground, my leg aching wildly, the pain pulsing sporadically.

My jaw clenched, hands squeezed into fists from the pain, my eyes slammed shut. It hurt more than anything I had ever felt.

I could feel a tear run down my cheek. But I had to get back up, the reminders of the monsters, whatever awful things prowled through the forest racing back to me, and I knew exactly how it would look if one of them did see me here, sprawled out across the forest floor.

I looked completely helpless with my broken leg still distracting me, the perfect human to prey on.

I tried to bring myself back onto my feet, refusing to think it over in my head before using my uninjured foot, bringing myself up, soon placing my broken one onto the ground, settling my weight onto it.

A flash of red hot pain sparked through my body as I felt myself falling again, this time wrapping my arms around the trunk of a particularly thick tree, shuddering as I held onto it, my broken leg hanging limply.

It was the worst thing that could have happened crossing over the wall, with my pathetic body not even able to hold me up.

And I was in this forest now, a place I had only read about in books up to this point, never actually having seen this one I had fallen in, not allowed by my parents nor the government to see even a glimpse over the wall.