De Novo (The Gene Thief Series Book 1 - Short Story) Read Online Free PDF

not a resource she could spare at this moment.
    There was no time to wait. She slithered out of the hut and made her way to the back.
    Even the wood was beginning to feel different under her feet. It was as if she was weightless. There was no gravity, and she was floating. The tree she needed to get to was right in front of her. She knew it was just a few feet away because not too long ago she made that exact leap. For some reason though, the tree would not stay still. What frightened her was that she didn’t feel any wind blowing around her. The moving tree must have been another illusion created by the shaman’s smoke.
    It seemed almost impossible to try and jump and hang onto such an elusive target. Was it safe to assume it was the one in the middle? No, it’s not safe to assume anything when you’re over one hundred feet in the air. She looked down over the small wooden railing, and even in this drug-induced state, her stomach still became queasy just at the site of the drop.
    She heard footsteps coming from the other side of the hut. Someone knocked, and then silence.
    More knocking.
    Finally, she heard the animal skin being pulled across the doorway, and the footsteps had entered the hut. Now they were just ten feet away, separated by a thin wall of straw and leaves. She heard screaming and more footsteps. More footsteps and more footsteps. It was as if every soul that lived up here was headed straight for her direction.
    She made sure everything was secure, planted her feet on top of the wooden railing, and jumped, unsure if she would hit the hard tree and latch on, or if she would fly by the tree and crash to her death.
    It felt like she was suspended in the air forever. She prepared for the impact and hoped to have the wind knocked out of her because at least that would mean she had made contact with something.
    Thud.
    The water soaked bark slapped against her chest and the side of her face. She was sure if her cheek had split open, or if it was just the water continuing to pour down. None of that mattered for now, as she focused on hugging the tree with all her might. She dug her fingernails into the bark until she felt them bending backwards as if they might snap off any moment.
    Her world finally came to a halt, and she managed to cling on to the tree. Starting to scale the tree downwards, she grabbed a vine and began to wrap it around her forearm, but it was almost impossible to do. Her limbs were beginning to feel numb. Her grasp on the tree felt was weakening, the tree itself felt like it was shrinking between her arms, and there was nothing she could do. With all her might, she grabbed and squeezed the tree, but it didn’t help. 
    Peeling her head off the tree, Kira looked out into the rest of the forest, and saw nothingness. She kept blinking, hoping to erase the darkness and replace it with reality, but to no avail. The vine began to slip from her grasp, she no longer felt the tree, and her consciousness seemed to be following suit.
    Using every last ounce of energy, she closed her eyes and forgot about everything but that vine. Letting that slip out of her hand would ensure her death. She did her best to tie it in a slip knot, wrap it around her forearm, and quickly tighten it with her left hand. Nowhere near as secure as she would have liked, it would have to do for now. Her entire body had turned numb, and she had to convince herself that she really did tie that vine. It wasn’t a figment of her imagination.
    Her vision on its way out, all she could see now was the terrifying distance to the floor of the forest. An unthinkable distance to fall. Definitely not the way she had imagined spending her last moments on Earth. What a lame way to go, falling to her death in the rain forest after being unknowingly drugged by a creepy shaman. Kira always imagined an epic battle with a trained assassin or something of that nature.
    Inhaling a hallucinogenic smoke and slipping from a tree was much too