Ruthless Jungle

Written by Lupe

A cracking cut through Enna's needed sleep, surging adrenaline from her gut before she could open her eyes. Her stick-like arms flailed at the treetops above her - brushed against the stubs of snapped vines. Panic ripped thoughts from her head. She forgot how to breathe or cry out. Kept tumbling down.
Agony snapped her senses to life when her forearm pulverised against bark - sent her sprawling in the air with branches whipping past. One hand found something to grasp, but the grip burnt her palm. Failed. She knew her delicate skin was going to mangle and tear on the blue thorns below; she knew this excursion had been an awful, awful idea. A demented shriek erupted too late. Ninety feet was too far to fall.
Twenty left and oblivion rushed closer. Rash, raw ideas boiled her frigid brain - all worthless. She recognised that. This was going to be her ultimate and most spectacular disappointment, and still she was going to be unjustly mourned. Mother had killed the Burstfang to save thousands. Enna was nothing.
A single word detonated in her head. It was sourceless and primordial. It simmered her blood. It made her want to curl up and wither and die. She couldn't think in words, and none would have helped her describe the alien force groping her mind. Suspended inches above brambles, her body was perfectly parallel with the ground. Every tendon strained. Her lower jaw pressed her teeth together with the force to chisel them. The tension of every muscle she had warped into a burning. That burning built into a fire. She could not exhale to scream. 
Several timeless, petrifying moments passed. The invisible force vanished and thoughts lead to movement once more. Enna fell the last four feet, suddenly begging to be held in the air instead. She hit the ground with her shattered wrist trapped beneath her winded chest. Inhaled thorns. Screamed. Whimpered.
The feeling of warm blood following meshed with searing pain and the taste of iron. Moving was impossible, bringing new lacerations on her skin and slashing her tongue with each spasm. Blinking against the torture got her left eyelid cleaved through. Her long ears gained a thousand red gashes while she heard every one of them being carved out. Choked gurgles expressed the last of her vigour. Soon exhaustion, anguish, and blood-loss all sharpened the edges of her vision, letting the emptiness close in even as distressed shouts neared.