I was tired from running all day, starving, and physically exhausted. If the ponies didn't get me than something in the forest most likely will. With very little strength left to fight, I'd make a quick meal for some hungry predator. I had the stop, rest, even just for a little while. Find a dark spot under a fallen log or rock outcrop. Any place would do.

The sounds of the forest grew ominously quiet. Something was hunting me and it was unlikely to be the ponies. I had left them far behind when I passed the tree line. Stopping here would be a bad idea, but continuing until I fell in exhaustion would be even worse.

There were no promising places anywhere in sight to rest along my current path. If I couldn't out run my new pursuers or find shelter on the ground, I'd have to do the next best thing; Climb a tree.

0———still working on the middle ———0

Weak from hunger and exhausted from running for most of the night, captured and hauled off to who-knows-where, I had a decision to make. Should I let them just take me, or should I do something desperate and take fate into my own hands

I peered over the side of the sky chariot. We had cleared the forest where they had caroused me and now flew over an open grassy marshland. My escape would be either now or never. Still exhausted from all the running, I had to make up my mind soon. They had taken everything from me. My friends, family, home, everything, all gone. Now they wanted to take my freedom. I wasn't going to let them. I am my own person. I will choose to live and die on my own terms.

I steeled my nerves and gripped the raised edge of the chariots frame. There was no observable reaction from my captors. This was my only chance. With a great heave, I pulled myself over the edge into the open air letting gravity take over.

There was nothing else I could do but fall. I closed my eyes, steadied my breathing, and waited for the end to come.

One breath. Two. A third. I should have hit the ground by now. The sky chariot wasn't that far up. Five, six. I opened my eyes. Impossibly, I was still high above the marsh.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3: Adoption day (1.2, 09/21/2014) Estimated time remaining: 35 Minutes