Skye's POV:

"Uuuggghhhh. M-My head." I groaned as I sat up, rubbing my head, dazed and confused. 

I began to get up slowly, looking around as my vision tried to adjust itself. As everything began to come into focus, it was then that I saw I was surrounded by...... 

"A bunch of snapped and uprooted pine trees?" I said, noticing small patches of the grass, leading me to believe the rest had been ripped up. There were also pine trees that had either stood up or laid upon the soggy ground, but all of them were bare and needleless. The needles were nowhere to be seen, and only the brown, soaked soil that had been home to beautiful, green, lush grass, and the bare, partially debarked trees and their large roots that laid and stood before me. The sky above me was gloomy and gray, and the clouds that filled the sky were moving fast to the west, which was behind where I stood, as they were in the direction of Agathe presumably. Rain had begun to drizzle down from the clouds above, but I paid it no attention as a new thought popped into my head. 

"W-W-What happened? W-Where am I-I?" I said, a bit of a tremble in my voice as I spoke. 

But, no sooner than I said this, my head began to throb, and all of my joints began to become enveloped with an excruciating pain that shot through my entire body like lightning, causing me to collapse to the ground in pain. I closed my eyes and grunted in pain as visions began to flash throughout my mind. Then I remembered.

Hurricane Agathe, the tsunami, the tornado... even getting hit on the back of my head with a beam and blacking out... and Chase. It all came back to me in a flood of images and clips from memories I couldn't even necessarily recall. But, then I heard animal screech. 

But it wasn't the kind of screech that I, nor any other small animal, wanted to hear, no. It was the screech of animal that flew high above the ground, eyeing and preying on innocent, small, and defenseless creatures, otherwise known as the notorious eagle. 

And right now, the sound of its talons flailing in the wind was heard it drew closer to me. But suddenly, a strong wind gust blew through, forcing me to use all of my strength and claws to keep myself from going rolling down the hill as the wind roared through my ears. After 5 seconds, however, it shifted directions, blowing the opposite direction, one that would have me tossed down the mountain. But, I also realized that I could use the wind to aid my escape from the dreaded eagle that continued to dive for me. The wind had done a great job at delaying the eagle temporarily, and it would probably continue to do so for another minute. And luckily, a minute was all I needed to escape. Or at least I had hoped it was.

I began to rock myself left and right, slightly at first but moving faster as I continued. My legs slowly began to retain their normal vertical position, and after 30 seconds, I was free at last. But that also meant that I only had 30 more seconds left to escape. 

However, as I looked up, I also saw that the eagle had adjusted to the windy conditions too, and a little ahead of schedule. Now I had to make every second count if I even wanted to have a chance at surviving this. With it heading towards me at full speed, I quickly gathered all my energy and focused on only one thing: Escape. I then took off as fast as I could, the eagle lunging for me and missing my tail by just a hair. It ended up crashing into the soggy soil below. I turned my head just as it took its blow to the face. 

"Ha! You missed!" I called out as I ran, unconsciously reacting to a feeling of triumph that came over me from seeing the eagle's wipeout. It was unintentional, but I didn't care. At least it slowed the eagle in its pursuit for my flesh.

The eagle had immediately screeched in anger at my taunt and shook off the dirt on its head. It then spread its mighty wings and gave them a powerful flap downwards as it took off high in the air once more. It then went flying like a bullet, in hot pursuit of me. 

"Ugh! Why'd I say that?!" I said to myself as I began to run even faster to gain distance between me and it. It didn't work, however, as the eagle continued to gain ground on me. 

"Ugh Skye! C'mon, think! Otherwise, you'll never make it out of this alive!" I told myself as the eagle continued to draw closer to me.

Just then, however, a large, bare, and debarked pine tree came over the horizon and into my view as I continued to run down the mountain. It was clearly old, as it had many smaller limbs amongst the larger, main branches. 

"Hmmm......." I began, an idea coming to my head, "maybe, and just maybe, if I I run underneath the tree and its tangle of branches, I can use them to trap the eagle in!" I said. "But, the opening under that tree trunk is dangerously close to the ground. And the only thing supporting the trunk one halfway-snapped, large branch. Like, what if the limb breaks? Because it definitely doesn't look extremely stable." I thought to myself as eyed down the opening. 

However, the sound from the angry eagle behind suddenly became all the convincing I needed at that point to follow through with my plan as I approached the outskirts of the tree trunk and began my way into the thick weave of branches and limbs. "Oh man! I hope this works!" I said as I continued running through the branches. The eagle seemed to be struggling, much to my satisfaction, as it continued to make its way through all of the branches with its long, wide wings. We both continued trying our best to maneuver around the many small limbs and occasionally large, protruding limb that stood rigidly between the branch and the ground it had impaled. However, I was succeeding in increasing our distance between each other.

The tunnel then began to get lower, yet wider, much to eagle's advantage, as it was now able to glide through the passageway with ease, and was quickly regaining its lost ground. I continued running, and as I approached the trunk, I ducked down and slid under it. Just then, however, I heard the branch that was propping the tree slightly off the ground... fail. The trunk began to groan as the limbs and branches above my head came crashing down, making the tunnel become more and more narrow.

Even worse, the branches on the very outskirts of the tree began snapping and falling down through the tangles of the branches and to the ground where I was, and they did so with a force so powerful that they threatened to impale just about anything and everything as they continued their rain from above and down towards the ground below- and me. I ran faster and faster, trying to keep ahead of the domino-effect of tree branches that fell. 

"Come on, Skye!" I muttered to myself as I ran, "Go faster!" The adrenaline in my blood pumped in and out of my legs like a jackhammer, and my joints ached with pain as I finally escaped and through the narrowing opening, only to exposed myself the open, destroyed mountain range once again. My running began slowing significantly as I halted to a stop and turned around to face the tree as I collapsed to the ground below, panting heavily. My heart was pounding so fast that I felt as if it was going to go flying out of my chest just from the sheer pumping force! 

"Hoor.... ay," I began as I continued to lay there, panting heavily, "I... did it! My... plan...... worked!" I finished, my tongue rolling out as I continued to pant. But then I remembered my whole reason for doing this. That eagle. But, I noticed it was nowhere to be seen, presumably form either being caught in the tangled heap of branches and limbs, or from being crushed by the massive tree, or from just simply being impaled. "But honestly, I don't know or care what happened to that.... horrid savage. I'm just glad I got rid of it." I said happily as I continued to pant. 

But, now sooner than I finished saying this, I heard a loud rustling in the branches, followed by the eagle crashing through them, rising high before falling back down towards the ground, only a few feet from where he arose, I saw it had a thick, slim branch through one of its wings, and it was bleeding severely. It instantly stood up once again, however, and shook the dirt off its face, looking around, and then it saw me about 20 or so feet away from it, looking at me with hatred in its eyes. I immediately stopped panting, and upon seeing this, stood up on all fours, a look of determination in my eyes, but fear in my heart.

Just as I was about to turn and run, however, I heard a loud groaning, followed by the large, bare oak tree suddenly beginning to slide down the hill towards me and the eagle, and at a rapid rate, too. I didn't have enough time to react, and it caught the eagle off-guard, and we were both immediately swallowed into the endless weave of branches, and the ride began getting bumpier the longer it continued, causing the branches to give me multiple small cuts on my underside and legs.

But, all of a sudden, the bumping stopped, and I felt as if I were weightless for some reason. he I realized what had happened. We were falling. I began panicking and I braced myself for impact, hoping the branches around me would be able to take the blow from the fall whenever we landed. And I really hoped some kind of soft land awaited us below, and not some sharp, tall boulders. And then-

'CRASH!'

'PFFT!' 

We had hit the ground, or what I assumed was sand from the sound the impact made, extremely hard, and I instantly lost all feeling throughout my body as I did so. The sand rushed away from us in a raging cloud of dust, coating everything within a 1/2 mile radius with sand. I was temporarily stunned by this, and my body went into a state of shock as I struggled to keep my vision focused. The entire world around me had been temporarily distorted for a few seconds, and I had just barely managed to regain my senses. 

I saw a small tunnel in the branches that led to the place beyond this tree. I weakly managed to crawl out, and taking care not to step on any sharp branches, I finally found my way out safely after about a minute or so, and I proceeded to collapse on the sand below my paws, too weak to really stand. Ater laying down, I saw that I was on some kind of small beach, with the mountains behind me and there about 20 feet of space between me and the mountain walls that surrounded my left and right side. I looked out in front to see the beautiful, blue ocean, which appeared as endless as the dark, gray, stormy, sky above me.

"Are you ok?" I heard a voice beside me say. I jumped and immediately turn to face the owner of the voice. And it was none other than Chase himself!

"Chase! You're alive! And ok!" I said happily, standing up through the pain, smiling. "Y'know," Chase started, leaning in and whispering in my ear, "I may be ok, but I can guarantee you won't be when I'm through with you." he finished. "And, my name's not Chase neither. It's Slasher," he said, his voice becoming increasingly dark and deep as he said this. "Wait.... huh?" I said, worried and confused for his and my well-being now.

He then quickly grabbed me by the neck with his teeth, and he then violently jerked his head towards the ocean, releasing me from his mouth as he did so, sending me flying out to sea. The salt water stung the pierced holes in my neck, and I could feel the blood rushing out of them with every passing second. The water also stung my eyes, but I forced them to stay open to try and look around at my surroundings. I saw that was probably only a few feet below the surface, but I then saw something moving off in the distance in the corner of my eye, some sort of shadow swimming towards me. I squinted at it as it got closer and closer towards me to try and get a better glimpse of what it was. But, once it came close enough to me to where I could distinguish some of its main features, my heart suddenly got caught in my throat, as I realized exactly what it was. 

It was a huge, wide, 20-foot long adult tiger shark.

Note: Well guys, that's the end of another great chapter! And, so far, I have actually been doing a great job juggling Wattpad and school! So I outta be able to continue writing my stories throughout the school year! I even made honor roll, which is great considering I had one high "C" (a 79) in Freshman Focus. But I pulled that up just before the last nine weeks ended, which was last Friday, and now I have honor roll for the first nine weeks! I've only made a "C" on a report card twice, and don't EVER wanna do it again! So yay! I'm gonna love seeing my report card this Thursday! But other than, I have no other news for y'all! So, Until next time ~ Chris B.