Rocks skittered away as I lost my balance. For a moment time stretched out; I was suspended on the edge of eternity. Then I was falling. Head over heels, I tumbled downhill, careening painfully off boulders and tree trunks, rolling through bushes that tore at skin and clothes alike. I tried to grab onto anything, but momentum carried me down. The sky and ground become a swirling mass where up had no meaning to my poor rattled brain.

By the time I reached the bottom, I was a limp and broken mess. I didn’t have enough energy to flip myself over and I was aware of every one of the dozens of bruises I’d just earned. Even breathing made me grimace in pain.

Once the world stopped spinning so rapidly, I realized the roaring sound I’d thought was blood moving inside my head, was in fact the Saff River coursing through its banks. It was the same river that flowed past my village. If I could just roll over, I could fall into the icy depths.

With any luck my corpse would float downstream and poison the lot of them.