Fallen Pt 19

We stood for a minute staring at the obstacle before us. The massive waterfall and bottomless cliff. I heard shouts and a few gunshots somewhere behind us.
“Hunter, here!” Farren yelled at me. He had found a small trail through the jungle. We took off down the trail running parallel to the cliff. Behind us the gunshots were escalating. They came in small bursts but were getting more frequent. What was going on?
The trail began to descend and the trees and underbrush began to thin out until we were running along the side of the cliff itself. We heard shouts right behind us and flashlights split the darkness. We ran around an outcropping of rock that jutted into the trail. I could hear our pursuers behind us. Shots rang out and I could feel more than hear them after they passed.
Without any warning Farren tripped! I could not stop. We collided into each other and rolled over and over.
Farren cried out in pain as his leg slammed into a rock.
I could feel that I was bleeding from a dozen small cuts and scrapes. The men chasing us were just coming around the bend. I stood up just as the first man came around the corner.
The light on his gun blinded me. I heard a shot and something slammed into my shoulder. The force spun me around and I fell. I reached out to catch myself but my hands met thin air. I flipped over the edge of the cliff. I hit a short slope and slide down on my back. My feet left the cliff face and I twisted around in a near futile attempt to arrest my fall.
My fingers caught on a ledge and I jerked to a stop. The rock seemed to crumble a little at first but them stayed in place. My arm screamed in pain. A spider crawled across my fingers and I instinctively wanted to brush it off. I did not. My shot arm was feeling weak and without notice I felt it slip off the rock. I swayed gracefully from one hand. My fingers were trembling with the strain and were growing slick with blood and sweat.
A pebble did a classic drop and bounced off the cliff face, disappearing into the darkness below me. I never heard it hit bottom. The sky was just turning the first grey and pink tones of dawn.
I felt so weary. My whole body was sore and aching. From all that had happened. My fingers slid slowly off the rock ledge. Time didn’t slow down, but I thought faster and clearer so that it seemed like time slowed.
I thought about all that had happened to me. I thought about Farren.
‘What does dying feel like?
Why did the bad guy seem to win?
What would my family be like without me?
What would happen to Farren?’
All these thoughts ran through my head in the space of a few milliseconds.
Then something caught me wounded arm and I slammed into the cliff.
The jolt caused me to scream in pain and I think I nearly blacked out.
A flashlight blinked over the edge of the cliff.
My arm was wedged in between to rocks that jutted out from the cliff.
I was caught close to the wrist.
I hung there swinging in the breeze sweating and bleeding. I could hear a few more shots and then silence.
The sun climbed over the edge of the jungle far below me.
And just like that it was a new day.