What is speed? Kigen was getting an education on that as he hightailed his way across the skies. His wings were all pointing the same way, and they were all beating. This served to accelerate him further.
To make matters worse, he was in a dive. Gravity was working in tandem with his efforts to bring out more speed. In mere moments, he had crossed several hundred meters.
The ground was coming up fast, too fast. He suddenly realized he had to stop. How do I do that? He wondered.
The answer was quite simple, all he needed to do was extend his wings out, and he did. Unfortunately, the upper and mid wings were not going to get the job done, so he went all out.
Snap!
Just as Kigen was doing that, he felt some part of his hind wings snap. Worse still, his mid wings were also straining. Kigen let out a loud scream as he reeled from the pain radiating from his wings. He immediately pulled them back.
Luckily, the wings had managed to do their job. He had slowed down quite some, just as he was approaching the treetops.
Screech!
Before he could relax, he realized, with a lot of trepidation, that the eagle he had been escaping was not letting him off. It was right behind him, talons extended, ready for lunch.
Due to his sudden and very fast reduction in speed, the eagle was gaining on him, and at this rate, it would be on him just as he was about to get to the treetops.
He was now in his worst scenario. He had not realized things could turn out as bad as they did. He was in a perilous situation, without a way out.
The wings he relied on for speed and high velocity maneuvers were damaged. Perhaps not as extensive as he thought, but the pain coming from them was so bad that he did not dare flap them, let alone flutter.
The only thing he could rely on was his upper wings, which had remained largely unaffected. He was still in a dive, and even though much of his speed was gone, should he crash into any tree at his current speed, it would still do plenty of damage.
He did not want to end up splattered across some tree branches.
One minute, he had been free and clear, the next, he was caught between a rock and a hard place.
Screech!
The eagle behind him must have been getting excited, for it let out another loud screech as it approached him. Its massive wings were folded, and it was riding on its momentum, and gravity.
Be it size or flexibility, the eagle was showing incredible dexterity in the air. At his best, Kigen felt he could go toe to toe with this beast, but now he had miscalculated.
Looking back once more, he saw the eagle slowly gaining on him. Looking ahead, he saw the treetops, and some very big branches in his flight path. There seemed to be no way out.
He was not familiar with the terrain, or lack thereof, or his own abilities. From his hunting days, he knew such a predicament usually led to death, but he still resisted. Since he still had life, he had to fight for it.
Gritting his teeth, Kigen decided to push forward. He knew he would endure an immense amount of pain, and should he somehow manage to escape the eagle, he would have to rely on broken wings to navigate the labyrinth of the tree leaves, branches and twigs awaiting down below.
With a loud and pained shriek, he fluttered his hind wings, enduring the pain. This gave him that final boost he needed to make it beneath the treetops.
The eagle suddenly unfolded its wings and leisurely, albeit reluctantly, floated back above the treetop line. Given its size and bulk, it would not carelessly breach this line.
Kigen was happy to have avoided the beast. To deter the eagle from following him, he had picked the location with the densest trees in the forest. This had worked for him then, but not for long.
The massive rain forest leaves, twigs and branches all looked like some wall he was about to slam into. While the leaves may not be harmful to him directly, but they obstructed his view, shielding him from seeing the real dangers, the branches.
The twigs were also a hidden threat. While they may not seem like much, they could severely injure his wings, or his body, if he slammed into them at high speeds. Hence, until he had sufficiently slowed down, he had to avoid them at all costs.
His eyes were alert, his mind razor focused. Left, right, up down, up, he desperately navigated through the dense foliage. His upper wings were performing at almost ten times their capability, and he could feel the strain.
unfortunately, there was little else he could do, since he was already in this situation.
Thwap!
The inevitable happened. One of his upper wings was suddenly struck by a twig as he banked following a minor dive as he was dodging a branch. He had not seen the twig, but it got him all the same.
He soon took another hit. A second one followed, and a third. By the time Kigen got to the underside of the forest canopy, many of his wings were thoroughly shredded. However, he was now free and clear.
Without any threats or evasions needed, he haphazardly tumbled down from the branches and into the ground.
The pain was so severe he could barely move. His wings were destroyed, many parts of his body were also bent, much like the stalk in an herb would be bent. There was even a clear fluid coming off some of his scrapes.
The pain was accompanied by fatigue and drowsiness. He wanted nothing more than to lie down and recuperate. However, he knew better. His brief experience told him that this was not a safe place. He had to get back to the mother tree.
How was he going to do it? That was the question. His wings were broken, and he did not even know the direction, and how far the tree was from his current location.
There was a solution though. If he could get to the tree branches, perhaps he could spot the mother tree, which towered above the other trees. However, the question still remained, how was he going to climb a tree, much less hike to the mother tree?
Looking at his legs, he understood that they were not built for walking. Much like a bird's, his legs were weak, and lacked the muscles required to make such a journey. Even if he did, he was quite weak and fatigued.
"Come on Geni, move it!" He shouted at himself to gain some much-needed motivation. He found that he was talking to himself a lot more.
With much effort, and considerable pain, Kigen managed to sit up, and survey where he was. Given the dense canopy, there were hardly much vegetation around him, just plenty of fallen leaves.
Suddenly, there was movement. From the corner of his eyes, he spotted something moving in the leaves. To clarify, he did not see the actual mover, just the dead leaves making a racket underground.
Whatever it was, Kigen was not waiting around to find out.
He quickly moved his aching and tired body, rising to his feet. As he did, he felt his mind go dizzy, and he stumbled. He had to come to terms with the bitter truth, he was far more injured than he'd thought.
Clearly, he had some concussion, or whatever variant of concussions plants got. He was mocking himself, since he had so many features resembling a plant, he might as well regard himself as one.
Suddenly, light flickered in his brain! He was a plant, or a variant of that. He had roots for feet, and he was standing on the ground, which meant that...
As his brain wondered, he dug through the dead leaves that had cushioned him from the fall and finally found the ground. In desperation, he dipped his feet close by, hoping and praying something will happen.
Nope! Nada! Nothing!
No tendril grew from his feet, and the ground was unresponsive. Kigen was overwhelmed with disappointment. He had put so much stock in that thought that he had almost been sure it would work. Unfortunately, he had to go back to the drawing board.
Looking up, he realized with growing anxiety that whatever had been moving towards him was drawing closer. He had to get out of this mess, one way or another. There was only one thing he could think of.
He needed to get to higher ground, far from any creepy crawlies. To do so, he needed to climb the trunk of any nearby tree. He was banking of finding better shelter up the tree, as opposed to the ground.
Looking around, he quickly identified the closest tree to where he was. It was the same tree he had landed while trying to escape the eagle. The bark on the tree was quite dried up, which meant it would be an easy climb for him.
As he made his approach, Kigen was horrified to realize that whatever shadow that was creeping around was following him, hence, he quickened his pace.
However, doing some rough estimation, he realized the distance between where he was, and the shadow was creeping was much closer than how far he was from the tree. This meant that the crawler would be upon him long before he even started the climb.
Almost as if to amplify his fears, the shadow started rising above the dried-up leaves. With horror, and all manner of nightmarish thoughts running through his mind, Kigen turned to look at the beast coming for him.