Chapter 85 - 85. Massive Fall
Jackson's face was full of terror as the tree started to slip downward. "Asher if you live, go take my place in the garden club and lead us to a victory in our orchid competition." His plea was random since terror made him think of the only other thing he had been looking forward to recently.
Asher didn't hear a single word, he was instead muttering about his own death and splat being written on his gravestone.
Onyx was trying to climb to the tree as fast as possible but soon realized he was too slow. The tree had started to fall.
The roots slowly pulled out of the cliff face and let the tree fall. The two boys were clutching on to the tree with their might. The screams they let ut were not supportive of their masculinity but could not be avoided. Jackson was trying to remain awake instead of passing out from the fear of the fall.
Asher was praying to the universe to give him enough luck to survive this terrible fall. He held on tighter than he knew himself able to. In a sudden moment, he felt a hard jerk as his body came to a stop.
'Ah...I'm dead now. I must have hit the ground.' He opened his eyes still holding on to the tree and wondered if he was in some strange world. He could see the orange and pinks of the setting sun on the sky and thought himself to be in some form of heaven. 'I might as well let go instead of carrying this uprooted tree with me through my entire afterlife.'
Asher let his grip go and felt his back hit a hard bumpy surface. He struggled to roll over feeling the pain on his back since he had fallen on to some pebbles. This shook him to his senses and he started to feel his body. "I'm alive...I'm alive!" He was laughing like a fool poking his shoulder and toughing his face, he could feel everything and be somehow standing on the ground.
He felt that he must have been saved by some secret hero but was in awe at the state of the tree on the cliff. He was looking at the branches in front of him and noticed they were swaying even though there was no breeze.
His eyes followed the tree upwards and also the roots. They were still attached to the cliff and had been pulled out finally staying attached to stop the momentum of the falling tree. "Jackson! Let go." Asher spotted Jackson who was still clutching the tree and cracking the bark in his arms.
"No way! I refuse to die." He was pale and shaking slightly thinking that he was still about to fall.
"Fine then open your eyes and then let go." The sarcasm in Asher's voice was enough to catch Jackson's attention and make him open one eye cautiously.
"Oh, it's the ground…" Jackson was monotone as he realized that he was only a few inches off of the ground. He rolled off the tree and hit the ground much more elegantly than Asher had.
"Do you two know what you just did?" Laura popped up right next to them with an excited smile on her face.
"We died, we died and now we are somehow alive again." Jackson was still having trouble making sense of the situation they were in since he had yet to look at the tree handing by its roots still attached to the cliff.
"No, stop that. You bungee jumped with a tree and its roots. It was soo cool. How did you know the roots wouldn't break? Was this your power Asher? How fast do you think you were falling? Do you think it can be done again? I want to try, it looked like so much fun. Way better than the amusement park rides."
Asher didn't even have a chance to answer a single question as she threw them all out at the same time. Her words were nearly too fast to understand.
"That was not what we meant to do. We were taking a break and then that happened." Asher pointed to the handing tree finally showing Jackson what had happened to the tree.
"Ahhh, that tree was so strong looking. How could it fall like this but still stay attached by the roots. This is against nature." All the knowledge that Jackson had gained about growing plants was lost at this moment. He had never heard if a tree having strong enough roots to not only hold it in after being torn almost completely from the ground, let alone a cliff. He also had never heard of a tee growing such perfectly straight roots that they would just fall and hold their shape when out of the ground.
"Not sure about my power, I guess this is pretty lucky. A lot of things needed to happen for us to not be flattened in the ground right now." Asher was feeling a lot of warmth about his super power at this moment. He had not felt this lucky in his life. "Alos, no one should even do that ever! Why would you want to try and deliberately fall off a cliff? Are you crazy?' His harsh words made Laura shrink back a bit.
"But it would be better than an amusement park ride…" She just outed as Jackson tried to pull at all his knowledge to figure out what could have happened to make this possible.
"OK, so in theory, if the crack in the cliff that the tree grew in for the years of its life is straight then the roots were forced to grow tougher and perfectly like a rope. If that didn't happen then we would be flat on the ground. The cliff must have shifted as time went on and our weight was just right to make the loose roots shift and pull out but not enough to make the larger roots pull all the way out." Jackson was trying to plan logic in this situation but was still skeptical.