Bad Company... , part 33

The stubborn catfolk lass snapped back to awareness so sharply that it startled her for a moment, leaving her blinking slowly in confusion and wonder. Throwing her head back and giving it another wake-up shake, Shea tried to fight down the rising flush of panic that was clawing its way through the brain-hazy shroud. But it was a fight she was losing, the realization of how close she'd just come to completely succumbing giving anxiety the edge over reason in the battle. Shea looked over toward the counter-edge again, so much closer than it had been...and yet still so far away. She'd never make it in time moving like she was, she told herself once more. She was simply going too slow...

And so, she kicked the chair back onto its rear legs with a sharp thrust of her feet, and threw herself off toward the left, forgoing any attempt at being careful with the "pivot-and-move" approach. The chair lurched a few inches toward her destination, letting out a loud screech as it scudded across the tile floor...and then came to a jarring, rocking stop. Shea felt a mix of exhilaration and terror - eerily similar to what she felt on a good roller-coaster - her eyes flashing in poison-dulled hope. Sheer frantic desperation rendering her heedless of the danger, she began to lurch herself onward in fitful "hops", throwing a little more effort behind each one, the simple, primal need to survive taking over once more...

Which worked until the fourth such attempted hop... Whereupon she lunged a little too far to the right in preparation for her left-ward thrust...and the startled catgirl felt the chair tilt a hair too far beyond the balance point... And then she began a slow-motion topple toward the floor, shock-widened eyes still fixed on the counter and its promised salvation, letting out a muffled, raw-throated cry of shock and anguish as that salvation began to slip through her fingers...


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On to "Bad Company...", pt34