I was five when I got the scar. My best friend Ansel and I were playing in the woods outside of our village while our mothers washed clothes in the stream. We were told not to wander too far away, but we didn’t listen. Determined to find the creatures of our favorite stories, such as faeries and Elementia, we wandered through the trees. Birds chirped and flitted through tree branches, while butterflies fluttered from one wildflower to the next. The woods were alive with color. The summer wildflowers growing in various shades of blue, red, purple, and yellow. As we wandered, we gathered a bouquet of flowers for our mothers. Eventually, we came upon a large oak that was well out of range of the eyes of our mothers.  Thick ropes of ivy hung from branches that stretched into the endless cerulean sky. I ran to the tree and began to climb, wildflowers still in hand. The forest floor grew farther and farther away, and the branches began to thin. I was twenty feet above the ground when Ansel called to me.
“Aesha don’t!” he shouted. “It’s too high, you’ll fall.”
Please, I thought, I will never fall. Ignoring his words, I reached up and grabbed another branch, placing my foot on a branch a few inches below it.
Snap!
The branch I had braced my foot on fell to the lush forest floor, and I felt my feet dangling in empty air. The branch I desperately clung to released its hold on the tree trunk and I fell through the air. Oak leaves, branches, and vines whipped past me as I fell, scratching my cheeks and leaving a stinging sensation in their wake. The wildflowers I had gathered sailed down beside me. Down, down, down, I fell, until my fall was broken by a tendril of ivy. The ivy wrapped around my throat, squeezing the air from my lungs, like a hangman’s noose. With my lungs screaming for air, I clutched helplessly at the vine, trying to unwrap it from my neck. I could hear Ansel’s cries echoing through the forest. Hear our mother’s frightened shouts as they searched for their endangered children.
Black spots danced at the edge of my vision. The trees, wildflowers, and mosses blurred into shades of green, blue, and red. I distantly heard my mother calling my name. I tried to scream, to give any indication as to where I was, but all that escaped my lips was a strangled cry. The black spots began to expand, and obstruct my vision. My thoughts began to slip away.
Suddenly, the vine snapped, and I was falling through the air again. This time, my was fall was broken by Ansel’s waiting arms. I gasped for breath, like a fish out of water, and Ansel collapsed onto the ground. Tears soaked my cheeks, and scratches covered my arms. Glancing up at the oak, I noticed an arrow implanted in the bark. The arrow had Ansel’s signature red feathers. He had saved me. He had cut me down, and taken my life from death’s hands.
Our mothers found us on the ground, clutching each other and crying, with red petals scattered around us like droplets of blood. As the tears dripped down my cheeks and onto my neck, I felt a painful sting. The vine had left its mark. A large burn mark wrapped around my neck, giving the appearance of a slit throat. We left the woods, and my mother never let me leave her sight again. The wound healed, but it scarred, and to this day it has never faded