InsaneJournal

Perhaps it was a personal choice, but Olivia would rather risk getting eaten alive by sleeping on a lower branch, than risk falling to her death from a higher branch and being eaten alive while she was in too much pain to fight back. Air was like water. It provided no support. If you're falling water and air don't lend you a helping hand to get you back on your feet. If it wasn't for solid ground you'd keep falling and falling and never stop. So therefore, solid ground was the nicest thing in the world.

But everyone had made the importance of sleeping in a tree rather clear and so Olivia had forced herself to climb up onto one of the lower branches her first night there. She hadn't gotten any sleep, but that was common for her. On the streets she was always alert, which meant she was a light sleeper. While some other homeless people had become heavy sleepers so they could sleep through the sound of traffic and whatever other noises filled New York city at night, Olivia had done the opposite. She was always prepared for an attack and most often, an attack came. Her nights were always filled with pain and fear, which was probably why the sound of the Laughers a few feet below where she had been sitting wasn't so frightening.

That night she had planned to spend her time on the same branch and as long as she was silent and perfectly still nobody would notice where she was. Quietly she pulled herself up onto the lower branch and settled down against the thick tree trunk. She then wrapped her tiny arms around the trunk, because no even though she wasn't very far from the ground, it was still the scariest thing in the world. She could handle the abuse, the fear and the pain of living on the streets, but get her off of the ground and she was the most frightened thing in the world.