My dick still hurts.

The barrier I ran into was some kind of glass. Where did it come from? Who knows and who cares. I just wanted to get out of here fairly soon. I needed to pee, and from the looks of it, so did everyone else. They were doing that awkward shifting that people did when their bladder was topped off.

I tabled that problem and focused on the main issue, our entrapment. Turtley suggested that I talk with them, so I did just that.

They were already standing and trying to bang on the wall, trying to break it or something. I wasn't that stupid. 4 walls of glass that touch the sky appearing in the middle of the night while we sleep? It obviously can take quite the beating.

Sorry Mr. Axe, I know how much you love death and destruction.

Seeing me stand, they moved over to me and started to yammer. I hate yammering.

Allen was the most panicked, "What are we gonna do! We're trapped! We'll never get out of here; we need to do something!"

Jane was much more tame, but equally worried, "I agree, we need to find a way out. I...need to... pee."

As I suspected.

I started to think about what we could try, but my train of thought was constantly being derailed by the two idiots proposing insane ideas. I couldn't think with them injecting their own terrible musings into my obviously superior ideas.

I slapped the two of them across the face. I achieved a goal I always wanted, slapping two faces with a single swing. It felt like a comedy skit, but my attitude did pick up a ton.

"I'm gonna need you to pump the fucking breaks and just calm down. Good plans are never made while you're all panicky and stuff. Look at it logically."

Thanks to my magnificent Slaps Of Instant Panic Suppression, they were able to get a grip and contribute real ideas; none of which were viable, but they were more feasible than the things they were suggesting before.

This planet just gets weirder and weirder.

I was having a hard time creating a good idea, so I reached my hand onto my head and rubbed Turtley on his head to clear my mind. He nuzzled my finger with his head, making my mind completely go blank. So damn cute.

That's one of the reasons I love turtles so much, you put them in a giant glass cube, and they just accept it. So long as they are fed and have some friends, they are happy.

While my finger was by Turtley, he nibbled it a bit, trying to get my attention. I had to take him off his hair chair so I could see his hand signals properly.

"What is it?"

He pointed to a branch of leaves that was about 3 meters off of the ground. The branch was poking right through the barrier, having a slight glow around the spot where they intersected. At that spot, the barrier looked more like a force field than real glass.

Does that mean this whole thing is magic? Is that even possible?

I looked back at Turtley.

"You found a break in the barrier. Great work little buddy."

He shook his head 'no'.

"What?"

He pointed at the branch, and then his open mouth. He was just a hungry boy. I guess hunger WAS the greatest motivator for people; clearly, turtles too.

Turtley was slowly becoming a more and more integral part of the plan. The branch was high, but was thicker than my wrist. It would be able to support his weight.

"Turtley. How do you feel about being a ninja for a bit?"

His eyes lit up. He acted just like a child. It leant to a light-hearted atmosphere that I perfectly canceled out with my heavy undertones of death and blood. He was a nice compliment.

Allen had notes, "You are taking advice from a turtle? Isn't this situation a bit beyond him?"

"They have plenty of experience being in glass boxes. And I remember a certain someone taking advice from this very same turtle back at the village. A certain someone who cooperated instantly with a gesturing turtle to go against an axe-wielding murderer."

Allen turned his face away to study the rest of the glass barrier.

That's what I thought.

Jane was on board with my idea, she was always on board with things I did. She's nice like that. Though her hair was a bit of a mess from sleeping on the ground. It had some sticks and twigs in it.

Turtley; I'm gonna make you FLY.

"Ok little buddy. Here's how it's going down. I'll toss you into the air right over the branch. Then, you need to somehow use the branch to clip out of its hitbox and make it to the outside. Once you get outside, somehow do something awesome and then help the rest of us escape. Got it?"

I got an affirmative nod from him. He was a smart turtle, so I'm pretty sure he got everything and was ready. I carefully picked up LL and put him back on my head. He would stay there while Turtley was doing his stunt.

I loaded up the exciting trooper and prepared for launch. He was slightly larger than my palm, so I needed to grip him a bit. The main issue was making sure that he would land perfectly on the branch so that he could grab it. 3 meters was fairly far to throw something perfectly first try.

Allen had some apprehensions, "Hold up. Are we sure that this is the best course of action for..."

YEET.

My muscles tightened and I accelerated my shelled friend into the air. The arc was perfect, sending him directly over the branch. His shell gleamed as the light caught it. The sight was magnificent, a flying turtle.

Unfortunately, my throw was a bit off and he went right over the branch and started hurtling at the ground. I panicked and had to dive to catch him. My arms got all scraped up, burning for a bit while before the pendant healed them.

I checked on him to make sure the fall hadn't injured anything. He was staring at me with a jubilant expression.

He enjoyed it. I guess we had TECHNICALLY skydived together already. I would never have thought that he would ever want to do that again.

He jumped around in my hand, basically telling me: 'again!'

"Focus on getting us out of here first. After that, I can throw you in the air all you want; you could have told me that you liked it earlier."

Turtley was now serious about his mission. He got into a throwing stance, pulling his body into his shell and preparing for take-off. The fate of three full bladders depended on the success of this operation's outcome.

Jane and Allen both gave Turtely their best wishes, even though Allen was still a bit uncomfortable with their entire plan revolving around a turtle. I would need to sort his attitude out later, for now, my buddy wanted to FLY.

My muscles tensed once again. I wasn't able to control every single little muscle fiber independently, but I didn't really need such physical ability. All I needed to do was throw a dear friend 3 meters in the air to land him on a branch and escape a glass cage.

Juggling skills don't fail me now.

I don't know why I was giving such importance to the second try, I could always just do it again, and Turtley would probably even like that. However, Jane was starting to look VERY uncomfortable. Her bladder was clearly about to burst, so I had no more room to fool around; the smell of piss in the morning was extremely unpleasant.

Launch.

Turtley followed a very sharp arc up into the air, passing past the branch a bit before he started to come down. When he hit the crest of the arc, he extended his limbs and head from his shell, targeting the branch like a homing missile.

Of course, that was all an illusion his mind made up, he was following a parabola, he couldn't change that in such a short timeframe. But it didn't matter, my aim was on point. Turtley landed on the branch, his left leg slipping off as he grabbed onto it tightly.

The three of us at ground control gave a small fist pump of excitement. This was the first of many successful turtle space program missions.

Turtley was wavering dangerously on the wobbly branch. The wood was not the stiffest looking. It wavered under Turtley's barely perceptible weight. The branches could only handle their own weight, a questionable evolutionary mechanism.

How could they even survive this long? Darwin should have descended with his golden shotgun and put them out of their misery.

Even with these challenges, the branch held long enough for Turtley to make it to the barrier. all around the branch, there was a slight golden glow.

Now came the moment of truth. Would he be able to pass through it? Find out next time on...

Of course he could. The gap created by the tree branch wavered under Turtley's touch. It was like the glass had yet to solidify, trapped in a state between liquid and solid. It took minimal effort for him to start pushing through the liquid-like barrier.

It wrapped around him like he was a bubble. The glass was stretched thinner and thinner until it snapped and let Turtley out of the entrapment. A second round of cheers erupted from our trio.

Turtley did his own little dance of joy on the opposite side of the barrier. He had made it out, and now he was the lone escapee.

He looked down on us and made a noise that sounded like a turtle laugh, a maniacal laugh that marked his fall to the dark side.

"You won't leave us here. You can't, you're my little buddy."

Turtley gave me a contentful smile, casting his gaze down from the tree, above us all and free from our hold. His arms waved through the air like he was giving a grand evil speech, waving them about crazily.

I laughed, he was so cute, "Enough playing around, can you help us out, please?"

Turtley's evil speech ended abruptly and he smiled normally. He had his fun as an evil overlord traitor, but now it was time to help us. He pushed on the barrier from the other side this time. It behaved the same as before, bending and warping like blowing a bubble of glass.

We didn't really have a plan here. We didn't know how the barrier worked or even was powered. Everything was new right now, so the next five minutes was just the three of us giving suggestions for Turtley to follow.

We tried to have him just go in and out of the barrier over and over. The result of that was just finding out that he could do it all day and nothing would happen. We had him try and stay in the bubble, letting it warp more and more of the wall. That one was also a miserable failure. The bubble did warp more and more of the wall, but stopped once it reached a certain size.

After those two, we were running out of ideas. We got one out of four out, so we already exceeded expectations. The real problem was the rest of us.

We were kilometers from any civilization, in a forest, in a magic barrier, on a continent, on an alien p... you know the rest.

Turtley was getting fed up with everything as well. He paced back and forth on the branch, entering and exiting the barrier, hoping to glean some kind of insight from it. There had to be something; some kind of trick that would allow us all to make it out.

*Crack*

What was that?

*Crack* *Strain*

I looked up, and my heart stopped. There was a web of hairline fractures going through the branch. The cracks were leaking a glowing red fluid that dripped on the ground before it lost its glow. Then, the branch snapped off.

Turtley started to fall, along with the branch. I desperately wanted to reach out and save him, but could only watch him fall. Time slowed to a crawl. All of our experiences flashed by my mind; I couldn't lose him. Not now, not ever.

*CRASH*

The ten-meter-long branch slammed into the ground. I hand to shove Allen to the side to keep the end of the branch from smacking him in the head. That was something I didn't want to bother with.

Turtley was laying there on the ground, laying on his back, unable to get up. My heart bled for him. I would shred this entire prison apart with my bare hands if I could. My friend needed me.

I need to calm down. I'm not rational right now.

The branch hand landed on the ground, part of it still inside the barrier. Now, the same thing that let Turtley escape was accessible to me. It was now within arm's reach.

I didn't hesitate. I grabbed the edges of the glowing wrap and pulled with all my might. The barrier resisted such a massive amount of it suddenly becoming a liquid, but my sheer force of will, and some muscles, let me rip open a hole. The ripped edges shot out glass threads to try and reconnect, but I grabbed Jane, Allen, and our stuff and kicked them through the open hole.

I was the last one outside, accumulating razor-sharp glass thread cuts on my body. It was like every single action of mine lead to me getting injured. Was I always like this? Or does having an object that heals all wounds relaxes my stance towards injury.

Introspective questions are a later problem. Right now, I have a friend to help.

I moved over to where Turtley was and helped him roll back over. He breathed a sigh of relief and nuzzled my hand. We had all made it out alive.

I transferred LL back onto Turtley's shell, and placed Turtley back on my head; it was his rightful place after all.

What other oddities does this forest have, and why?