Chapter Text
Fractured Frequency | Haze
The first thing that registered through the haze, which had nestled itself upon his thoughts, was a cold damp feeling beneath his cheek. It was unsettling. Very quickly, the feeling spread. A chill ran across his body, awakening it to a dank reality. His first coherent thought, 'Where am I?' struggled to push aside the veil. As he realized his eyes were still closed, he attempted to breach the darkness, but found it seemed to expand onwards despite his efforts.
Only occasionally did tiny glimmers of light wink at him through the abyss. 'Fireflies?' His lips turned in a slight grin and chuckled at the strangeness of the image. 'Wait...no, can't be right... must be...droplets.' Rain must be catching the moonlight he reasoned. It seemed clarity, though evasive, was returning to him.
Mud met his fingers, as they wriggled on the moist ground. Testing his strength, he planted a hand firmly on either side of his shoulders and pushed back, and tried to move into a kneeling position.
As he pulled his legs towards himself, the world suddenly flashed alight, bursting with brightness. As it engulfed his vision, a sharp pain ripped through his right leg. For many moments he could only clench his fists in the slush of dirt beneath him, and wait for it to ebb away.
When the pain subsided he found he was gasping for breath, nearly suffocating between haphazard gulps of air, and the stream of rain water which ran down his face. His consciousness teetered on the brink once more. 'Breathe... breathe... breathe...' His thoughts raced. As the minutes passed, shallow breaths slowly gave way to a more steady pace.
He sat kneeling, hunched over, forehead resting on the backs of his hands. When he felt an inkling of strength return, he shifted, and reached back with a shaky arm, to feel for his ankle. It was extremely swollen. Drenched, and muddy a mess as he was, he couldn't be sure if it was bleeding, but at the very least he was relieved not to find bone protruding or at an awkward angle. Mentally he checked the rest of his body for similar afflictions, but found only minor injury.
With a calming breath, he attempted to gauge the situation, and checked his surroundings. He shifted, working himself into a sitting position, careful not to jostle his right ankle again. 'Ok, you can do this… just figure out where you...' The thought cut off unfinished, as his eyes reached the space directly before him.
It was nearly invisible in the dark. If not for the shimmer of moonlight, he'd have missed the pools of rain water spilling wildly into the ravine. Feeling his heart rate quicken, he had to actively refrain from backing away hurriedly. As unease gripped him, he tried to recall how he'd arrived at this location. 'Must have fallen...' A glance behind and above confirmed his anxiety. He was on a narrow ledge, about fifteen feet below the cliff's edge.
Minutes passed as he sat there in the rain weighing his options. He was familiar with the ravine, having often scaled it in both directions, but in the dark, he couldn't quite pin-point his absolute location.
'Shouldn't stay here...'
Was this particular ledge sturdy? Would it continue to hold his weight? Might the rain destabilize it? On the other hand, the alternative would be to scale the cliff face in the dark. That would be difficult right now— though not impossible—as the stone would be slick, and the earth waterlogged.
'But my ankle…'
Though he'd been doing a decent job of pushing the ache aside until then, that thought brought it flooding back. As the pain swelled, he struggled to remain grounded.
'Ok, focus... breathe, breathe...'
But when the moment subsided, he found that even stronger than the pain in his limb, was a dreadful, growing sense of unease. Why did he have no recollection of what happened? It triggered a barrage of red flags in his mind. No, he would have to scale the wall, he thought.
With great care, he slowly repositioned himself, weight balanced between both arms and one leg, then rose, supporting himself with a tight grasp on the cliff face. An unexpected flutter of nerves, halted further progress. His muscles felt fatigued and sore, and his heart beat irregularly hard for so little physical exertion. Inklings of doubt told him he hadn't the strength to continue, but with a steadying sigh, he leaned forward into the wall of stone, and let the feeling fall away, until all that remained were shallow breaths, and the pitter patter of rain.
Curling one tight fist, he rammed it into the cliff face above his head and pulled. Quickly the other followed suit, and his feet rose away from the ledge. In rapid succession this continued, spikes digging into rock, muscles straining to push through the burn, while using his uninjured leg to stabilize on the wall. Despite rain and risk, he flew up the obstacle with a sort of clarity, driven by experience and familiarity. His mind was null of thought. The physical consumed him. The grip of fingers, strain of muscle, feel of cold rock as his spikes drove into it. And then, something else. Something soft. 'Grass,' like a whisper upon his thoughts, it broke through his concentration. With one final desperate heave, he muscled his way over the precipice.
As adrenaline fled his system, and his full range of senses returned, his thoughts turned inward. Clearing his mind, he let the pain, and exhaustion fall away. He reached out on a level beyond the physical, to search for a familiar energy. It was an incredible relief when he was able to grasp it. It curled around his being, soothing away his strife. Utterly spent, but sure of the island's immediate safety, the echidna collapsed and slipped away as the haze settled upon him once more.
Miles away, just beyond the perimeter of the majestic Floating Island, a lone entity hovered in the sky. Slowly it began to descend, its current objective complete.
TBC
Haze : vagueness of mind or mental perception
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