Chapter Text
The wind is a Screaming Ripping thing, it lifts dust and dirt and sand, turning them into stinging pelting cutting pains. He keeps moving forwards, knowing that stopping now means death. One foot in front of the other, following where he believes the sun used to be before it set, before the night came and the dust kicked up blocking out the starless sky. One arm held up to protect His face and his eyes squinted nearly shut to help protect them from the dirt and dust.
The wind shifts in an instant, from blowing into his face to shoving him from behind hard enough to pick him up off his feet, launching him several yards and dragging him across the rocky ground before dying back down to where it was before. He curls in on himself for only a moment, the stinging of new cuts is nothing in comparison to the empty aching of limbs far past the point of failure. He can't stay here like this, already dirt and dust is piling against him, threatening to cover up and suffocate him if he doesen- move!
He barely manages to roll to the side as one of the odd stone statues near him topple over, nearly crushing him. He gets his hands under him and slowly props himself up on his elbows and his knees, then uses the newly fallen statue to stabilize himself as he gets to his feet, mostly hunched over he slowly straightens out his back until he is standing again.
He turns his back to the wind and keeps walking, the further he walks the weaker the wind gets until finally the air clears enough for him to see farther than a foot in front of himself. He slows slightly as the MASSIVE cliff face suddenly seems to appear out of the dust, If he can get there then he might find shelter! Some nice cave deep enough to get away from this screaming biting wind!
He doesn't move any faster, he remembers the first time he went caving and the guide told them that the most injuries happen right before leaving the cave because people get exited and stop being cautious. He needs to stay cautious. One foot in front of the other, Just keep moving forward, soon he can rest, not yet, not quite yet, but still soon.
Bugs, big large giant humongous bugs. the crawling ones aren't so bad, just step out of their way and they leave you alone. The flying ones are little shits that deserve the rock he smacks into their face's. He has a rock now, it's his rock and no one can take it from him.
There are also a lot of larger bug corpses, some of them have what look like clothes, he nudges one with his foot and it crumbles into dust. He really doesn't like the idea that all the dust in the wind is corpse remains. Another of the flying ones start slowly heading at him, he hefts his rock above his head and smacks the bug hard into the ground, then hits it with the rock again crushing it while it is dazed.
There are also a startling amount of metal like spikes, they aren't metal, despite shining like metal and ringing like metal when he taps them with his rock, but they are slightly warm to the touch. Maybe they are also a bug? Or some sort of odd plant. Maybe a snail? Or a lichen or perhaps some sort of anti bug spikes someone tried putting in the cave.
The most odd thing of all is the large pulsating blue cocoon that he is currently standing in front of, it looks moments away from whatever is inside getting outside... he probably shouldn't be standing near it when it does, in case whatever is inside decides it is hungry enough to try eating him. And with how big it is he would bet on it being able to do so in only a few bites.
He is so. Damn. Lost! Every part of this odd cave/cavern thingy looks dang near the same, the only reason he knows that he is actually reaching new areas and not just looping back on himself is that he has been steadily going down and not up, because the only way to go up would be by climbing and right now holding his rock and staying mostly upright is difficult enough for him.
He passes by one more blue cocoon before finding a thin crack that seems to lead back outside, he has to smack it some with his rock before it is wide enough for him to wriggle though, not with out consequences, but what are a few more scrapes compared to the freedom of non violent open air? And are those lights?
They ARE! Lamp poles with little glowing bugs inside! He follows them and into a town! A seemingly completely abandoned town, one with buildings slightly shorter than him and seemingly made out of large shells, but a town non the less! Finally he has guaranteed shelter! And down the street he can even see a well, that means water too! Behind!
He whirls around as something tackles him. He hits the ground, cracking his head against the stone path. The thing bites down on his arm and it BURNS BURNS BURNS!!! He smashed the things head with his rock and gets coated in a glowing orange goop that he can just barely see seeping into all his different cuts before his vison lights up white with PAIN!
ARM BURNING SHOULDER BURNING HEART LUNGS BLOOD MIND MIND MIND!!! No, No, NO! Not my mind! It's all I have! He locks The Fuck in, pulling everything he knows of himself into a little dense ball deep within his own mind as termers rip control of his body away, the burning of the orange deepening ever more. Burning away the dense layers he is protecting himself with, he pushes out new layers from deep within himself, layers like rings of a tree or a pearl in a desperate bid to push the buring further away.
It calls to him, it calls to him whispering sweet nothings, his hold on himself slips for a moment. He comes back to several layers having burned away, NO! The orange burns! His layers are burning! Acid burns and bases neutralize acid, what is the opposite of orange? Red and Yellow make orange, BLUE! Blue like the cocoon he saw forms deep within his layers, blue like water, blue like the sky, blue like his eyes that can no longer see through the burning, blue like the seats at the diner he worked at, blue like his mothers eyes.
The orange burns away the last of the hastily made layers and reaches the blue, and it stops for a time and the blue starts to push it back as more layers are formed deep within. Then the burning intensifies, it shifts from all encompassing orange to a brighter more painful yellow and it starts eating away at the blue layers now too, but slower than it did before the blue. It mixes with the blue to make green, then it burns away the green. Yellow, opposite of yellow. Yellow, blue, and red are the primary colors. Red and blue make purple!
Purple layers form deep within that tiny little protected place inside his mind. Purple like roman rulers wore, purple like grape juice, purple like on a car, purple like his younger brothers favorite color. It hasn't finished eating through the blue yet the burning intensifies once again, this time a blinding searing white that eats through the colors even faster than the orange did before the colors slowed it down. White, White light contains all colors. Black absorbs all colors!
Black like his laptop back at home, black like his favorite pair of pants through out high school. The blue layers have been near completely burned through!
Black like a cool moonless night, black like the darkest of paints that leaves no reflection behind. The purple layers get smashed through yet the black holds strong against the crashing burning light.
Black like the freezing cold emptiness of space, an emptiness that consumes all, THE emptiness that consumes ALL! The light is no longer burning, instead it is hammering away at the black with an all encompassing RAGE!
Deep deep within the core of his mind he goes down and down and down, condensing him self further and further in until his entire being is so dense that even the light cannot escape. Pulling and ripping at all that is inside to consume it down into a singular tiny speck. Condensing himself down into that most ravenous of all the celestial things. He pulls and twists at his own shell, ripping it apart and welcoming the burning into it's own demise.
The Black Hole he imagines himself to have become is no larger than the pin head of a sewing needle, but it ravenously rips and tears as it feasts on that burning light. Orange and Yellow and that blinding White get relentlessly sucked in and shredded down by the memory of the most powerful physical force in the universe. It grows and consumes and grows and pulls and twists and rips all that is not meant to be inside.
The black hole grows in strength until it has consumed all inside his mind, and then it starts traveling down his spine, relentlessly devouring all as it travels downwards, not letting any of the burning get into the space he has already purified. It grows slowly as it consumes more and he imagines it settling inside his heart, sucking the burning out of the rest of his body through his veins.
Every beat of his heart, every breath of his lungs, every thought, every single moment, and every part of himself all together working to purge and eradicate the burning orange from himself. That all encompassing burning relentlessly devoured by that which is beyond all, the central focal point of entire galaxies. The strongest gravitational force in existence.
When the burning has faded and the all encompassing orange has gone away from his mind, when he is no longer locked out of his own body, he finally rests, consciousness slipping away into non burning dreams.