Otrahun fell.
The wind beneath his wings was gone and he could see a sullen and desolate landscape come up to meet him through the smoke and the fires that burned below. He kept thinking maybe a parachute will open up and arrest his fall but nothing did. He slammed into the ground like a bag of blood and bones. The shock drove him to stillness and then the pain rushed into the vacuum of his missing soul.
He tried to scream but no sound came out of his mouth. He tried to claw at his throat with broken fingers but there was no power in his feeble attempts to get his voice back. As soon as the pain had started, it vanished too. The pain was soon replaced by a feeling of itching inside his body.
His broken fingers set themselves like the hands of some invisible doctor were pulling them in the right position. His lungs inflated, sucking in the fetid air of the hellscape and his teeth mended themselves as he coughed and retched, trying to make sense of where he was and what he was doing there.
It was his luck that he had landed on an outcrop of a mountain instead of the boiling pool of lava that burned below him. He had to shade his eyes because of the heat and the rising flames from the pool.
The vista around him bubbled and throbbed with some ancient pain and the sky above was the color of an infected wound. He tried to place the stench in the air that was somewhere between days old rotten sewage, eggs, and meat has gone bad. A spell of retching came over him once more and he sat there on the rough ground trying to gather his wits about him as his body's internals slowly knit together to make him whole again.
How long he sat there, he did not know but after a considerable time had passed, he got up and decided to explore the region. Thirst was clawing up his throat like a dead body trying to climb out of an open grave. His stomach felt acidic and made sounds that were vaguely threatening. He needed to eat and drink something.
There was only one direction to go, away from the pool of lava. He walked as thirst and hunger continued to fight inside him. He climbed on a hill and saw movement in the corner of his eye.
It was a crude signpost moving on its own even when there was no wind blowing. On the board, a familiar logo of twin golden arches and an arrow sign were painted.
"Well, I'll be damned," he said and started to walk in the direction of the arrow.
The wind beneath his wings was gone and he could see a sullen and desolate landscape come up to meet him through the smoke and the fires that burned below. He kept thinking maybe a parachute will open up and arrest his fall but nothing did. He slammed into the ground like a bag of blood and bones. The shock drove him to stillness and then the pain rushed into the vacuum of his missing soul.
He tried to scream but no sound came out of his mouth. He tried to claw at his throat with broken fingers but there was no power in his feeble attempts to get his voice back. As soon as the pain had started, it vanished too. The pain was soon replaced by a feeling of itching inside his body.
His broken fingers set themselves like the hands of some invisible doctor were pulling them in the right position. His lungs inflated, sucking in the fetid air of the hellscape and his teeth mended themselves as he coughed and retched, trying to make sense of where he was and what he was doing there.
It was his luck that he had landed on an outcrop of a mountain instead of the boiling pool of lava that burned below him. He had to shade his eyes because of the heat and the rising flames from the pool.
The vista around him bubbled and throbbed with some ancient pain and the sky above was the color of an infected wound. He tried to place the stench in the air that was somewhere between days old rotten sewage, eggs, and meat has gone bad. A spell of retching came over him once more and he sat there on the rough ground trying to gather his wits about him as his body's internals slowly knit together to make him whole again.
How long he sat there, he did not know but after a considerable time had passed, he got up and decided to explore the region. Thirst was clawing up his throat like a dead body trying to climb out of an open grave. His stomach felt acidic and made sounds that were vaguely threatening. He needed to eat and drink something.
There was only one direction to go, away from the pool of lava. He walked as thirst and hunger continued to fight inside him. He climbed on a hill and saw movement in the corner of his eye.
It was a crude signpost moving on its own even when there was no wind blowing. On the board, a familiar logo of twin golden arches and an arrow sign were painted.
"Well, I'll be damned," he said and started to walk in the direction of the arrow.
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