The world had gone bright white.
A violent, devouring white that swallowed the sky, the towers, the world itself.
His body seemed distant. Stuffed somewhere for the moment, as if reality had been packed away in cotton.
Then the pain arrived.
His left side burned, and so did his collarbone. It was tight and numb all at once. A drumming sound echoed overhead like someone banging inside a bucket. Thunder was it?
Hope blinked.
Once.
Twice more.
The glare slowly faded, and the shapes returned. He saw rain first. Then smoke curling through the drops like fingers. The drumming came again, but his memory's voices were clear. Strangely clearer. More real to his soul than to his flesh.
Hope blinked at the sky again.
Then someone switched off the light, and everything was black.
A twitch spasmed in his fingers and knees. Good. Hands still there. Feet too. He was still awake. He knew it, although it felt like he was sensing it from afar.
He could feel the cold metal of [Pearls of the Moon], humming its magic against his ear. The sound reminded him of something small and strange from the past. How he used to press his ear against his family's home fridge. And hum along to it. He tried humming now, what came out was a groan.
Up. Up. He had to get up.
Hope blinked and the world returned.
The drumming in his ears was his pulse, but it was more of a ticking time bomb. Without a second thought, Hope crawled on all fours. He made only three crawls before his knee buckled, hands scrambling to catch himself on the wet glass.
He'd been thrown to the other side of the building. Beyond the edge were the haunting buildings staring back. Vines streched between like webs, the only link binding the skeleton of the city together..
…hskreeei…
A sound curdling from a throat that he knew came from the Fallen echoed. From whatever bottom it had fallen into.
He sighed.
His plan worked afterall.
The bomb had done its job well. Too well.
His shield had slightly softened the blast. Slightly…
Huh. But how long before his Flaw takes effect? Would the monster still chase by then–
'Wait…'
Hope paused. Then he reached out to summon the [Ashen Shield]. Nothing happened. It wasn't anywhere on the building either.
Hope ignored the protest in his ribs as he leaned over the edge. He refused to look down at his wounds. Not yet.
If he did, the pain would swallow him whole.
The [Pearls of the Moon] was slowly knitting his flesh. But this damage was worse than a demon's bite.
'And I'm using more of its power already…' Hope thought as he gritted his teeth. 'So much for saving it.'
Still. There was something else he had to confirm.
Bzzzch…
With a thought, the runes appeared. Instantly, he found the [Ashen Shield] still listed beside [Pearls of the Moon]. Hope squinted at it. Its name was dimmed.
'But not destroyed…'
Hope dismissed the runes, letting his head hang. It took too much energy to even look up.
'Then where the hell is it?'
Was it because it was too far? Was there such a limit to how far one could be separated from their Memories? Hope had never heard of such a rule. But right now his thoughts felt slippery and slow, like trying to hold smoke.
He had to get further away. If this fallen tower still within the monster's territory, he needed distance. He peered down the edge, watching the mist churn below. The thick vines twisted through the fog like serpents themselves.
Down. Down. Down below.
He was numb to some degree. That was also good. He'd rather get this done and over with before his senses fully returned—
!!!
Hope squeezed his eyes shut.
'Ah…and there it comes…'
His hands clenched into fists as a hot wave came. It was like being submerged under boiling water, and yet he could breathe.
And it hurt like hell to breathe.
'Don't look. Don't look…'
Down. Down.
Down below it called to him.
He had a feeling he wouldn't die from the fall. It would be a pathetic way to die. Although that didn't lessen the discomfort in the slightest.
…hskreeeih…
Hope reached forward-
Down.
Down.
Down below.
-then leaned his chest over the edge.
"..."
The glass vanished beneath him. And he was falling. Falling, falling as the world spun. Maybe this was the moment for prayer, to ensure his survival. But he had only to wait.
Wait for something to catch him.
***
Snap!
Hope broke through several vines.
One after the other, they snapped from his plummet.
Vines—thick, twisting tendrils—hidden between the misty depths below—
Snap!
Then, just as suddenly, Hope was caught.
Suspended.
The vines coiled around him, firm, slowing his fall as he tumbled into their embrace. They slithered across his arms, across raw burning wounds, across the embedded shards of glass—
!!!
'Fuck fuck fuck fuck–'
Hope choked on a groan.
Each damn touch was agony as he'd expected.
His breath came ragged as he reassessed the injuries. For a moment, he thought one of his bones had snapped instead. That would've been inconvenient.
Patter. Patter. Patter.
The rain continued to pour.
The wind was not so wild anymore.
The smell had also finally reached. An overpowering stench of char and burnt flesh and fabric.
No need to stop now.
He tried to pull at least one arm free.
If he could move, then he should move. The magic healing itched at him. He didn't know what he looked like, but he remembered the burned, disfigured victims from the aid stations. One couldn't tell the men from the women because they were all blackened and cracked where blood trailed like riverbeds.
Hope took a deep breath.
He wasn't that bad.
Maybe at the end of his First Nightmare it was closer to that fate—
'No. Nope. Think of something else. Something. Else.'
Hope clicked his tongue and fell back into the previous memory. There was another site Hope remembered where a building collapsed by fire. Where people died from flames or smoke. Or fallen debris.
The results were similar.
"1…" Hope began counting through his teeth. The wounds needed a little more time.
"2...3..."
Just enough to properly move.
"33…34…35…"
At the same time, his memories whispered again.
Right.
That place.
It was the last home he lived in that was burned down before any help arrived.