The beast dove down once again, forcing Astel into another roll, its claws grazing his shoulder. Astel cried out, his whole body shivering from the rush of cold wind dragged by the desperate hunter. His mind was searing, working overtime to find a solution with only a handful of seconds before the next dive, which would surely be the last. He had only managed to dodge because he was comparatively too small for the beast. He had a feeling it had already adjusted to his movement and size.
Each flap of the monster's wings was loud enough to be clearly discerned from all the other noise, allowing Astel to do the one thing he could manage in his state.
Count.
One flap.
Two flaps.
Three flaps.
The monster was close. In just four more flaps, it would dive and descend. Time was running out.
He heard the next, gritting his teeth as he tried to ignore all the pain.
Then the next, attempting to silence the noise in his head.
Then the next. He poured all his focus into getting the timing right. He knew a single moment's mistake would cost him his life.
Suddenly, the shouting voices calmed down, drifting away like whispers carried by a strong wind. The centipede moving allowed him to reclaim his clarity just in time.
Then came the fourth flap.
The booming sound it produced was so quiet now that Astel almost couldn't hear it.
It was coming down.
Instead of pushing himself into a roll, Astel dug his fingers into the soft grass, forcing his body into a spin. He was now lying parallel with the ravine, no longer facing it directly. He quickly freed his fingers from the ground and raised one of his hands into the sky, holding the other in front of his chest.
Just before his other hand could get into position, he felt the intense pressure claw at his mind, disrupting any thoughts he had.
The sharp claws of the flying beast scraped against the ground, raising dirt and grass as they slid along.
The reason Astel held his hand up was to make himself appear even slightly bigger, hoping the monster would miscalculate and miss. That single hope was the only thing on his mind before it went blank. His extended hand started falling back toward his body as it lost the strength and support it needed.
The beast's claws caught Astel's body, easily tearing into his already worn-out clothes.
However, the unexpected happened. The beast started closing its claws too early to properly grab Astel. The monster didn't manage to catch him, but the impact and speed at which it hit him were enough to lift him into the sky. Slipping along the curved keratin blades, Astel began falling into the wide, deep ravine.
The monster, however, didn't give up.
Feeling that its attempt had failed, it opened its wings like a giant sail, slowing itself down at once. With its still-open claws, it hit the opposite wall of the ravine, quickly twisting its body before diving down toward the falling Astel. Its giant body moved much faster, reaching him in just a few heartbeats.
The monster opened its bone-covered jaws around the free-falling Astel, revealing its jagged, disgusting teeth with bits of rotting meat still stuck between them.
The jaws began closing around Astel when suddenly they stopped.
As they fell, the light around them disappeared, turning into darkness, and out of the darkness an oddly colored miasma rose.
The monster's body gradually turned limp as it began falling alongside Astel.
The farther they fell, the thicker the miasma became.
Just as Astel was about to come back to his thoughts, he was taken back under by the miasma, only managing to grasp his surroundings for the blink of an eye.
The miasma was like thick purple smoke, its hue seeming to constantly shift, sometimes turning shades of yellow, or even a pearlescent light green.
Astel wasn't quite awake, but neither was he sleeping.
It felt like the state between opening your eyes and waking up.
He felt so tired, but also full of energy.
He could physically feel the gears turning in his mind, his chest inflating and collapsing. He could feel the blood pumping through his veins like a flowing river. The sensations were all so intense, but they didn't feel overwhelming.
In a way, it was almost nice.
It felt like, for the first time, he was truly in touch with his body.
He smiled, feeling the muscles stretch, curving his lips into a deep smile.
But for some reason they didn't stop. His face began conforming to the twisted muscles, seemingly changing the shape of his head to allow a wider smile.
For a moment he was terrified, but something calmed him down.
The smile was a part of him.
It was him.
His eyes relaxed, letting his smile exist as wide as it needed to be.
With an odd sense of calm, he reached around him, realizing that he was falling.
Something in the corner of his mind told him that he had been falling for a while.
Before he could properly focus on realizing the situation, his attention shifted to the colors all around him.
Mesmerized by the sight, he began to feel lost among the multitude of different shapes and colors. He didn't even know such a thing could exist. The feeling of pure bliss overshadowed any other thought he may have had.
So much so that, without even noticing it, he became one of the colorful shapes.
His body simply faded from one form to another, constantly taking on new appearances, holding Astel in a seemingly eternal loop of rediscovery and awe.
Just as he was starting to accept becoming an undefined shape somewhere in an endless pit of light and color, a seed of doubt began to surface deep inside him.
What if this is all there is to life?
He didn't want to be stuck like this forever.
Without him noticing, the scenery around him shifted. No longer was he falling down.
He was falling upward.
Ascending beyond the pit of shapes and colors, his body transformed once more into what could only be described as a generic humanlike figure.
A mannequin of sorts.
Astel felt normal.
Like he had just woken up from a weird dream.
Was his name even Astel?
Wouldn't simply calling himself
The questions faded as soon as they appeared.
The name
He ascended above the sky that he couldn't remember being there before.
Or at least what he thought could be Earth.
To
The direction he traveled in couldn't even be called up.
It was just
Space around him folded and unraveled, revealing endless white beyond even the borders of the universe.
He had reached his destination, a place that could only be described as
There was nothing notable around him.
Even his appearance wasn't notable by any means.
He didn't walk.
He didn't fly.
He didn't move in any way.
Space didn't fold around him because there was no space.
Time didn't pass because there was no time.
There were no thoughts in
There was no head.
No brain.
No thought.
It was quiet.
One could say that millennia passed, but with no time or space as a reference, that would simply be wrong.
With this single fleeting feeling of
This one, however, wasn't filled with empty space and stars.
This one only had color.
No.
Calling it color would be wrong.
The concept of what filled this new universe didn't exist.
Feeling the lack of definition and the existential hunger, something else appeared.
It looked like a man but clearly wasn't one.
No.
There were several.
These existences were nothing of note at first, but gradually they created everything.
Time.
Space.
The universe.
Planets appeared as a pair of eyes witnessed everything.
As things continued appearing, Astel's mind began returning to normal.
He could feel himself walking alongside an invisible barrier between the two worlds. He didn't think; he simply acted as the universes beyond and within both began sprouting.
The view was so stunningly beautiful, it was like looking at a wrapped present within a wrapped present on Christmas morning.
He just didn't understand the need for the larger present.
But he didn't need to.
The joy of it was still there.
He sat down at the edge of an infinite walkway, resting just a short distance from a black hole swallowing a galaxy.
The colorful cosmic dust reminded him of the colorful banners he would often see during the Paragon parades back home.
With the blink of an eye, he was sitting on the edge of a tall building above the streets he used to frequent as a child.
Without a single thought, he pushed himself off, falling down toward crowds of people celebrating the coming of a new year.
As his body hit the ground, he fell through it, stretching it like rubber before tearing a hole in it.
He was back where he began, falling alongside the lights and shapes, only this time the shapes were more defined.
Clearer.
Sharper.
Some of them looked like... mushrooms?
He saw flashing images of glowing leaves and flowers growing down the walls that kept creeping closer and closer to him as he fell.
Suddenly, something knocked into him.
Something heavy, but slightly soft.
No.
He knocked into it.
No.
He wasn't falling anymore.
He fell onto it.
His mind was extremely hazy, unable to properly focus on anything in front of him. He could barely remember how to move his limbs.
He was on top of it.
It felt like skin.
It wasn't smooth.
There were some sharp, sturdy bits.
Then it took a breath, and the realization slowly dawned on him as terror crept into his eyes.