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The drop seemed much more intimidating from ground level.
The water more frantic.
Pyro couldn’t say that he was a fan of it.
Never has been.
Cautiously glancing over to the group of… humans, he couldn’t help but notice the distinct smell of fledgling and death sticking to them like a leech.
“Uhhhh, how’s it going?”
His voice sounded hoarse and unsure. He internally kicked himself for it. He was supposed to be menacing, not nervous.
The stream was deep. Making out a riverbed was a fruitless endeavor.
It made him uneasy, afraid.
Falling down would be a death sentence in more than just one way.
Fate seemed to have a cruel way of twisting things around.
The next thing he saw after regaining his senses was Apo, his roommate, a person he trusted and joked around, stride impossible close so that he could see shadows clinging to her clothes -wait what- mumbling something unintelligible and shoving him off.
Gravity caught his cloak, and he was falling, FALLING.
A strangled gasp escaped his throat.
Crimson hair clotted with shadows, illuminated by red light.
Intricate stone carvings unmarred by time blitzing past his vision.
Water.
Rushing, spewing and gagging and grabbing, pushing and ripping.
Untamed.
Pyro did not remember the impact.
He was almost glad for that.
Filling his vision, his mouth, his nose, he couldn’t breathe, never could, never had to, he was dead, he was turned and the water was back to reclaim him and tear at his body until he couldn’t fight anymore.
He couldn’t move, he didn’t want to give up, He didn’t want to die.
Stone meeting his neck cracked his rushing thoughts, currents clawing at him, begging for apathy.
Arms and legs and torso burning, ripping and gashing and strings of blood painting the water and wavering his vision, scarlet and brown. Liquid crawling its way into his lungs with precision unmatched, cushioning his stomach and toying with him like a cat with a mouse, debris scraping his throat raw, filling him from the inside.
Bile and tears and blood floating next to him, glowing when they drifted into the sparse streaks of moonlight filtering through the water.
It pressed down on him, tons upon tons of liquid suffocating him during every move he dared to make.
Move.
He had to move, to get out,
Pyro was here for a reason (what was that again?)
But water engulfing him, a force of nature unrivaled, both sluggish and intangible.
Move.
But he was trapped, in the grasp of the river, wounds littering his skin, constantly irritated by the flood.
Move.
He still had a life out there. Moments to experience. Pain to feel. A sky to gaze upon.
He had to get out.
Every twitch of a muscle made him flinch, whipping him internally, yet he continued.
MOVE.
Screaming into the mute waters, sobbing and trashing, even when there was no one to answer the call.
The air was cold.
Cold as his dead skin, little pinpricks of agony forcing exhaustion through his bones, tensing his muscles, stealing his breath.
Euphoria as hot and sudden like lightning flooded through him not unlike the water before, blinding his senses.
The ground was rough.
Rough like breaths forcing themselves out of a body, rough like ragged bark and steep cliffs, rough as life pulsing through him and weighing him down like a blanket.
It was grand.
It was sickening.
Pyro never wanted it to end.