Ashton Etrigan

Age: 28

Current Mass: 185 lbs/84 kg

Mental Status: Panicked

Physical Status: Dying

“Ash, stop-” was all I registered before my senses were ripped away from me.

The moment I felt the marble pass my tongue a ripple of incredible pain passed through my body, and my mind blanked out. I was deafened and blinded for the longest second of my life, before everything came rushing back to me in a wave of consciousness. With that consciousness came more pain. A tidal wave of agony and suffering like nothing I had ever experienced before, crashing into and passing over me in a violent stream of never ending despair. However this was an entirely new form of pain, completely alien to all my senses. Regular pain from a scraped knee, a broken bone or an internal bleeding I was familiar with. I had injured myself plenty as a child, and with the amount of time I had spent at the gym it had been inevitable I’d get hurt at some point. This was new, however. My limp leg and fried nervous system from the explosion paled in comparison, and I felt my jaw expand as my mouth started to scream all on its own. Every muscle flexed uncontrollably, making me spasm on the ground, unable to do anything else. Inside I was screaming, howling in horror at what was happening to me, but on the outside I was quiet. My lungs had run out of air, and I was unable to inhale any more to further fuel my agonizing shrieks. Still my mouth was locked in a silent shout, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I believe I passed out multiple times during the full minute it took the marble to travel down my esophagus and embed itself in the deepest pit of my stomach. It stopped there, and I could feel it twist itself into my flesh while radiating more of the pulsing force that was wreaking havoc on my body. I wanted to escape, to somehow make it all stop, but my body wouldn’t do anything but twist on the ground. I must have broken every bone I had, lying there, writhing in blind torture. There was no escape from my own actions, no way to lessen the pain. Except for the void. My void from when I’d been unconscious after the explosion. It would be cold and dark inside the void, and I’d be able to ust float there in comfort, and escape from the burning torment of consciousness. Yes, the void was safe, and cold, and there would be no pain there, and I could stay there, alone, for as long as I wanted. I could stay there forever. It was so close. I would stay safe and alone, forever. I just had to give up. If I just closed my eyes and let go, I’d be there, in my void. Alone. Forever.

Forever sounded like a very long time.

I opened my eyes. I must have almost passed out again, because I couldn’t remember closing them. I had no idea how long I’d been on the ground, but as I twisted around I noticed I was alone. Or, as alone I could have been with several other people crying out for help in the distance. I also needed help. I had very nearly died just now, but something had pulled me back from the edge. Something had helped me. I thought it was just my own determination for a second, but quickly realized I would have given up long ago in any similar circumstance.

A fresh wave of pain flowed through me, coming from deep in my stomach, and reaching all the way into my fingers and toes. It reached my face, and I swear my eye sockets vibrated in my skull, except the intensity of the pain had changed somehow. I no longer felt like I was unable to move because of paralyzation, but rather because I didn’t feel a connection between my brain and my limbs. I could move my head and eyes, but nothing else responded. The pain itself wasn’t making me soundlessly scream anymore either. It was still agony beyond anything I had ever endured, but somehow I was getting used to the feeling of wave after wave of energy that came from the strange marble.

I started to think I would be alright. I thought that if I could just endure this for a little longer, then surely the pulsating pain would subside, and I’d be able to call for help, and then perhaps at that time the rescue operations would have begun. I would be saved.

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I was wrong.

The pain did subside. I managed to lift my head from the dirt, and I was able to take in my surroundings properly. I saw my arms, lying limply on either side of my body, twisted in strange directions, and rotated may more than any joint would naturally allow. I turned my neck as hard as I could, and winced as the movement made something in my back start to prickle. I saw my good leg, however, or rather what once used to be my good leg. My knee was twisted all the way around, my foot was facing the wrong way while bent in an impossible upwards angle. A splinter of something white had pierced the pant leg, and embedded itself in my thigh, right above the ruined knee. I couldn’t move anything below my neck. I couldn’t really feel anything below my neck either, at least not on the outside. Only my insides burned.

Oh, so that’s why the pain got better. I must’ve broken something in my spine. This is very bad.

I looked back up towards the ceiling, and the sky beyond it. Stars speckled the night sky, and I thought I at least would feel comforted by them while I laid there, pulsating slower and slower. I realized I probably wouldn’t survive until any rescue came along, and even if I did, I wouldn’t make it to the hospital. I felt strangely at peace with that. Then Emily wouldn’t have to see me like this, and there would be no guilt for her in trying and failing to revive my lifeless body. She would be alone though, and it would be mostly my fault. If I had just let Deimos or Doctor Astra take the shiny marble then I wouldn’t be lying here. I wouldn’t be experiencing the guilt of leaving my sister all alone in the world with no one to talk to at home about all the little things that made her life special. I would just be living with a different kind of guilt. The guilt of not having done something that might have been the most important thing in my whole life. Which one was worse? I didn’t know.

I didn’t get the chance to find out either, because a massive wave of force suddenly exploded inside me. I went from slowly exhaling my last breath to gasping for air and screaming louder than anything I have managed before. The energy felt hot as it flowed into my broken arms and legs, and the heat stayed after the wave had passed. It grew as another wave hit, and I felt bubbles starting to form inside my flesh, little pockets of air created by perspiration that instantly evaporated as a result of the growing heat. My blood was boiling. My lungs were tearing up, and with each exhale more black smoke escaped my throat. I was vomiting soot and ash mixed with blood, and it scorched my tongue as it passed my dried up lips. I heaved and coughed, and with every intake of air the fire grew in my stomach. Burning, painful, unending fire, coming from deep within my own core, and spreading out further and further, like a furnace that was heating up the floors and walls of a building with way too efficient fuel. I was screaming again, but my vocal cords were burnt away, and I had no voice to use. I could vaguely hear the steaming whistle of my blood boiling away inside my veins until the veins themselves began melting. The sensations were maddening, and I could feel my eyes twisting in my skull until the nerves were torn apart, and I lost vision in the left eye. I could still see out of my right eye as the fire emanating from the marble in me burned away my flesh, and melted what was left on the muscle and sinew that held my body together. Then I lost sight completely as my eyes melted in my skull, running down my cheeks like destroyed purple eggs. My teeth exploded and shredded my lips to bits, but I didn’t bleed at all. All my blood had turned to red vapor. My bones cracked loudly, and the spasming and twisting in my limbs resumed for a second or two, as the remaining parts of me beneath the skin was taken by the fire, and turned to dust. My organs were gone, my muscles melted, my blood evaporated, and my bones turned to ash, by the power of a shining marble I had swallowed.

The whole process lasted maybe twenty seconds, until it eventually reached my heart, and blew it out of my chest, leaving a hole large enough for a fist. As the last burning pulse of energy ran through me I thought it was weird how I still felt all these sensations, after my entire nervous system was erased by fire, and how strange it was that my brain was left untouched, almost as if it existed in a bubble of safety while the marble did its thing. The last thing I remember before darkness took me was the feeling of extreme hunger coming from the pit of my stomach, where the marble had embedded itself in me. Then the feeling went away, and I was dead.