With my full sized girth locked around the pillar, I create a distortion in the air before my face. The spatial fabric bends in on itself before touching and creating a link between the two separate points.

This is not the first time I’ve achieved so, but finally, the distortions open wide enough to pass through. The bend is still small, and only my smallest size can fit, but with this, I can move on.

It will be a tight fit, and the bends barely cross any distance at all, yet I cannot remain clutched to this pillar any longer. I have my escape from the abyss, and I intend to use it.

With sluggish effort, I angle my head back on myself, inspecting my body that has frozen in place for so long. I need to push myself out of this slumber. The longer I stay, the less strength I'll have to make the climb.

I fell a long way coming down here.

It shall not be a short journey returning to the lands above. I ignore any of the creeping doubts that there is somewhere to return to. That there is only abyss. Such thoughts will only make finally releasing the pillar so much harder.

If Scia's efforts and my recent practice have shown me anything, it's that creating distortions becomes increasingly more difficult the further they connect space. I cannot simply create a rift to the warped tunnels and be done with it… no matter how much I wish such were possible.

I'm sure with effort and time, I'll eventually grow both the size of these distortions and the distance they cross, but for now, I do not have the luxury to delay.

My body grows more sluggish as time goes on. The stillness of brumation and the seeping energy from the pillar slow the loss of strength, yet it won’t last forever. My hunger has reached a point where I can barely even feel. Nothing but a numbness permeates my mind and body.

I need to feed. My stomach demands I hunt.

If I intend to survive, I need to leave this abyss. The problem is, as soon as I shrink to the point I can pass through these bends, I will be too small to wrap around the pillar. I will no longer be able to hold myself to safety. If I fail to create these bends once I commit, I’ll float into the abyss until death takes me.

Despite that, it is my only option. I need to throw myself off, and rise. But I hesitate.

I'm limited by what I can do, but I can make distortions endlessly. It takes all my focus and an immense effort to create a single shift in the fabric; what worries me is that I’ll fail while my body moves.

Scia has always shown difficulty in creating bends one after the other, yet even with my exhaustion and starvation, I've found no issue in that regard. All my capabilities are tied up in my spatial fabric. Compared to Scia, I have an inexhaustible strength at manipulating space. Only… my space and that of the natural fabric are disconnected. It is a mental effort to cross the bridge and assert my influence on the world. What if that is too difficult while my exhausted body is in motion?

Still, I need to do this. If I can create bends while in motion, then the endless distortions I create will be the only reason I escape. If not for that, there wouldn’t be a path. It is the only reason I believe I can cross the vast distances of the abyss.

The combination between Scia and my own strengths, the synergy between us, brings her ability to an unprecedented standard. Our combined efforts will be what brings us success.

A subtle hiss escapes my throat. The first sound beyond the constant melody I have heard in so long. The world seems so wrong without Scia’s constant chirps.

I let my bend destabilise and snap out of existence as I brace to release my sole remaining safety. Trying not to think too hard, I loosen the tight grip of my body around the pillar. At least… I attempt to, but my body doesn’t respond. Too slow and sluggish, it refuses to wake from its low effort state.

My body’s refusal to cooperate is followed soon by creeping doubts. I hear them whispering at me, calling for me to just wait and sleep until some foolish prey comes along and we can snap them up. Completely disregarding the fact that no prey would ever fall down here.

I react immediately; shrinking my body and forcing the growing pillar to become too large to continue to grip.

My instincts scream to stay still and wait. Too little energy remains to be moving around, but such thoughts are wrong. There will be no prey coming down here. I need to get up and move before nothing left of me remains.

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Only when I’m at my smallest does my body finally listen. I press against the pillar and softly — using all my strength — push off. Unable to move my length with anywhere near the fluidity or strength I’m used to, I’m incredibly disappointed to find I barely gain any speed.

Scia could have pushed me harder than this.

Still, with the gravity as minuscule as it is, I have little fear of falling. Not yet, at least.

I focus my attention forward and straighten my body as much as it is willing, before forcing the spatial fabric to bend. Thankfully, my fears are unfounded and the distortion appears without issue. I flow through, and begin moving up.

With my smallest size, I can pass through my spatial creations, but I am slow. I trudge along at a pace that could never return me to the distorted tunnels above, flexing my muscles in an effort to regain control over my body.

With this little gravity, I’ll never be able to swim through the air. I cannot gather speed from something that is absent. The only thing I can do is spring off my body, but for that to work, my body must respond to me.

I curl on myself as I float through the air; the effort leaving my muscles aching and spine quivering. Having gone so long without moving has left me in a rough shape. With great pains, I flow through the next bend of my own make, and twirl my tail until it presses against the ventral scales beneath my head.

I push. It feels like thrusting against a mountain and the results are nearly as ineffective. My muscles refuse to contract as they should. I gain speed, but it’s ever so slight.

My body screams at me, and I lose focus on my bend. Destabilised, it slams down on my tail; held from closing by the hardness of my scales. I gain more speed by the bend collapsing and squeezing me out than I do from pushing off myself. If that was a rift, I would have been bisected — I glance at the stump of my tail — again.

As much as I’d love to rely on the collapse of bends to push me forward — as it would mean far less effort — their acceleration is insufficient. If I’m to escape the abyss before I succumb to starvation, I need the strength of my body… even if it tears my muscles apart.

And so, I command my sluggish body to respond. I bite down on the instincts that hold my muscles to sleep. Blood rushes beneath my scales as I will my heart to thump harder. It burns like magma in my veins, but I ignore it. This is the only way.

Again, I curl on myself through another bend. This time, the force is incomparable to before. My tail whips through the distortion long before it has a chance to collapse. The pillar at my side descends as I rise.

It is still not enough.

I flick against myself, continually freeing the slumber of my muscles, and gradually growing faster. Soon, the shattered tip of the pillar passes by and disappears from sight.

Only the abyss remains. Only nothingness to see.

I don’t waver. I don’t have such luxury; the moment I slow, the moment I stop, I won’t be able to move. My body tears itself apart to free itself from the clutches of the abyss, but it is all I can do.

The strength of each thrust is an embarrassment to what I could previously exert, even in this tiniest of my sizes, yet it allows me to climb. Gravity increases its grip, clutching me with the promise to drag me down should I falter.

After some point, I can no longer accelerate; my body moves too fast to flick myself through a bend. I’m already rising rapidly, but not near the speed we fell.

Instincts scream once more to cower and wait for some meal to happen upon me — a foolish thought down here — I ignore it. Exhaustion pleads to stop, to rest, to cease this endless drain. I ignore it.

I wish I could relish in the feeling of flying under my own power, or swimming through bends again, but the lack of energy drains any enjoyment I may have had.

Time passes. So much time with my body cannibalising itself to continue, that I become numb to it. The motions become repetitive, and fade into the background, leaving my battle against exhaustion to sap at my efforts at creating bends.

As time slips away and the melody fades from my ear, I count the bends I make. Lacking sight or sound, I need something to suggest progress. But in the thousands, the count trails off. The task too difficult. No longer can I focus on anything but the bends themselves.

Scales clatter against scales in an endless rhythm. I keep my eyes forward, waiting for something to fill the space, waiting for the warped tunnels to appear.

And eventually, they do.

All at once, a sea of bends explodes into view. Distortions; thousands of them, expanding through the far reaches of my sight. The flood of things filling space is immense to my eyes, so used to the nothingness.

My vision expands. The distortions above widening the scope of my sight once more. No longer am I compressed within the suffocating abyss. I can see again. I’m back in my warped tunnels.

As I rise to the wall of distortions, I realise I’m moving far slower than I thought I was. A dozen breaths pass before the bends reach even half the distance. Far from the speed I fell.

I don't know how long it took me to climb out, but I've finally done it. The very sight of bends themselves is a joy to my eye.

A sudden burst of energy washes through me as I push the last stretch and allow myself into the embrace of bending space. Through bend, hole, and rift, I swim, relishing the feeling of finally succeeding. Finally returning.

So many familiar sights enter my eye. The relief is overwhelming. The collapse that brought me to the Other Side did not destroy all I know. That fate still lies in the future, but it is not yet upon me.

I slide through distortions, along rivers of magma, through oceans, and beneath forests. For a few moments, I enjoy the sights, the feeling of countless distortions caressing my scales, and the simple joy of returning after so long.

Stone; simple, unbroken, unchurned stone. Never did I think I would relish such common rock.

With a flick of my tongue, my excitement evaporates. I still, and turn to watch a four-eared bilby dash across a cavern. Suddenly, there is only one thing on my mind.

Hunger.

It is time to hunt.