The ground above him rumbled and creaked whilst his entire being fell towards the darkness, something having dug itself deep into the back of his head, sinking into the sea of nothingness and pulling him along with it. The explosions grew distant with the moments and faded far, far away into the distance, whilst the silence grew louder- caging him in. At first the drowning man sought to move his arms and his legs, yet they seemed so far away - so heavy and unwilling to move, sleepy chunks of lead attached to a consciousness. Even the eyelids that in the past moved without thought felt like stone, trembling as they closed shut, resisting whatever in him was trying to keep them open.
Just as the body grows tired after a long struggle, so does the mind. The more the tendrils of his mind stretched out to hold away the encroaching void, the more tired it grew, creaking more as it was asked to hold on. It was not as though he was surrounded in some comfortable light or anything of the sort either; surrounded by darkness and darkness alone was he, except what lay past that around him on all sides felt like something heavier - something that threatened to swallow him whole, which would lay to rest even the silent yet deep rumble he heard in his ears. There was a predator lurking in these depths and it crawled around him like a hungry serpent. At least the rumble told him there was something alive within him. Was it his heart? Did his blood still run?
That force pulling on him from behind made one last tug, tearing those long tendrils into two. Scattered into four directions and stripped into dust, slithering away into nothingness. Shivers crawled up his spine like thousands of little snakes and as it often did in the past, wrapped its arms around his stomach and turned it into lead. At the same moment, sorrow stabbed the bottom of his throat like a knife- something wishing to come out, yet never doing so. A cold grasped him, spreading throughout his being before being splashed away by a comforting warmth that faded into nothingness. Every emotion he had felt in three decades smashed into him within the span of a few moments, then passed through him as though he was simply a ghost; a vapor floating about.
When faced with death, it is not only a humble insect or a bird that struggles - waving all the limbs it can and throwing a final tantrum before its demise. The almighty human mind is the same in this regard; a mighty cockroach that knows the existence of death and tries to ward it off in vain.
He poured every fiber into one creaking eyelid, managing to yank it open and taking in what lay in front of him: a simple purple hole that lay before a great orange ball that he knew to be a sun, but the purple sphere.. it pulsed in the manner of a bubble before retreating into itself, sending forth a great pulse of orange that sent him hurtling back whilst searing his vision black.
---
The next thing he knew was the sound of a man choking. Who? It turned out it was him, water splashing as his head popped out onto the surface of the foamy sea. His hand desperately clutched onto the sand underneath him, pulling him onto a sandy shore that seemed to be devoid of any life. Ignoring the salty taste filling his dry mouth as he gulped, he diverted his energies to making sure the ground underneath him kept moving the way it had been due to the work of his tireless, dedicated arms.
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Winds beat mercilessly against his back in the manner of the rods of prison wardens beating a man down to the ground. So the winds conspired against him in this manner, as did the rain dashing against his back from behind. He thought of how unpleasant was to have the cold curling up his back. He had always hated that particular feeling.
In front of him lay the restless sky, somehow changing color every second; who kept spilling the paint like this? Whoever it was must have been a sloppy artist, splashing reds, oranges and blacks all over the place. At least the sun hung in one place even as the colors around and behind it kept changing.
Warm winds rushed in from the front, stampeding past him whilst carrying with them all kinds of scents, changing every second. In a sense it was like having a thousand waiters with steaming dishes run past you every second. There was the particular dish he used to eat every day during his brief stay in Listel, and right underneath it lay the scent of dried laundry. Every moment was an array of smells placed right before his nostrils, like some cheeky home delivery service run by imps trying to play games with him and skittering right off. Thunder struck as the grey skies behind him ushered him on by swatting even more freezing rainwater at him, whilst the warm air and sunshine he felt on the front of his body treated him quite kindly. He did not bother to question why one half of this place was covered in sunrise and all the pleasant things it entails whilst the other was a raging dreary storm!
Then passed by him yet another smell, this time that of coffee. That one did a number on him, going right into his nostrils and down into his chest, tying a knot in there. What followed next was perfume, of course.
Now he began to grow quite tired of this charade and simply ignored these phenomenon that tried to make a fool out of him. Turning his gaze downwards he brought his mind towards more practical matters such as trying to see where his feet were going. He could scarcely make out their shadows through the mist that surrounded him as it was. The smell of dew the thick mist surrounding him carried was certainly something he could be thankful for! One kind thing that provided him some comfort whilst everything else chose to toy with him.
In the distance he saw torches surrounding a clearing in the shape of a crescent.. only there did the mist clear out. Everywhere else was covered in a thick mist that he was sure would simply try and push him out if he tried to enter it and following this line of logic, his feet chose to walk towards it.