"Damnit!" The word tore from my throat, but the wind snatched it away before I could even hear myself.
I was flying, no, hurtling, through the air at a speed I couldn’t comprehend.
My body felt weightless, yet the force of the wind pressing against was unbearable, like an invisible hand shoving upward with no intention of stopping.
My heart pounded in my chest, each beat echoing in my ears as I struggled to make sense of what was happening.
Below , the ground was shrinking rapidly, the details of the world I knew blurring into a patchwork of greens and browns.
I twisted my head, straining to see behind .
There he was, Ori.
His form was a swirling mass of black mist, a shadowy figure cutting through the air with terrifying speed.
He was chasing after trying to save .
I couldn’t tell if he would be able.
All I knew was that he was fast, but whatever Fen had done to was faster.
My stomach churned as I realized I was still accelerating, the force of it pressing against my ribs, making it hard to breathe.
"Shit," I muttered, the word barely audible over the roar of the wind.
I could see Fen’s figure far below, growing smaller and smaller until he was nothing more than a speck.
"Bastard," I spat, though the anger felt hollow.
My mind was racing, trying to piece together what had just happened.
One mont, I was standing there with Fen in front of holding my neck, and he randomly just sighed and the next, I was being launched into the sky like a ragdoll.
The higher I went, the more the world seed to shrink.
It was surreal, like watching a map fold in on itself.
I kept expecting the speed to slow, for gravity to finally take hold and pull back down.
But it didn’t.
Instead, I kept going faster, the air growing thinner, the world below becoming a distant mory.
My chest tightened as I realized I was running out of air, my lungs burning with the effort to draw breath.
Ori was close now, so close I could almost feel the cold black mist on it body as it tried to reach out to .
But just as he was about to grab , sothing stopped him.
It was like he hit an invisible wall, his form freezing mid-air.
I could see the frustration in the way his mist swirled, the way he seed to push against whatever barrier was holding him back.
But it was no use.
He couldn’t reach .
And then, suddenly, I was outside the atmosphere.
The blue haze of the earth’s sky gave way to an endless void, and for a mont, I thought I’d see the stars, the planets, the vast expanse of space I’d only ever seen in pictures.
But what I saw instead made my blood run cold.
It wasn’t space.
Not the way I knew it, anyway.
There was no glittering expanse of stars, no familiar planets orbiting the sun.
Instead, there was... sothing else.
Sothing I couldn’t fully comprehend.
It looked like a tree, but not a tree.
Its branches twisted and spiraled in ways that defied logic, stretching out into infinity.
The trunk, if you could even call it that, was massive, so large it seed to fill my whole view and infinitely larger than that.
I tried to scream, but no sound ca out.
My throat felt raw, my voice stolen by nothing.
And then the pain hit.
It was unlike anything I’d ever felt before, a searing, all-consuming agony that tore through every fiber of my being.
It wasn’t just physical, it was like my very soul was being ripped apart.
mories and knowledge flooded my mind, but they weren’t mine.
They were fragnts of stories, and information, knowledge I never had, and lives I’d never lived, of places I’d never seen.
They crashed into like waves, each one more overwhelming than the last.
My head felt like it was going to explode, my body trembling as if it might shatter into a million pieces.
I wanted to close my eyes, to shut it all out, but I couldn’t.
My body was no longer mine to control.
The pain intensified, every second stretching into an eternity.
And then, through the haze of agony, I saw it.
It was... I don’t even know how to describe it.
It looked transparent, but at the sa ti, it wasn’t.
It was like a worm, but impossibly large, its body twisting and writhing in ways that made my stomach churn.
Its mouth, if you could call it that, opened wide, a gaping maw that seed to stretch on forever.
I could feel it moving toward , its presence filling the space, consuming everything in its path.
I wanted to attack, to defend myself, to do anything.
But I was frozen, trapped in a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.
The pain, the mories, the thing in front of , it was too much.
My vision blurred, my body trembling as I felt myself being pulled toward that monstrous mouth.
And then, just as I thought I couldn’t take anymore, everything went black.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t breathe.
My body felt like it had been turned to stone, every muscle locked in place as the worm-like thing lood closer.
It was massive, its translucent form writhing and twisting in ways that made my stomach churn.
Its mouth, if you could even call it that, was a gaping void, wide enough to swallow whole.
I could feel its presence, a suffocating weight pressing down on , as if the very space around had turned to lead.
The pain was unbearable.
It wasn’t just physical, it was like my soul was being torn apart, shredded into pieces by so unseen force.
My head throbbed with the weight of mories that weren’t mine, images and stories flooding my mind faster than I could process them.
I wanted to scream, to close my eyes, to do anything to escape the nightmare unfolding in front of .
But I couldn’t.
I was trapped, helpless, as the creature drew closer.
I still tried to re-summon Ori, to call on Doom, anything to fight back.
But my mind sohow couldn’t stable, I couldn’t focus well due to the mories and stories still flooding in.
Panic surged through , sharp and cold, as I realized just how vulnerable I was.
This thing, whatever it was, was going to consu , and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
"Co on, move, think Sky" I muttered.
And then, just as the creature’s gaping maw was about to engulf , I felt it.
A hand.
Warm and solid, pressing against my shoulder.
The touch was so real, so human, that for a mont, I thought I must be imagining it.
But no, it was there.
I could feel the weight of it, the faint pressure of fingers against my shirt.
Before I could even process what was happening, the world around shifted.
One mont, I was floating in that endless nothing, staring into the face of a monster.
The next, I was back on solid ground.
My knees hit the dirt with a thud, the impact jarring but grounding.
I blinked, disoriented, as my surroundings ca into focus.
I was back where it had all started, the place where Fen and I had fought.
The air was still, the ground scarred from our battle, but there was no sign of Fen.
No sign of anyone.
Only the dead bodies of the people Fen killed.
I looked around, my heart still racing, my body trembling with the remnants of pain.
What had just happened?
One second, I was being pulled into that monstrous void, and the next, I was here.
It didn’t make sense.
And where is Fen?
My mind struggled to piece it together, but the mories were already slipping away, like sand through my fingers.
All that remained was the lingering ache in my body and the faint touch of that hand on my shoulder.
I pushed myself to my feet, my legs wobbling beneath .
Every movent sent a fresh wave of pain through my body, but I couldn’t afford to stay down.
I didn’t know where Fen was, or if he was even still a threat around .
All I knew was that I couldn’t stop.
Not now.
Not when there was still so much at stake.
I took a shaky step forward, then another, forcing myself to keep moving despite the exhaustion weighing down.
My mind was a whirlwind of questions, but there was no ti to answer them.
Whatever had just happened, whatever that creature was, it didn’t matter right now.
What mattered was staying alive and surviving.
I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms as I pushed through the pain.
I wasn’t done yet.
Not even close.
And as long as I was still breathing, I wouldn’t stop.
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