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It was a beautiful day in the lands Elcid deemed as her home. She'd met with Oracle and Zane earlier in the day to receive her dose of medication before setting out to explore, searching for any sorts of items she could tinker with back at home. Around her body wrapped a cloth formed to create a pouch that ran along her side. It was of basic make but was one of her proudest achievements to date: the pouch of endless holding. It didn't matter what she shoved into her pouch. As long as it fit into the opening, whatever she put inside it simply fit and weighed next to nothing. Such a contraption allowed her to store various heavier items without worrying about tiring: rocks, pieces of metal, plates, cups, tools, vials, syringes, whatever she could find. Elcid had happened across the most peculiar hidden laboratory in her travels. It looked to have been long forgotten and grown over. Whoever had owned it had either left it to be, or died or disappeared from the lands. After breaking down some of the foliage on the outside that guarded the entrance, Elcid had made her way inside the laboratory. She quickly went to work, eagerly stuffing anything and everything into her pouch. She was careful (or so she thought) not to disrupt or knock over any remaining ongoing experiments. She took care not to knock over the vials on the counters but, she'd failed to see the vial on the ground. With a careless kick of a rear paw she suddenly felt herself brush against the glass and a sudden puff of yellow smoke quickly filled the room. Elcid fell into a coughing fit and before she could rush out of the laboratory, she fell unconscious. Whatever she had kicked over had been highly toxic. When Elcid woke and came to, she was most certainly not in the laboratory she last remembered. The first sensation that came to her was wet. Water. Lots and lots of water. Her body hurt and felt like it had been ripped into pieces only to be sewn back up again. She tried to breathe and suddenly felt water suck deep into her lungs. That wasn't normal. Her body rejected the water, sputtering it up in exchange for the potential for air. Air. It came to her as her head breached the surface of the water, her lungs swelling as she gasped for the sweet substance. The moment was fleeting, however, as the currents shoved her back underneath the water once more. Her body spun in the currents and she immediately lost the knowing of up versus down. Her four legs flailed, scraping against the rocks beneath the rushing current. SMACK! A mind shattering pain struck Elcid hard as her body collided with the large boulders beneath the surface. There was no escape for her. The current had her in it's grasp and she was at mercy of it's torment and play. Blessed was the current as just when she felt herself fading, it pushed her up towards the surface once more. She gasped again, trying to paddle and keep herself afloat, but it was no good. The current continued to toy with her and pulled her beneath once more. CRACK! She felt her shoulder collide with another boulder. No doubt in her mind - somehow it processed it - that her shoulder would be broken if she survived this. If she survived this. She wasn't sure what hell she'd accidentally stumbled into, but she was sure it was a Hell. Suddenly there was no water pulling and playing with her. Elcid registered air coursing through her fur, and the sensation of flight, no, falling. She couldn't fly. She didn't have wings like the birds she loved to watch and pounce after, the same birds she loved to hear cursing her up from the branches. Her green eyes shifted and searched to identify what might be happening to her. She saw an emptiness below - no she saw the same raging current below accompanied by sharp rocks at the bottom - begging for her to join it. Her legs flailed to keep her from plummeting to no avail. Down and down she fell, thrown from the top of the waterfall to rejoin the current at the bottom. SPLASH! Her body crashed into the waters beneath and once more Elcid found herself lost beneath the surface of the turmoil. The impact had stung terribly and if she had access to air, she would have screamed. Air. She needed air. She needed air more than anything. Her instincts kicked in, pushing her to paddle with all four legs. It was only because of the current that Elcid survived. Like a gentle mother further downstream, the current deposited the body of Elcid gently on shore, washing her up and lapping tenderly at her broken body. Was she alive? Who knew. |
[AW] Up and Over