He couldn't say how long he was falling, or how far. Away from that light - it was meant to take you away, a dim echo pings through his mind like ripples in a pond, bouncing off and redefining everything to be more surreal, more strange, more distantly menacing...
But it's followed by a second, answering ripple. One that chases away the undefined horror, smoothing it out somehow. His fall slows, with the same gentle drifting sensation that his own power grants him.. but it's not him doing it.
Dimly, he's aware he's fallen completely silent, curiosity slowly winding around his terror. He risks a look down again... and instead of swallowing blackness there's serenity below him. Soft ground, gentle grass... like nothing he's ever seen before. His feet touch down to it, lowering him softly down into an endless meadow.
He whirls around, but there's no nightmare lurking just behind him. Above? Only sky, nothing from before; the bright light is nothing but the sun, making him wince and look away when his eyes stray too close. Pan's presence, that forest, the heartbeat wound into a pulsing light.. no matter where he looks, it's all gone!
"What the?!" He pauses, then adds another, softer question to himself, as if he'd know the answer. "...Where am I?"
Thomas had somewhere like this, in the depths of that hellish labyrinth. Where it's all calm and still, with grass and tame green... but here, there's no walls around this garden, keeping the horror at bay. This is endless, and open, and not full of mechanical nightmares just underneath the green waiting to be remembered.
Just before confusion fully overtakes him, a splash of red dances into view, almost clipping his ear with how close it came. His eyes follow it as it banks and flutters its way over to a distant tree he hadn't quite noticed yet, full of gentle, cloudlike flowers he instantly recognizes despite never having gotten to see in real life. Sakura!
There it is again, he realizes with a pang of panic. That all-encompassing feeling of not being alone. But the panic is short lived; this isn't something behind him, or trying to stay too hidden; he doesn't get that feeling of cold malice here. It's definitely not Thomas, either; he knows that mind way too well. And Thomas is long gone...
...
Grass crushes gently under his feet as he moves closer, head tilted to one side.
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But it's followed by a second, answering ripple. One that chases away the undefined horror, smoothing it out somehow. His fall slows, with the same gentle drifting sensation that his own power grants him.. but it's not him doing it.
Dimly, he's aware he's fallen completely silent, curiosity slowly winding around his terror. He risks a look down again... and instead of swallowing blackness there's serenity below him. Soft ground, gentle grass... like nothing he's ever seen before. His feet touch down to it, lowering him softly down into an endless meadow.
He whirls around, but there's no nightmare lurking just behind him. Above? Only sky, nothing from before; the bright light is nothing but the sun, making him wince and look away when his eyes stray too close. Pan's presence, that forest, the heartbeat wound into a pulsing light.. no matter where he looks, it's all gone!
"What the?!" He pauses, then adds another, softer question to himself, as if he'd know the answer. "...Where am I?"
Thomas had somewhere like this, in the depths of that hellish labyrinth. Where it's all calm and still, with grass and tame green... but here, there's no walls around this garden, keeping the horror at bay. This is endless, and open, and not full of mechanical nightmares just underneath the green waiting to be remembered.
Just before confusion fully overtakes him, a splash of red dances into view, almost clipping his ear with how close it came. His eyes follow it as it banks and flutters its way over to a distant tree he hadn't quite noticed yet, full of gentle, cloudlike flowers he instantly recognizes despite never having gotten to see in real life. Sakura!
There it is again, he realizes with a pang of panic. That all-encompassing feeling of not being alone. But the panic is short lived; this isn't something behind him, or trying to stay too hidden; he doesn't get that feeling of cold malice here. It's definitely not Thomas, either; he knows that mind way too well. And Thomas is long gone...
...
Grass crushes gently under his feet as he moves closer, head tilted to one side.