Tetra of The Fall

60 - I Promise...

Ragged breaths rasp about a desert-dry throat.

My heart beats like a bass drum, worn and torn, metaphorically bleeding the somberest of melodies.

I blinked away tears - as they stung - I'd never out of shame. Not this time, anyways.

Calves feeling torn, my lungs screamed for breath as I finally began to dawdle - the sole of each aching foot scraping upon the carpet below. Vision blurred, body overheated, a dizzy panging at my brow forced an eye shut, where ragged breathing jostled my view evermore.

Step by step, my mission pressed on, without a mind for those that surround me - they who might challenge me in a weakened state. Any with the sense to compete should be in the courtyard anyways, not dawdling at the residential wing. In light of this epiphany, a hand of my own pressed plainly at the wall for support, just barely missing the void that is the entrance to the Tirah residential wing.

I frowned with a grim swallow.

By the light of the setting sun, the path glimmered as if seeded by snowflakes, though such oddities, I suppose, would hardly look so sharp. Broken fragments, then, of plastic litter the path before me, directionless and increasingly faint - a hazard in the case I fall, thus I must continue carefully. But fatigue wears me down, the drag of each foot akin to an anchor. My head spins... My hands grow numb. I- I must pause to gather my breath...

Where had it gone so wrong? Was this 'Henry Draav' insane? Perhaps hallucinating with the pain of his broken leg? Surely such a beast does not exist, surely. But then, where is she? Where is Elasca Draav?! Such faint memories, such faint faces-!

Sounds and noises - long lost yet calling - pervade my senses with bitter disregard. Off in the distance, a far off howling, roaring, the rumble and loosing of both gunshot and tree-fall. The sweating heat of my exerted rushing dissipated at the scrunching of my eyes, revealing a shuddery, icy cold - offering faint remembrances of warmth, where the patchy texture of a fibrous blanket could be felt.

"Not again!" I groaned, pressing palms to my ears until they beat their bloodless throb. A building static rears its pitchy head, growing and growing until even cries are drowned out. All sounds meld into one as it presses my consciousness with the fury of white-hot steel, even overriding that given the time. My thoughts - they...

They wane...

"BAH! Haa- Haa-?" Palms clammy, breath heavy, I moved to wipe a sweat-bearing brow, though with little success. "Hnn~!" a pained groan soon followed, emitting from within - though uncommanded - as the effort of lowering my arm demonstrated clear fatigue. With awareness soon emerging, eyes opening beyond a mere crack, late events would soon unravel.

The entrance to the Nara wing - my back ached as I departed from the opening's ornate and jutting cresting. Lights and lamps wavered and shone from above and behind, whilst through intermittent windows the sky cooled carefully, setting a silent dusk upon our weary heads. Surprise, equalled by confusion and concern, my knees bent unwillingly as I stood with lethargic effort. My mind feels clear, not a word beyond my own. My fatigue feels reduced...

"Huaah!" I inhaled sharply.

"Fuaaaahhhh~" Needy, demanding, the remnants of a disorienting yawn parted with a shaking of the head - a movement so reactive as to hardly be my own. Left I pondered... right I turned... Somewhere along my travels... had I...?

Fallen asleep?

Another symphony of groans as I turned to press on. The Elasca wing - the hall of my mother's founding - it had kept me every night. The very same hall that graced each waking day, that braced each evening's outcome - thick or thin with anguish or intrigue. Is this a cruel joke? Or is it ironic, perhaps, that this is where I dwell? That this is where I was, the entire time? Positively swimming within the answer I so rarely sought?! Or... is it kindness, a fondness for our lineage I never knew, which led to such an outcome - preordained by one whom, I'd of course, never met?