Chasm

In the Talons of a Raven (Part 1)

It was too weak to resist beyond a few scratches. 

The silhouette from a distance must look weird, Alex thought to himself. His own thoughts were his only form of amusement, especially in a time like this. He considered giving up every so often when his fatigue would kick into high gear but never went through with it. Alex was well aware of this reluctance, of course. He heard his mother's words repeating in his head every time he considered giving in.

"You'd challenge a bull to a ramming contest if it meant you'd get your way."

He was well aware of his flaws but never seemed to try and work on them. Rather, he tended to be so stubborn that getting what he wanted seemed worth it to him no matter what the cost was. 

That cost was now getting in his eyes. Alex wasn't sure if it was sand, sweat, or a mixture of both, but his right eye was starting to sting. He didn't have the capacity to rub it, unfortunately, as both of his hands were preoccupied with dragging the large raven behind him. The raven likely weighed at least 50 pounds, and was about 5 feet tall. It looked as if it had been attacked by some kind of high-end grappling harpoon judging by the 4-pronged tear in its wing. Those usually attach pretty well given how flexible the wings tend to be, as well as how strong the muscles on these birds are. Alex confused himself thinking about the injury, though it was just another one of his passing thoughts.

Alex passed the marker for the Linea Fatalis. Past this line, the creatures get more vicious, the chasm gets deeper, and the return trip becomes more and more unlikely. Alex remembered a statistic that stated around 75% of people who go beyond the Linea Fatalis do not survive a return trip. He was unsure how they got this measurement, though.

He didn't actually have much of a plan. The only reason he thought there was any promise to his idea in the first place was because he had heard rumors of mysterious plants growing further in the chasm which have some sort of healing properties. Alex hoped that he could find one of these, but first he had to hope that they existed in the first place. Alex lived quite close to the only real entrance to the chasm, but knew quite little due to how few people tend to go far enough in to get new information and survive the journey back. Oddly enough, the chasm always seems to help those seeking refuge or adventure, but it rarely helps those who are trying to leave. Or at least, that's the way it always sounded to Alex. He would often hear stories of people going in for luminite or other materials finding different berries and even running water at times, only for these to seemingly vanish on the return trip. Granted, the chasm is really big. In fact, really big would be an understatement. While the entrance is only about 500 feet across, it expands quite quickly, getting to an estimated 10 or so miles wide around the Linea Fatalis. Beyond that point, there is very little information known to the rest of the world about the contents or size of the chasm. Not much communication is done from countries separated by the abyss, so the knowledge a person has on it really depends on where they live. 

Alex cut open a nearby cactus to see if it was what he was looking for, but all he got out of it was some water. After taking a sip and trying to give some to the unconscious raven, he chugged the rest and kept walking.

To Alex, the chasm was a dry, hot, sandy mess that'd always lighten his pitch-black hair. But it was also a source of great curiosity on multiple levels. Just the fact that creatures like this existed was enough to draw him to explore it. His father had done the same many years prior, so he figured it might be a genetic thing. Alex didn't know much about his father, but he wanted to. He was oddly optimistic about the chances of his father being alive out there, even after hearing countless stories of the dangers of the chasm. It seems Alex was stubborn not just in the physical world, but mentally as well. In fact, Alex was oddly optimistic about almost everything regarding the chasm, which the people he spoke to back home felt was quite immature. So many people had died or been severely injured on even simple trips to and from the chasm, many of which were friends or family of the townsfolk. Most of them weren't offended by it or anything, they just figured he would learn by the time he became a teenager. He didn't.

It was night by the time he found any sign of real hope. Faint blue light emanated from what looked to be some kind of settlement on top of a sand dune. He couldn't really tell what it was, but he didn't really care. He didn't even know they had settlements this far out, but for all he knew, he might've walked in a circle and ended up closer to the entrance than expected. Either way, he figured they had to have something to help the raven out with. Alex had started to feel a bit queasy, so he hoped they had something for that too.  He hadn't considered the idea that they might kill the creature on site, but he didn't really have the brainpower for that right now. He got just about to the top of the dune before suddenly feeling extremely lightheaded. He used the last of his strength to swing the bird up onto stable ground before feeling an intense pain in both his head and stomach. He caught a glimpse of a few angelic silhouettes appear before completely passing out.