The Non-Human Society

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy Seven - Renn - A Greeting, Bellowed

      Sometimes pain was a good thing.

It meant I was alive.

But that didn't mean I wanted to endure so much of it at once.

How long has it been since I had hurt like this? Nory's capture? That day in the church...?

Yes. Maybe. Was this worse? It felt like it was, but something told me it wasn't... and...

I coughed, and I knew I blinked but it didn't change anything. The world was dark... and I wasn't in the mood to try and focus my eyes as to see anything. Right now all I wanted to do was pass out, but I knew I couldn't. Wouldn't.

"Stupid," I groaned at myself as I shifted my left leg. It was fine... but my right wasn't. It hurt, and it hurt to try and move it especially. Broken, but how badly? I didn't want to find out. The idea of sitting up and seeing it gone completely scared me... it felt like it was, after all. I could feel my toes on my right foot move, since it sent waves of pain up my leg... but it still felt as if my whole leg was missing past my knee.

My arms hurt too. Especially my forearms, but I could feel the wet stone with my fingers. My hands kept twitching, as if to make balled fists... likely thanks to the pain. So I knew my arms were... somewhat fine...

And although it hurt to breathe, at least I could. I kept coughing, but my mouth wasn't full of blood nor was it hard to breathe. It just hurt...

Turning my head, I tried to look to my right. I flinched at the feeling of warm wetness against my cheek and head, and hoped it was just water and sewage... but I knew it wasn't. It was blood. Likely from the throbbing from in-between my ears.

The fall had been quick, but the damage definitely wouldn't heal quickly.

If I was able to heal at all...

They hadn't tossed me down this hole just to kill me, after all.

Blinking blurry eyes, I focused my eyes and noticed a wall. It was glistening from wetness. And it was... a little too far away. Did it look like it was that far because I was hurting? The hole I had been tossed in had been large, but got smaller as I fell down it. Near the end I had hit the side of the hole, and skidded along the wall near the end...

Likely one of the reasons I was still alive. It had slowed my fall to a degree and...

Turning my head the other way I coughed again, and flinched at the pain it brought. Once I was done coughing, and blinked some tears out of my eyes that the coughing had caused... I tried to see the wall on the other side of the room. To try and judge how big of a room I had fallen into.

I couldn't see the other wall. Hopefully that was just because of the pain.

Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and resisted the urge to curl up in a ball and cry.

I needed to get up. I needed to get out of here.

There was no way to know just how deep beneath Lumen I was, but reality was as real as the pain I was enduring. I wasn't going to be saved. No one was going to be able to find me in time.

So I needed to save myself... somehow...

Could I though?

Gritting my teeth I went to try and sit up. At first I thought it impossible, but before I knew it I was sitting upward... even though it was so painful I barely registered how long it had taken me to do so.

My tail was beneath me, stuck under my rear and left thigh... and it hurt horribly, but even though it hurt I wasn't able to gather myself enough as to free it. At least it was still in one piece, it seemed. That freak up there had wanted it. Thankfully the one who had tossed me down here had been the type to focus a little too much on their task...