Oneshots! (Mostly Hermitcraft)

Running to Never: Will we ever know how to stop? (Running, running) [Impulse]

Febuwhump Day 20: Unresponsive ft. 3rd Life!Impulse
SEQUEL to Febuwhump Day 10: Killing in Self Defense
Requested by theminrcraftloreater

TWs: talk of death, mentions of blood

I'm falling, invisible wind rushing through my hair as I plummet into a pitch black abyss. I feel my wounds closing as the air flows over them, jagged edges coming together and rejoining. Slowly, I move my hands to touch them, running my fingers over the harsh, raised lines scored through my skin. I can feel my blood dry and whisk away, as if the injuries never happened, only preserved by the scars. It feels like I'm both strengthening and weakening, a pit forming in my stomach.

Faces, lifeless and stained by blood, flash through my mind as I grip an imaginary, fading sword. The familiar feeling of my longbow on my back dissipates as well, leaving an empty weight where its string used to cross my torso. I feel my breathing and heart rate spike: I'm unprotected without my weapons, vulnerable to whatever lurks in this void. I may have won 'the game', as BigB referred to it as, but I still feel like I can lose at any moment. I'm not fully dead, but I kind of wish I was. If I was, nothing would matter. If nothing matters, this hollow guilt won't affect me anymore. I'll simply be gone.

After all, I'm the one who survived while the people I thought were my friends died. Maybe I should have let Grian win, just so I don't have to deal with this. I shake my head firmly. He may have been my enemy, but I shouldn't wish this upon him. It feels like I'm being torn apart by whatever this is, as if the people I had met at Spawn were, somehow, more significant to me.

Suddenly, I hit something and sink into it. I gasp for air as the wind is knocked out of me, drawing quick, unsteady breaths. Slowly, I start to be able to move, and my fingers grasp and curl around the substance beneath me, tugging and yanking at what seems to be fabric. It seems like it covers my body, tucked securely around me. I force myself to move, trying to throw it off as I begin hyperventilating, gasps of air flowing in and out, never sufficient for me to sink into a calmer state.

Finally, my eyes open, only to shut tightly against a glaring light. I feel someone's hand on my shoulder and I flinch away, managing to throw the covering off and swing my legs over the side of the surface. I clench the soft, but firm, fabric, wracking my brain for what this could be. It clicks: I'm on a bed, and a good one, different from the hard and lumpy mattresses we had in what must be a different world.

Wait. A different world? It's impossible: the multiverse is a myth. As far as I know, there should only be one world where we live and die, our lives fleeting and meaningless in the spinning of time as new people join and play the same 'game', driven by an uncaring, superior power, if such a thing exists.

I dig the heels of my palms into my eyes, trying to force them to open despite the glaring light that seems to flood my eyes, even though they're tightly shut. A pair of hands wrap around my forearms and pull my hands away from my face, quiet words being whispered into my ear. I shake my head, resisting their insistent tugging.

"Impulse? Impulse!" a voice is calling, sharpening as I become aware of it. Air seems to be caught in my throat and I double over, choking and coughing on the nonexistent obstruction. Another hand rubs circles into my back, and all I can picture is a raised sword above my head, prepared to plunge down into my exposed back.

I explode upwards and stagger away, collapsing after several steps, still unable to see. I pry my eyes open and take in the people in front of me. One of them is dressed head to toe in green armour, his face obscured by a helmet and purple visor that prevents me from seeing his eyes as he stares at me from his kneeling position next to the bed. Beside him is a brunette with large, shining eyes as she looks at me from where she is sitting on the bed. She has one arm outstretched toward me, but she is frozen as my eyes flick back and forth between the two of them.