Secondary Story - Chapter 4 (Patreon)

Pen runs as fast she can, the world around her literally falling apart as she sprints down the breaking walkway, her hands never leaving the crystal to grab onto the railing or to try and steady her balance. Rather she opts to run in full sprint, to jump and land with bent knees on the walkways below that creak louder and louder the deeper she goes as the sounds of the collapse behind her continue. As the sounds of the collapse behind her become louder and louder like the trampling of a metal beast hunting her, hounding her down to the last pit of hell itself where there would be no more escape.

There! Just a little further below! Just a little further down she sees an opening in the wall, an arched doorway. Gritting her teeth shut in determination she leans forward and bursts out the last of the speed she has left in her, running as fast as she can. Everything depends on this. A thunderous chorus fills the room, as if the gods that had abandoned her so long ago had sent lightning down into these deep reaches, as the entire walkway now crumbles and groans, tearing itself apart in all directions. As metal rains down like water from the sky flying off into the abyss, as bits of rusted scrap begin landing at her feet.

The world spins as her body thuds down onto the catwalk, as a sharp bite of white-hot pain escapes her throat in an instant taking form in the shape of a scream. A searing pain shoots up through her body, up from her foot that got caught on some jagged rung of metal. The large crystal smashes against the latticework beneath her, slipping out of her grip and spinning across the corroded metal platform with a loud scraping noise as it spirals which she feels in her soul. She saw it leave her arms, leave her reach and watches now with pain in her heart, as if her own newborn child was becoming lost to her as it slides away. Screams as it slides away, screams as it slips over the edge and falls down into the abyss; she lunges forward to try and catch it in that second as the platform she is on wobbles about to give out entirely.

The scream continues, spittle flying from her mouth. Wet flying from her eyes and she falls back down again as the pain in her foot makes itself known again, as the hook keeping her there lets itself be noticed again. She looks down to her leg, a piece of the walkway was broken and was sticking out sideways. A jagged, spiked piece of razor-sharp metal she had run right into that cut into her leg on the front-side, just above her ankle. She can feel the rusted scrap touching her shinbone.

There is a lurch in her core, a shift in the platform she is on that tells her that there was no time. With a yelp she grabs her leg with one hand and the metal with the other and rips herself free at the cost of a pain she was sure she would never forget if she survived. Not once did the thunderous omen of the collapsing world stop, not once did her shrill screams and agonized yelps stop. The metal pulls free from her bone and carries with it a sickening red that shines against the corroded metal in the bright lights just above her head. It lets out a sickening wet noise as it is removed from her skin, out from the meat. Red seeps out in a stream from the wound.

Getting up she ignores the agony and braces herself against the railing, going as fast as she can now with a bad leg, going as fast as she can now with the sounds of the shattering world drawing closer and closer. Reaching towards her like the maw of a striking viper only milliseconds away from her jugular. The ground beneath her begins to shake, the metal platform beneath her beginning to shake as the reckoning has finally caught up with her. The punishment for her greed. Time seems to slow as she presses on, torment is all she feels in her body. Blurry darkness is all she sees through her wet, stinging eyes. Thoughts race through her mind. Thoughts of death, of this now having been it. Of this life having been the one that was hers. That there was no more than this to come, nothing but those wretched days she had had to give testament to her having once been alive. Why did she even have to exist? There had been nothing here. Nothing good. Nothing worth it.

Pen lets out a final scream as the walkway beneath her gives way, as she feels the lurch in her chest from the fall now beginning. With the last of her strength, with the last of her willpower she jumps towards the opening, jumps towards the only shot she has left as her feet leave the platform already tilting downward sharply.

Her body slams painfully against the edge of the stone wall and she grips on tightly, her teeth clenched, the pain in her body numbed by the adrenaline as her fingers claw against the rock, digging in to the crevices between the masonry just as the entire walkway behind her gives way and collapses down, shrieking as it vanishes into the void like a falling dragon. Shrieking like the cry of a damned soul reaching out, clawing out to take her down with it. Her mind is still racing, her sense of time still slow as her feet kick against the crumbling wall, as her body which is a quarter over the edge slides downward and she lurches closer to the abyss she is just now barely dangling above.

Her good foot finds a crack and she sticks the numb appendage inside and presses herself up, not having the upper body strength to pull herself to safety with just her arms. The girl rises a little higher and claws forward, digging into another groove with her fingers as she kicks against the wall, searching for another foothold to help her. There! She presses against it and pulls herself up again, her waist now coming over the corner edge. Crawling forward, heaving and crying she pulls herself upward with her arms and legs, not daring to stand up until she finally reaches a distance of a full meter away from the precipice.

Sitting upright, she leans against the wall behind her, staring to the side at the darkness that had almost consumed her. At the darkness that had taken her only prize and had sealed her escape for good.

Her legs bent, her head falls down onto her knees and she sits like that for a while. Until she notices the cold gnawing at her bones again. Until she feels the sting of the leaking gash on her leg that she needs to take care of.

Remembering a sentence she had heard a long time ago she whispers the words beneath her breath.

“No rest for the wicked.”