Six

11 - The Trial of Will

Death didn't come in the form of some distant, vague light calling to him. It wasn't a peaceful stroll through the most notable of his recollections over the years. It wasn't graceful, it wasn't kind, but neither was it malicious—it simply was.

If he'd had enough rational thought left to describe it, he probably would have compared its likeness to that of silence—but not really, because silence was perceptible. It was a lack of auditory stimuli, something you could still understand, could still know. This was a complete and utter absence of anything. It was the difference between closing an eye and having it removed, there was no shadowy blackness, there was unconditionally nothing.

Nothing.

And then out of the nothing-silence came a roar of existence that tore its hold over him with its might, an explosion that ripped away the infinite nothing until it became something, and the fact that there was anything at all meant that he could perceive it, and once he perceived it he understood that he was no longer dead.

He was, however, very cold.

That was the first thing he noticed, a great chill that kissed every inch of his body that he could still feel, what little of it there was left. The second was the blood—it was everywhere. He tasted nothing but copper, and the dried stench of iron around him pervaded his senses to no end. There was light now, a sliver of luminescence which came from outside, wherever that was. It illuminated the floor and walls, now slicked with that same blood, his blood ... and when he held his hands up to see them, he saw only red.

And the wind—the wind—it screamed at him so, roaring with a ferocity that demanded to be heard, trying to tear its way into the cave where he'd awakened, daring him to venture out and see where he'd been taken.

Without knowing what compelled him to do so, he made to move towards the light, towards the crack in the carapace of his salvation, and promptly fell forward onto the rocky floor beneath him. His hands braced him for the fall, shaking weakly as they held his weight. He tried to bring his legs forward, but felt no such movement in their muscles. They refused to obey him, try as he might to order them otherwise.

Gritting his teeth, he continued on with another attempt. And another. And another. Though they remained dead and unfeeling, he kept on long past the point where anyone else would have come to terms with reality. Giving up was a concept he barely understood at the foundational level, let alone something he could picture himself doing.

After all, what would she say?

A spark, the tiniest of embers, lit up in his legs. He blew on that ember, breathing life into it as his body shook from the effort and his jaw clenched so tightly that he feared his teeth might crack. The ember grew into a blaze, and then into an inferno, one that burned ferociously with torturous pain, his nerves having shut down to save him from it.

That was okay, he relished the pain. It had always been his constant companion, his closest friend. It told him he was alive, he hadn't drifted into the pleasure of numb oblivion. The pain grew tenfold as his leg finally listened to his order to move. Slowly, he drew it forward until his hands no longer solely supported his weight. He grabbed the wall tightly and pulled himself up, rising from where he'd knelt a moment ago as his other leg joined its twin in carrying him forward.

A small, flickering blue light caught his attention, one that illuminated the dark recesses of the cave from where it lay on the ground. Leaning against the wall for support, he reached down and grabbed her. The data-core was still intact, thankfully. Without a receptacle, however, she was stuck like this. Helpless and unaware.

Clipping her to his belt, somehow still in one piece, he dragged himself out of the cave's maw. That oppressive cold was still present, more greatly felt outside. But 'outside' was somewhat difficult to define.