Sunday, April 11, 2010

Pokémon: The Golden Apocalypse, Chapter Nineteen

Red looked up at the looming cliffs, and tried to recall how he'd ever gotten down them before. It seemed a long while ago, though it had actually occurred that morning. When he had traversed them that time, he wasn't fighting against gravity, and he was well-rested, though admittedly dehydrated. Now, he could barely stand, and his vision was swimming. If not for the poliwag squirming slightly in his arms, he would have laid down and waited to die. As it was, he doubted he could ascend past the first ledge, a scant ten feet from the ground, without fainting.
He took a step forward and the darkness at the corners of his vision pulsed, sending pain through his head, and causing him to stagger into the cliff face. His breath came in short, painful bursts as he sank down to the ground. Behind him, muffled shatterings came from the buildings the pokémon had broken into. Above both this and the sound of his blood pounding in his ears, Red heard the screeching and caterwauling of the ape-creatures as they discovered the pond. He took a breath to steel himself and turned to see, to his dismay, that they were no more than a minute's ambling walk from him.
Fighting muscles that protested every movement, Red managed to shift Nyoromo from his arms into his pack, which he had somehow kept with him during his flight. He rose slowly, forcing himself to stay conscious. Raising his right arm, he found a handhold just above his head. He hoisted himself up, and clung to the wall as the world spun. For a moment the cliff was above him, threatening to fall, and the next it was below, yet he was being pulled up. Red could feel the bile rise in his throat, but somehow managed to choke it back and climb up the madly rotating landscape.
At some point during the hellish climb he heard a screech of discovery from one of the pokémon at the lake, and he knew that it might already be to late. He climbed anyway, through his world of madness, so that Nyoromo might escape. His eyelids fluttered, and touch guided him. Without sight, the dizziness prevented him from telling up from down, and he could only hope that he ascended. It was only when he found his hands and feet scrabbling uselessly along a smooth surface without finding purchase that he looked again, expecting to see the stone flying past him as he fell. Somehow he remained still against the wall. He gave his spinning mind a chance to figure out how he was floating when reality became fixed once more.
He was on a ledge. The world made sense, but he felt no relief. He didn't feel anything. Nothing had any emotion attached to it. As he stood, there was pain, but that was it. He didn't feel it. He simply recognized it. Just as he recognized the sounds of his pursuers, close by yet muffled. He began to climb again, noticing a pull on his pack and the faint sound of ripping, but that meant nothing.
It was only when he reached the next ledge that Nyoromo's cries from below caught his attention.

2 comments:

Elphaba said...

Again, you start torturing Nyoromo! :(

Reogan said...

Consider it a gift.