Chapter Text
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All they felt was searing agony.
It was as if it was all they had ever known.
The monster's blast whirred through them, a cacophony of sound waves–piercing screams–bombarding their ears with sound, as their ribs let out a sickening crunch from within them.
They couldn’t bring out enough air to scream in pain, as all they could focus on was running.
Running from the monster.
Running from death.
Running from Rae.
Another whirlwind of the sonic attack burst through their leg now, the thumping of their heart the only thing deafening the rip of skin surrounding their calf.
Or was it the monster's heart they could hear?
The sound echoed through every broken and aching bone in their body, every torn muscle wretched the rhythmic bump-bumping of one of their hearts, each growing faster the more the other ran.
Sherbert felt a distant sense of pain, the agony they once held in the palm of their hand now acres away, trampled under the monster's feet. All they could feel now was terror, pure panic and adrenaline being the only motivator to keep fucking running.
They thought of Easton, alone in their demolished wreck of a home, almost subconsciously turning their body back in their direction, before another boom of aggravating noise zipped past them, their right ear practically exploding from the pressure.
As half of their mind rang wildly with incomprehensible sound, they felt their wings try a feeble flap on their back, to no avail. Escape tripped and stumbled in their bloody steps, but they caught it once more.
They stretched their tired wings again, allowing the wondrous yellowed-to-purple gradient of feathers to puff out to their full majesticness, before pressing the wind underneath them and surging up to the raining clouds.
They had no exact direction, all they knew was flight at this moment, and a desperate need to cling to escape was all that kept them airborne.
They swooshed back down to the ground, hopefully several buildings away from their broken, blown up tower, as they landed near what seemed to be Eastons home.
They fumbled their landing however, as with a burning, stabbing reminder, they landed with a harsh thump on their injured leg, and they stumbled to the ground.
The grass now bloody, they lifted their head from the ground, vision slightly blurry, but nonetheless searching.
The monster, undeterred in their show of take-off, was only so many meters away from them now.
The adrenaline screeched back up within them, as they forced their body to get up, to move from the red-tinted floor, and they ran towards Eastons front door.
They swung the door open and shut within a matter of seconds, as they only focused on breathing from their strained lungs, pain blooming in their chest from their cracked and broken ribs with each one. They pulled out their communicator from one of their many pockets, seeing multiple responses from their friends.
Luckily before the chase began, they had the sense to yell for help over the phone.
Suddenly, a swarm of knocking bounced from the door behind them, knocking them off balance. The sudden noise caused the ringing in their ear to double, as they clapped their hand over it to attempt to stop the ache.
As they readjusted, removing their hand and shaking their head to dislodge the ceaseless ringing, the door opened again, and they were met with the forms of Athena, Ven, and Ocie, holding a limp Easton in her arms.
Suppressing the urge to hurl at the sight of their best friend, they instead nodded and signaled for the group to follow them to the injured ones bedroom.
Ocie placed them on the bright orange bed sheets gently, and for the first time, Sherbert got to see their face.
Caked over their eyes, was several layers of sculk. The alchemist's mind reminded them numbly of the memory, the monster whacking Easton square in the face, as their pacing told the beast exactly where they were.
They shook away the memory, met instead with more ringing, as they twinged slightly.
“What the actual fuck is going on?” Ocie spoke finally, coldness and concern etched into her voice.
Sherbert realized far too late that the question was directed at them, as they jerked their head up in response. “We were experimenting—Rae brought over some dragons breath—I think I made an end crystal in a bottle—more like a bomb–” Sherbert clocked they were still hyperventilating pretty bad, and attempted to take a deep breathe to continue, before another sprout of pain shot through their chest from their whining ribs. They pressed on, “It blew up–I think it knocked Rae out, then he changed into..that thing and got a pretty clean hit on Easton…” They looked back down at their friend, the pulsing sculk glaring right back at them. “This wasn’t supposed to happen..” they muttered their last thought, as Ven moved to Eastons side to examine the sculk further.
“I’ve texted Caspian, he’s looking for Rae.” Athena croaked out suddenly, their voice sounding shaky and on the edge of tears. Their eyes never left Easton.
“Are you hurt?” Ocie asked them, her sharp blue eyes scanning them critically.
“It hit me a couple times, but no sculk injuries…I’m all good.” They lied.
“Okay…Sherb, I want you to run through this with me a little later, when you're a little less…frazzled, okay?” Ocie responded, taking a step towards the door of Eastons home. All the alchemist managed was a weak nod. “Ven, come with me. I want to help Caspian, and I want you to get some ice for Easton.” The fish woman stated bluntly, not giving enough time for the journalist to fully register the question before she was turning and out the front door. Ven shot after her quickly, only leaving with a small, “Be back.”, and Sherbert was alone with Athena and a shifting Easton.
The figure in the bed slowly rose up to consciousness, although no one could truly know if their eyes were open, as they shook their head slightly, before asking. “Is anyone there?”
“Hey, Easton…” Athena chimed, a small smile passing her lips. “It’s Athena, Sherbert’s here too, we’re right here.”
“Where?” they responded, an edge of urgency now in their tone.
Shit. The sculk was a blind fold. Easton, now the blind.
Sherbert noted this somewhere in their scrambled mind, as Easton started panicking at their lack of vision, Athena comforting them as much as they could.
Sherbert tried to listen, but half the words drowned back into ringing before they were able to tune back in again. They resisted the urge to smack their right ear, figuring that wouldn’t help anyone, let alone themself, and instead resigned themself to shaking their head again, only to be met with more ringing. The constant, high pitched squeal that sung in their ears made them feel like they were swaying, maybe the need to hurl hadn’t completely gone away either.
When Sherbert regained focus on the room, the ringing fading to the back of the space they called their mind, Ocie, Ven and Caspian had appeared suddenly. Ven was placing some form of ice or snow over Eastons eyes, they seemed to have calmed down, as they clung to one of Athena’s arms like a lifeline. Ocie and Caspian were talking to each other seriously, a sadness about both of them.
“He’s okay…I think…just feeling really guilty..” Caspian was saying, Sherbert filled in the blank of Rae being the ‘he’.
“It wasn’t his fault though–” Ocie interrupted, waving her hands to further her point. Caspian nodded slowly.
“You know Rae..He asked to be alone so..I’m gonna give him some space..” he finished, before his eyes glanced up to Sherbert.
“We’ll figure something out..right?” was all the alchemist could manage. They had clearly said it louder than intended, as Ven and Athena now swiveled their heads over to them.
“Do you know how delicate eyes are?” Athena’s sharp voice cut through the fog in their mind, the anger and fear not hidden within their tone. “It’s one thing, to perform surgery on a surface wound, or on a back, but eyes?” Easton shifted uncomfortably in their seated position.
“But it’s..it’s gotta be temporary..right?” They practically whispered, far too afraid of the answer that awaited them.
Thankfully or not, no one seemed to hear this question—Their perception of volume wasn’t quite right at the moment—as Easton piped up at that moment “Could I just…please be alone right now?”
A silent agreement was all that followed, Ocie giving a soft “Sure, whatever you want.” followed by the shuffling of feet along the wooden floor, towards the door.
As Sherbert tried to move, they realized they had somehow ended up leaning on the wall, as their steadily bleeding leg was shaking violently enough where they had needed support. Shit.
As subtly as they could muster, they followed the line of people out of Eastons home, and into the unending rain. They wanted to vanish into it, as they felt tensions shoot back up when Ocie started “Look, I know we’re all worried, but there’s no use in crying when we can’t do fucking anything about it.”
Athena responded now, “Ocie, I know your the Ocean and whatever, but things are different here–”
“I’ve known people that go their whole lives with being blind, and they manage just fine–”
“But Easton hasn’t been blind their whole life, that’s a huge adjustment–”
As the two argued, at some point Caspian had flown off, probably to check on Rae. Ven had side-stepped over to Eastons mailbox, allowing Ocie and Athena their battle ground for their screaming match. Not that Sherbert could hear it, over the damned ringing that now was almost all they could hear.
“I don’t see what the big deal is–”
Sherbert felt the blood ooze down their leg. The skin raw and rough where the beasts projected vocal chords had scratched into them.
“You don’t get it, it’s not that simple–”
They felt their ribs tighten with each unsteady breath, pushing and pressing against their lungs, shifting and stretching against each other.
“Look, all I’m saying is there’s nothing we can do—”
They felt their wings twist and writhe against their back, wings out of place from their nasty fall. They twitched when they shouldn’t, causing a slithering pain to snake up their spine, like lightning up a pole.
“But their life is different! They can never do the same things they used to—”
Their head felt uneasy on their neck, as their foggy mind grew light, almost dizzy. They felt distantly, their fingernails digging into their palms to stop themself from swaying.
“But we can give them treatments, we can be there for them right now–”
“Ocie, don’t you get that I can’t do that–”
They felt their leg quiver under their weight as it gave out under them. The warm blood staining and soaking their pants, and now their jacket.
Their body went limp, as they failed to catch themself, they heard their body thump to the floor far away, the ringing over taking them, the fog swallowing them whole.
So as their vision grew darker, only blobs of colour rushing to their side now, they simply couldn’t gather enough air to scream, as they once again felt only searing agony.
And it was as if it was all they had ever known, once more.
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