Chapter Text
Pain. It was radiating through every atom of his body before settling heavily onto his wings and into his eyes. He tried to move, but it made his muscles shake and burn. The pain was so all encompassing that the awareness of it was the only thing he could process for a long time. Eventually it dulled, or more likely, he went numb to it. Then he became conscious of the smell. Pungent and acidic, it was a heavy fog all around him. The smell of earth scorched by lightening. Brimstone. It was blacker than pitch and he couldn’t see when he opened his eyes, so he kept them closed. The acrid fog burned them anyway. He could hear buzzing, like a billion flies were hovering just over his head. Then something wet squelching in the distance, moving closer to him. Footsteps, he realized somewhere in the back of his mind. The sound was footsteps moving through the hot, thick muck he was languishing in. A voice, low and graveled with something akin to damage, was booming through the still air. He didn’t recognize it. It was saying names, familiar ones, listing them. It said his name as the footsteps passed by him. He tried to lift his head, the pain crashed over him with renewed intensity. He blacked out.
It continued like that for so long that he forgot what his body felt like. He forgot what his voice sounded like. He forgot his name. He remembered falling. Eventually he had to move, and when he did it was a slow contraction of muscle that inched him through the muck. His limbs were useless and trailed behind his body. He wanted to get out of the muck. He was so hot. He crawled on his belly for so long that he forgot where he was trying to go. The only thing he knew was that he must move. The muck seemed to go on forever.
When he felt cold, rough stone on his skin he stopped moving. He was out of the muck and his stomach hurt intensely from the effort. He lay on the stone and dozed, the cold sapping his energy and making him so very tired. Dreams of wind whipping his face and fear haunted him. When he awoke and opened his eyes he could see again. There was a low, grey light filtering from somewhere nearby and it was enough to make out his surroundings. His eyesight was bad, whether it be the lighting or some other damage he didn’t know. He made out shapes around him. There were others nearby, cautiously moving out of the muck. Frogs, lizards and insects. All manner of things were crawling their way out. There was one being that stood tall over the others and this being was watching with an expression his poor eyesight couldn’t distinguish. The damaged voice sounded softly, but he couldn’t comprehend what it said. He tried to stand, but found that his legs and arms weren’t there. He curled in on himself, confused and afraid. In a tight coil he watched as others swarmed the stone, drawn inexplicably towards the being who was still speaking softly. It was listing what sounded like names.