Chapter Text
Scar was falling. He wasn’t sure when he was going to hit the ground. If he was going to hit the ground. The space around him consumed him, his body was lost. He was drifting in the nothing, being eaten by the silence.
The distant stars never seemed to move, not as he plummeted, not even as he spiraled out of control, spinning head over heels. The unchanging emptiness around him made him nauseous. The stars taunted him with their constancy.
Scar couldn’t imagine he’d always been falling, there were faint whispering memories of something more, an undying hope of an ending.
Scar fell.
Scar drifted.
Scar breathed and remembered again how he didn’t even know how he was alive.
The protective suit he wore was worn, the edges frayed. With every slow breath he could hear rattling, a mechanical whir. Something was keeping him alive and he wasn’t sure what or how.
Something deep inside him was afraid people shouldn't be where he was for very long.
Maybe there was a reason it tried to kill you.
Somehow he knew that people didn't just come here if there was another option.
And that scared him more.
Scar knew his name, it was one of the only things that clung to him. When he felt lost without motive, without answers to why he’s stuck in this terrible place of never ending night. He held his name, his only reminder that there must be more.
Scar fell fast and alone.
Scar drifted slow and peaceful.
Scar couldn’t sleep, no matter how tired he got, sleep never came. He didn’t know if it was a good thing or not, something forced him to stay awake. Every time his eyes drifted close, adrenaline kicked in and he jerked awake in a panic.
He found no solace in the peace and quiet.
Even remembering was painful. He didn’t try to remember often. It was like trying to punch through a brick wall, he knew there must be a better way than that, but he knew he needed to be on the other side of it. There must be a reason for the wall, and surely there’s a gate, but what is he supposed to do?
Scar fell.
Scar remembered.
He remembered people.
Four people.
He couldn’t see their faces or properly taste their names but he remembered them. In the pitched black background with the constant familiar white particles. Their familiarity. The feelings that swirled in him although he couldn’t tell if they were current or from the past. Hope, longing, excitement, terror.
These people had been in here too. He wasn’t sure who they were but the memory had felt so real. Specifics began to slip from his grasp, the impression stayed, people. They were here, he hadn’t been alone. He couldn’t say what any of them look like but that didn’t matter.
Hope didn’t need specifics.
Scar drifted.
His mind did too.
Who were they?
What were they doing here?
What was he doing here?
Why weren’t they here anymore…
Maybe they were a rescue party. Of course that couldn’t have turned out very well, but maybe he had been trying to rescue them! Maybe he’d succeeded! Maybe that meant… no one was coming for him.
Or! Maybe they had all come in together, gotten separated somehow. Of course that didn’t explain why they went in in the first place… maybe he was supposed to be doing something?
Or… maybe they’d sent him in here alone, just came down for a final send off, to make sure there was no escape. Surely someone wouldn’t come down here only to say ‘Sorry not sorry, this is your life now!’ That seems a little cruel.
Maybe they were friends!
Maybe they weren’t.
It didn’t matter… really.
What was important was someone knew he was down here.
Someone real!
And maybe they were down here too, but what if they weren’t?
Someone could be out there looking for him.
And maybe he didn’t know who they were.
And maybe they didn’t remember him.
But there was a chance… wasn’t there?
Scar kept falling.
Scar kept pushing.
Scar kept failing.
Scar kept hoping.
Scar kept trying to remember.
He made a crack in the wall.
He fell deeper and deeper into his memory as got more tangled and harder to penetrate. With each punch his headache got worse and worse but it didn’t discourage him. He knew there must be something in there. Those people meant something, he just had to find it. He was so close. Maybe this wasn’t the right way to go about doing it but what other choice did he have? He pushed and pushed and-
Trees… Scar was falling through trees. Thick giant canopies. Varieties with vivid leaves, expressive lighting, deep grooved bark. Each were wonderfully unique. Some were adorned with buildings on and around them; hanging from the branches, covering the roots, in their hollow trunks. Others were decorated with multicolored lanterns and other serene objects hanging from their branches. Magic flowed in and around them, mechanisms clicked, water flowed.
They were all so beautiful.
They were all his.
It was a slow realization, and Scar wasn’t exactly exactly sure how he knew that but they were… weren’t they?
His .
He looked around and with all their organic pieces, he found he knew exactly how they got the way they did. His passion. He cultivated every branch, every leaf. He built the buildings, he watched the trees thrive.
The memory began to slip from his grasp as he fell.
Scar was pulled from his mind.
But falling was never the same.
He saw trees in the stars. Patterns and ideas flooded his brain. It was like he’d unlocked a whole world of possibilities hadn’t even thought possible, colors and shapes he could only wish for.
Scar fell.
Scar drifted.
Scar mourned the loss of his life.
He wasn’t dead, he didn't think so at least, but something must’ve gone terribly terribly wrong for him to subject himself to this terrible terrible place.
Especially if that’s what it was like up there.
Maybe he didn’t subject himself to it at all, it would explain some things. But it would almost be worse if someone else had put him in here. If someone else had thought he belonged here.
Scar fell.
Scar tried to remember.
Scar failed again and again and again until he couldn’t try anymore, until it hurt to think, until it hurt to exist.
Scar hoped.
Scar hoped he didn’t have a reason for being in here, he hoped whatever brought him here he didn’t have control over, because if he did. Scar was worried he wouldn’t be able to remember how to find it.
Scar fell.
Scar drifted.
Scar looked to the stars. They hadn’t changed a day according to his mental map, or at least he didn’t think so, the patterned constellations he’d started to make on the stagnant sky were just about all he could handle to keep him sane. A face there one day, a cat over there the next, maybe tomorrow it’ll be a snail or a funny looking hat. He was just about to decide whether the clump of the day looked more like a misshapen cookie or a mushroom when his stomach dropped.
It was a new sensation.
And yet it was so very familiar.
It was definitely still falling.
But the intensity was so much more than he ever remembered experiencing before.
The void felt more dizzying than ever, he squeezed his eyes shut as he was pulled head over heels, faster and faster. Wind rushed past, the glass in the suit cracked, and Scar felt himself go breathless. He spiraled down, down, and it was a relief when he finally collided with something. He only felt pain for an instant and then his consciousness was sent drifting.
When Scar found his way back to his body, he was falling again. But not through the infinite night he’d gotten used to seeing, but through a dazzling bright background. He fell and for the first time in a long time he felt his wheelchair materializing under him as he landed, landed on solid ground.
He didn’t believe it at first. He just sat and waited for the pain of fall damage. For the inevitable feeling of his body breaking only to restitch itself back together.
But it never came.
His eyes slowly and painfully got used to the brightness, his body feeling its warmth long before his brain recognized what it was. Sunlight.
He looked down at himself, in however long he’d drifted in the void he’d never gotten a good look at himself. Familiar calluses were etched into his hand, his hair had grown past his shoulders. The suit he’d gotten used to in the void wasn’t on him any more, destroyed in the respawn process. His loose long sleeved shirt was patchy and threadbare in places, but it didn’t give him the same panic the void suit’s patchiness had.
Scar looked up towards the world before him. The massive birch forest called to him, that was cut in half by a river which separated the milder terrain from the beautiful snow capped mountains.
The sun was high in the sky. Everything was serene, everything was gorgeous.
Scar hesitantly moved forward.
Nothing to do but get started.