Work Text:
Technically, falling is not an action one does so much as has acted upon them.
There is peace in it, of a sort, surrendering to the cruel and constant and unforgiving force that is gravity.
There is relief in the surety that events have unfolded per the quick calculations preceding the careful shot.
There is a rush of numbing wind and the unsettled sensation of freefall and a press of hazy darkness around the edges that is likely more psychological impression than physiological effect and would bear further analysis if there were to be a further anything at the end of this one last mission.
There is peace and relief, and the press of hazy darkness, staring up in calm acceptance of the journey rather than down at the destination, until
There is a surge of rockface to either side as the vast valley between two distant peaks resolves into twisting gorge below and
There is a screech of metal scraping down the sides of the canyon wall as the ruined connection of the cable car catches before
Realization strikes a moment too late, vision clearing with a fresh rush of adrenaline, but brain and body are sluggish to understand, sluggish to respond, gloves slipping on the line’s connection when
A final crunching screech drags the car to a halt and snaps the cord taut scant milliseconds later.
There is a sickening sense of something snapping within that precipitates the sensation of something snapping from without.
The falling continues.
The darkness, then, is very real.
He has not landed.
x---x
There is a threshold for pain beyond which reality, as a concept, becomes rather abstract.
Time, stimuli, desire for anything more complex than simple escape, rendered meaningless, unfathomable.
Pain a constant darkness tugging down, down, with all the same cruel inevitability of the gravity before it but no bottom in sight.
When the agony resolves into distinguishable shapes – fire burning up and down the spinal column, needles pricking at sensitive flesh, rough hands shifting, maneuvering, investigating – awareness is more curse than blessing. A seductive suggestion that there must be more, somewhere through the haze of pain, through
The haze of compromised vision, the lurching nausea of helpless incomprehension, the icy weight of vague dread settling somewhere deep.
Low murmurs punctuated by screams that are more curiosity than concern, dragged up from aching lungs, through an uncooperative and dry throat.
Beeping machines and restraining hands, unyielding straps, sharp words and
The falling continues.
I’m a survivor, remember? flashes idly through haywire synapses as electric currents begin to flow.
He has not landed.
x---x
Once, there was an army grown in a factory, except sometimes the little toy soldiers came out wrong and had to be thrown away, until one day the creator flirted with the heresy of the idea that wrong could be made better, and they came out wrong, wrong, wrong, until four acceptable, perfect abominations were deemed good enough and granted the grace to survive long enough to join the fight and die in the manner for which they were each and every one of them intended.
The only pride worth striving for, being different in a sea of sameness, is the knowledge of being the best.
Good soldiers follow orders; better soldiers act before the order is made necessary.
x---x
The rifle is wrong.
The reason is unknowable yet important yet irrelevant.
The rifle is wrong, and no amount of pain and punishment can make it right.
The speculation of a failed experiment lasts as long as it takes to slit three competitors’ throats and put down five more with blaster burns from a stolen sidearm in the center of their foreheads.
There is blood on the floor on the walls, making hands slick and something metallic tasting with every word, scented with every breath.
The falling continues.
A new rifle waits the next rotation. Familiar and reassuring and right.
The first shot hits the target dead-center. The rest readily follow suit.
There is no expectation of accolades.
He has not landed.
x---x
There is a complication, by the activity and alarms and angry voices. By the abrupt absence of the abomination with the dull eyes that sighted the rifle with ease and the trembling hand that failed time and again to adequately fire it.
There is a mission, by the summons some rotations later.
There is an asset adrift, but there is also an adolescent human female, and the primary objective collides with the prime target.
There is fire and the familiar embrace of pain, there is
A hundred and fifty kilograms of pressure and
There is the mission, and good soldiers take initiative.
There is
Something about the rogue clones with the non-regulation helmets that sparks a low ember burning deep, that
Pulls onward, pulls down with gravity’s inevitable and unyielding grip, there’s
The rifle handled competently but fired poorly before
The falling continues
Scrabbling fingertips seize the ledge.
He has not landed.
x---x
There is
A mission.
The ember burns brighter with every thwarted approach and distraction, something swelling within that distracts, redirects, until
They are falling and
Landing and
There is an inevitability to the eyes revealed, but the dull defeat is replaced by desperate fear, tugging down, down.
The ember swells to directionless rage, it is wrong, wrong, for reasons unknowable yet important yet irrelevant.
“You made the wrong choice,” and
A fragile neck gripped between gloved hands that could snap it in a heartbeat but it is too quick too kind too merciful and the body jerks and stills beneath the rushing water and
It is his nature
Fingertips loosen; a fleeting moment’s hesitation that proves a moment too long when
Hazy darkness sets in around the edges as limbs seize and the current takes control.
The falling continues.
Technically, it occurs, as stiff and reluctant limbs strive desperately for shore – it is not the fall that kills.
And he still has yet to land.