He hits the ground.
It’s unceremonious, it’s ugly. Only the branches and thorns above break his fall enough to slow him from a killer impact, the last stretch of it being a constant slide, and drop onto the ancient flagstone in the belly of the jungle. Whatever sense is left in him, rattled and shaken and hurt as it is, cradles him in the swaths of shadows that cast into the depths. What he’s done, he can’t take back.
What he’s done will cost him everything.
The shadows boil around him, and the pain is so complete, so total that there’s little room to think beyond primal urges to flee, to crawl into a hole and die. He presses on. Night falls before he can find the comfort to leave his refuge, when the world turns hungry and he’s left alone in the darkness. The night beasts would be out. He thinks, and sleeps. Just for a moment, just for enough of a breath as he looks up towards the canopy that hangs above the chasm. Death seems likely. And slow. One one arm, there’s only so much he can do. With one working eye, his difficulties only grow, and the hardship becomes daunting.
Move.
Something cries above the thick, winding roots that blacken the horizon further. A howl. Night beasts in their hunger, night beasts looking for easy prey. He makes the attempt to stand, but his chest, his sides protest.
Breathe, breathe in. Go.
He’s urged onward. By something, maybe just his unwillingness to die down here.
He would not die down here. He will not die.
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