ORIGIN - Unleashing Hell

Pages: 1 2

Lying amongst the rubble of Orion, well hidden by the thick layer of dust upon its reddish-pink shell, lay a dormant gem. A silent thrum of life patiently awaited the day it would awaken, biding its time with sweet dreams that slowly made more and more sense as time continued its steady march, and as the life within began to mature. Pure comfort and warmth swaddled the life as it - she - grew, and she was content, dreaming dreams of grass fields and warm light on wings.

Soon, something took away that sense of comfort with a sense of claustrophobia that infiltrated the dreams, soon, the warmth was sweltering, soon, the dreams fled and she was left in untimely, endless darkness. She struggled inside the shell of hers, rustling the tiny pebbles that lay atop the smooth, egg-shaped gem she lay encased within, and instinctually hit the barrier with the tiniest of beaks.

Once she started to chip away at that hard, thin barrier, she felt the cracks and felt the desire to make a sound for joy. She kept going, butting her head at the crack at times to make it wider until she felt the first draft of cold she'd ever felt. It was incredibly unpleasant, and she didn't want to experience more of it, and took a long break, huddling to herself in the dark, sightless and wordlessly drifting between thoughts, until the cold didn't seem so bad. When she finally crashed all the way through, she stumbled and fell onto the pebbles around her, taking odd, clumsy steps down the tiny mountain of rubble with her little nub wings fluttering here and there, making twittering chirps as she went.

She took a few looks around, but here was just as dark as being in the shell! Plus, she was cold all over, now! How was this an improvement? She lowered herself to the ground and rubbed her head on her little arm, chittering in a wordless complaint.

@Seven

From the moment Orion - the only home she’d ever known - went dark, Seven’s little heart had been caught in some measure of distress. She could hardly see - much less move very far without bumping into something which she had no way of knowing how to traverse - and had subsisted off of what few cave bugs had been ill-fated enough to wander directly in front of her, the small sounds of their movement the only hint of life within the all-encompassing blackness.

She had travelled as far as her feet could take her while the lights still worked, and she dearly missed the sparkling stones she knew had to still be above her - if only they still sparkled so! They would at least provide the barest light for her eyes to work with. But moving was better than sitting still and waiting for something much less fearful than the ram to gobble her up, and so she hopped on, head on a swivel in some vain effort to capture even the smallest point of light.

Until she heard noise. Terrifying, blessed noise - she had not known how long or far she’d wandered before she heard the minute sounds of stone chipping away from stone, gentle tinkling that made her feathers stand on end. Someone was close - someone new, too? She recalled the sound from when her own chrysalis had shattered - albeit more explosively - and she made a beeline for the sound.

“Hello? Is someone there?” She calls when she hears chittering, her tiny voice loud in the blanket of quiet that had fallen over Orion. “If you are big, please don’t eat me.”

@Hellebore

Her head immediately piqued up at the sound that broke the almost suffocating hush. Till the sound came into being, her world only consisted of the tiny area around her, for darkness and silence formed another barrier that she was hesitant to break. For one, she couldn't necessarily feel any sort of wall - that would be too simple - and secondly, she barely had any conviction to move. Here was safe, here was a place she was able to stretch to the tip-top most she possibly could until she settled on top of her little clawed feet in a comfortable, freshly groomed ball of fluffy feather down. The world still held that stifling timelessness as it had before, and she was uninclined to do anything to change this.

The voice changed this for her, and, startled, she stumbled towards the source. The sounds themselves were unfamiliar, but oddly made sense. They asked her if she was here, and yes, indeed, she was! Was she big enough to eat the voice? Now, that was doubtful. They sounded just as tiny as she was, if they came from a source, perhaps they were somewhat similar to her!

If they weren't, well, she had no idea what they might be, having just been born, after all. And there was certainly no way of finding out in the dark.

She took a step towards the voice, then a second, scrambling to catch any sort of balance on her weak little legs. In the mean time, she chirruped, "Here! Here!" before she could fall over into the dust.

@Seven

There was something intensely comforting about sound after so long spent in the suffocating still of the blackout - the only sounds her own, save for the bugs. Which there weren’t nearly enough of, her gnawing stomach reminded her. Surely the darkness couldn’t last forever, could it? Surely because there had been light, there must be light again someday, must there? The thought worried her young little mind.

She picked her way closer, faster now that the other had sounded just as small and concerned as she was. “Goodness! I thought I might be alone forever in this dark-” She stretches a wing, then the other, trying to feel if she might be near the source of the other voice.

Alas, feathered appendages find no purchase on anything, living or otherwise, within the dark. “Where are you? I truly would not like to be alone again.” She continues to walk in a slow circle, fearful of going too far and passing right by her potential companion. “Have you only just hatched?”

@Hellebore

If she closed her eyes (of any difference it made to her sight, it made to her hearing), she felt as if she could better hear the source of the disembodied voice. They expressed a desire for companionship, of a fellowship of those stranded alone in the dark, and a bright, flickering happiness erupted in her fickle bird heart. Did that mean there were more? More voices, more - friends? (That was the right word for it, wasn't it? She certainly wished to think so.)

They asked her if she'd just woken up, and she replied, "Yes, Yes! Hatch - just hatch." That wasn't quite as easily said as she would've preferred - the ~~stranger~~ friend spoke perfectly well. Did they practice? She should practice too, shouldn't she? Good thing she had someone to practice with, then!

The friend seemed to be agitated at not finding her, so she continued walking on her fragile legs until she hit something with a small, 'oof' as she walked straight into a chest full of feathers. Was this them? Did the voice belong to this warm, similarly feathered creature? Oh, she hoped so!

@Seven

There! She nearly cried out in surprise as she suddenly came into contact with one other tiny, feathered body - smaller even than her, it seemed! What a wonder - and she’d believed herself to be one of the smallest creatures here, short of the insects that had kept her barely sated. She had worried that others - since there had to be others - would be like the ram, large and quick to anger. Fortunately, this one was not yelling at her just yet. She hoped to keep it that way.

“Just hatched! Into darkness, too. I hatched… a while ago. I do not know how long.” Before the untimely darkness, though she did not know whether that was blessing or curse, in the long run. How how was she to measure her age, with no indication of seasons, days or hours to mark the passage of time? Her voice was quieter now, for her shouts had felt too loud in the dark now with this other presence so close to her. The smaller creature was damp, still, no doubt from the stone she’d hatched from - Seven remembered that cold, though staved off by the warmth of the light that then had still permeated Orion. Poor small thing. Fortunately Seven had no qualms over sharing what little she could spare for the small, feathered thing, and would gladly let her nestle close if she so chose.

“You are like me. You have feathers, and you’re small. I wondered if there might be others.” She mused aloud, just to keep the quiet from becoming suffocating again - it had been much too long, in her humble opinion, since she had had the privilege of something hearing her talking. Well, besides the bugs. But they never answered.

@Hellebore

Once she found the nice, warm, dry chest full of feathers, she most definitely wasn't going to leave it anytime soon. She settled her feet on its feet (how very similar they were!) and burrowed the side of her head into its warmth. She felt the pleasant rumble in their chest as they spoke, which made her twitter with delight, letting small peals of laughter ring in the air. This was so nice! This was worth all the effort of breaking out of that shell and getting dusty and cold.

They mentioned that they hatched not too long ago as well, which pleased her. She'd already recognized their feathers and smallness being of the same category, but she wanted to know more! "Who," She sputtered out, rustling her beak further out of the fluff. "Who we?" She asked. "Where we? Why dark?"

She made a face in the dark. Her thoughts and the friends' speech was much cleaner than anything she chirped out. Why was speech so difficult? "Who'r- Who're- Who're you?"

@Seven

The same feet, she marveled as the little creature burrowed against her. And was that a beak she felt? They must be the same sort of creature, then! She delights in the knowledge, though the pleasant expression on her face would be lost to the void. At least it would be evident in her voice as she spoke again.

"We are... Things of feathers. And wings. The word is there, I just can't reach it." She laments briefly at her vocabulary - still so young and with so much to learn, but new things came to her like suddenly-remembered dreams every once in awhile. But she did not doubt that one day she'd know the word for what they were, just that it would take some time. "And we are in a cave. A big cave! With large... shiny rocks, up on top. They hang down and glitter so beautifully. Or they did, before the darkness came." The little bird below her would feel a shudder as Seven recalled the first few moments of black seeming to stretch on into eternity.

"I don't know why it is dark. There was light, before. It left suddenly. I don't know when it will be back." So many questions to answer! Seven preferred to be the questioner, personally, but she felt it was her duty to share what she could with this tiny, damp bundle of feathers, recalling how disorienting it had been to tumble out into the world. At least she had had all her senses about her. "I am... me. I should have a name, but I do not." For what it's worth, she doesn't seem especially bothered by her lack of one. "Perhaps I should choose one. Do you have a name?"

@Hellebore

She listened to her friend describe the place they were in, and, in a useless but well-meant gesture, she looked up in the endless dark to try and see the glittering pretty stones they mentioned. She knew that there was something to see! And when the lights did come back, (of which she was perfectly sure would happen, because being in the dark was horrible and dumb and should stop immediately), she would enjoy looking at them with her friend!

A name? A name....She settled in more, her little neck hidden not only by her friend's fluff, but her own, till she was nothing but a small ball of feathers tucked against the elder's feet. She made a 'mmmmm,' sound as she thought about it, continually making the sound both to fill the eerie silence, and because she liked making the noise itself. While she thought, it turned into a humming, like a 'hmm, hmm, hmmmm' more than anything else.

Did she have a name? It sounded about right. Her friend should have a name, and so should she. Certainly she'd been thinking of herself from early on as she, but that wasn't a name. It was certainly helpful, she rather thought, but in terms of someone calling her something....she expressed that noise again a little louder. She could feel something, some sort of word on the tip of her tongue, like how her friend couldn't find the right description of what they both were. It was a pretty name, a red name, whatever red was. A dark red name.

And then, there it was. She knew it! She knew her name! "Helle! Name! Helle!" She wiggled her little wings around without paying mind to elbowing her friend in sheer excitement, hopping a little bit on her friend's feet. "'m Helle!"

@Seven

The humming was awfully calming, and she found herself joining in on the other little creature’s noises until she stopped, all of a sudden, and began hopping excitedly.

“Helle!” The little magpie joins the newly-named Helle in her joyous celebration, almost dancing in place, uncaring of any tiny shoves that might come from below - her friend had found a name! And so soon, too - she wondered briefly if there was a name for her, waiting just beyond the realm of thought. But what could be more fun than choosing one’s own name? Perhaps it was better that she name herself. An opportunity for creative exploration - the ability to be whatever she wanted to be. She quite liked that idea.

“Helle is a great name. I wonder what I would choose for my name? I really like the ‘sssss’ sound. I want my name to start with a ‘sssss’ sound.” But that was still an endless font of possibility - Swear? Safe? Stay? Sweet? It was still too much for her new mind to process. Perhaps Helle might have some ideas.

@Hellebore

Pages: 1 2