Souls in the Wind

Chapter One: My Name is Cloud

Her first thought, when she became aware of the fact that she still had the ability to think, was 'Where am I?' Then there was the rather disconcerting question of 'Who am I?' Finally, there was what seemed to be the most pressing issue at that moment; 'Why do I hurt?'

Opening her eyes did not provide any of the answers she had hoped it would. The only information it gave her was that there were a number of large, flat, gray chunks of stone that appeared to have fallen not far from the tip of her nose. How she knew it had fallen there after and not before her, she had no idea. She just knew.

Despite the disturbing realization that her head would have likely been crushed if she'd been in a slightly different position, the world around her seemed calm enough now. Eerily so, in fact. She may not have been able to remember anything about herself or how she had gotten here, but she did know, somehow, that there should have been more sound in the air. Why was it so quiet? Perhaps she had gone deaf.

She lifted her head up slightly, and the patter of small pebbles hitting the dry ground as her movement disturbed them disproved that theory. The feelings caused by the movement drew all of her attention away from that vague worry about the unnatural silence, however. That slight tensing of the muscles at the base of her skull created a wave of sensation down the length of her neck until it reached the place between her shoulder blades. At that point, it bounced back suddenly in the form of a stunning lance of pain that nearly sent her reeling.

It took the span of several deep breaths, with her eyes squeezed shut, before the agony lessened enough to allow her to think about anything else. Even then, she waited for another roughly equal stretch of time before daring to move again.

The pain was not so incapacitating now that she was prepared for it, but still caused her to groan and clench her teeth as she slowly, slowly turned her head enough to find the source of her torment. The sight of it alone was enough to make the pain flare up again as she fully registered the wound's severity. A large chunk of flesh had been torn right out of the base of her neck, leaving a ghastly hole. Any deeper and she could only imagine that the blades off bone which shielded her spinal cord would be showing. She felt faint at the mere thought.

The wound had stopped bleeding, luckily before it had drained her to death. Also, it looked like the blood that must have been there had mostly been washed away. She stared at the ground again, finding it difficult to focus at first, but yes, the earth beneath her was dry. If rain water had cleaned her injury, it must have happened a full day ago at least. She assumed that the wound on her back had been what made her fall unconscious and apparently lose her memories, which meant, when she added that to her observations about the rain, that she had been unconscious for a day at the very least. Since what traces of blood that were left in the wound were dry, and the edges actually looked like they were healing, she guessed that it had been even longer.

When her slow train of thought managed to get over these few concepts, she finally began to notice her surroundings beyond the rock wall. She was lying in a wide, open but uneven area. There was a sloping wall of rubble before her, and a deep gorge behind. The land rose higher to the left and right, as well as on the opposite side of the gorge. She was in some sort of valley or canyon, then. Nothing but gray rock and dry, tan earth as far as her still somewhat blurry eyes could see. She was actually surprised by her own keenness when she noted that many of the boulders and even parts of the canyon wall looked newly carved, their edges sharp and precariously cracked in some places, or covered in loose rocks. She thought that, if the stones had stood in their currant formation for very long, the wind and weather would have dulled the edges and broken away any cracked pieces. These realizations matched up with her knowledge of how recently the boulders around her had fallen.

But what, she wondered, could have caused this much destruction?

A fleeting memory struck her... The earth trembling as her own body trembled in fear. A cry for help from someone precious to her... Or was it the roar of some terrible monster? Something that instinct had warned her to fear above everything else... But was it the monster she should fear, or the jagged crack in the ground that cut towards her as if it wanted to swallow her up? The monster would swallow her up if he caught her. Or worse, if he caught-

'No! No, you cannot have him! He is mine! I will die before I let you take him from me! Run! Run, my darling! Don't let him catch you! Oh, please don't let him...'

The memory was too much for her. Worse than the physical pain. It left her wide-eyed and gasping, her entire body shuddering. She couldn't handle it. She couldn't...

Eventually, she was able to compose herself, if only partially. She forced every trace of that terrifying flashback into the deepest, darkest corner of her mind, not stopping until it was almost nonexistent in her thoughts, just a vague memory of some nightmare. She wished she could erase it completely. If remembering who she was meant facing that horror, was it really worth it?

'Not yet.'

Later, perhaps, she would decide to pull those memories out again, piece by piece, and try to understand them. Now, however, she had too much to worry about without being driven mad by those terrors. Forget them. Move on. Survive.

Survive.

That was all anyone could do, in the end. Was it not?

Deep, introspective contemplations aside, it was probably about time to get up and finish taking stock of whatever situation she had landed in.

Her initial attempt to stand up proved that yes, she had quite literally 'landed' in this situation. And it must have been a rather long fall, at that. If not a freefall from some no-longer-existing height, at least a tumble down that slope of shattered stone in front of her. She had to rethink her original assumption that the neck wound had been what knocked her out. The fall was more likely, especially if it had happened after whatever had taken a chunk out of her.

She did not think that her leg was broken, necessarily, but it had certainly come close. Broken or not, it was certainly as serious as the injury to her neck. She realized - for the brief moment that she was still allowed to think clearly in the rush of new agony - that trying to stand up without testing her legs first had been a very, very bad idea.

Then she stopped thinking altogether, and thankfully stopped hurting as well, falling back into the otherworldly embrace of unconsciousness.

It was dark when she reawakened.

Judging by the placement of the stars, night had fallen quite some time ago. Last she remembered, the sun had been shining brightly from above her, so she must have been out for half a day at least. Whatever had happened before must have truly exhausted her. She still held to the decision that she was better off not knowing, at least until the concept of living to see the next sunrise was not such an uncertainty.

Her leg ached, and her neck still throbbed, but lying still for so long had allowed the pain to fade considerably. So much so, in fact, that she became aware of another discomfort.

She was very, very hungry.

Another cautious glance around only reaffirmed the fact that she was probably the only living thing, plant or animal, in this desolate canyon. Not even a dried up bush or a patch of moss in sight, and certainly nothing that would provide any sustenance for her. If she did not want to starve, she would have to move. Just thinking about it made her wince.

There was no other option, though. The longer she thought about it, the more undeniable that truth became. Maybe, if she just kept her weight off that leg... It seemed to be her best chance. She had to survive, and to do that, she had to stand up, and she had to walk. If she was extremely lucky, she might find something edible in another part of of the crevice, or a way out onto open ground. If not, she would have to climb. That fact alone threatened to fill her with a hopeless sense of dread. She greatly doubted that she had enough strength to drag herself up anything resembling a steep incline.

Ah, well. She would succeed or die trying. The oddly comforting mix of surety and desperation in that thought gave her the willpower needed to turn thought into action, though she took even more time than was probably needed to brace herself.

Experimentally, she shifted. It did not help that she was partially lying on an uneven pile of shattered rock. Ever so slowly, afraid that if she moved any faster she might dislodge a precariously placed stone and lose her balance, she managed to get her relatively uninjured limbs beneath her and transfer most of her weight onto them. Then, as carefully and smoothly as possible, she tensed her muscles and began to lift herself off the canyon floor. Her body was stiff and full of aches. No doubt she had been bruised and scratched in countless places during the fall. Still, with her wounded leg lifted clear off the ground and kept very still, and her neck braced stiffly to keep from jarring that injury, she was able to rise to her full height. At that point, she had to catch her breath, trying to relax as much as possible without collapsing. Standing up once had been enough of a struggle. She didn't want to spare the energy for a second time, nor risk further injury.

Her head was bowed, nearly touching the ground as she focused once again on just breathing in and out. It took somewhat less time to recover than she had expected, and that was reassuring. Now came the hard part.

'First, turn around. You can't walk through a pile of boulders. Ohh... Slowly... Good, now right front foot forward. Concentrate on keeping the injured leg off the ground. Now maybe the left front foot. Now the right back foot hops forward... Ahh! Note to self - don't jar the left back leg! This time try right front forward, then balance on the left front and gently step with the right back... Yes... Now left front... Now right front again...'

After some trial and error, she found a pattern of limping that did not cause her too much pain. The effort of walking itself was a challenge in her weakened state, but she gritted her teeth and dealt with it step by step. At first, the going seemed so slow that she despaired of ever finding something before she dropped dead. However, as she focused on moving forward, blanking her mind to all else, the limping steps fell into a more comfortable pattern, not that the word 'comfortable' could be applied accurately to anything she was currently feeling. Still, the individual steps seemed to become less difficult. She stopped counting them, relieved to let them meld into something a little bit closer to the would-be simple act of walking.

The moon was close to full and the stars shone brightly. It was not all that difficult to see the ground in front of her, and the slate gray stone of the canyon walls was slightly reflective in places. The canyon itself was narrower here, which could be good or bad. Bad if it closed up and trapped her, but beneficial if the steep walls shielded her from the eyes of anything dangerous. Now that she considered it, she was even thankful for the utter silence, as strange as it was. If anyone else was down here after all, she would probably be able to hear them before they came too close, if she didn't smell them first.

She kept herself alert, keeping her own thoughts basic so as to avoid despair. Walking was becoming almost monotonous now, as she grew accustomed to the aches of her abused body. It was quite preferable, really, when she remembered how hard it had been just to stand up. She could keep this up. She knew she could. How long, she didn't know, but it would be longer than she had originally feared, and that was what mattered. The canyon could not go on forever. Soon, before the moon set, she just knew that she would find something. She only hoped that something would not be a dead end.

"Having a bit of trouble there, missy?"

The sudden intrusion into her thoughts and the silence of the night nearly made her jump out of her own skin. That of course left her gasping and flinching at the wounds which had been strained by the movement, and it took her several moments to even locate the direction from which the voice had originated. So much for sensing an approach...

"Easy there. I won't eat you. You don't look like you have much meat on your bones, anyway. I do know where you can start to fix that problem, though."

Confused and somewhat frightened by the growling edge to the stranger's voice, despite his reassurances, she squinted into the shadows of a craggy overhang. Then she froze, heart hammering wildly, as the speaker's outline became clear.

Moonlight glinted off a row of white fangs, bared in a wide grin on the long snout of the creature. She desperately suppressed the broken memory of the monster from before. This creature was similar, but not the same. Piercing eyes were locked with hers, filled with what she would call sinister amusement. Granted, that could just be due to the instinctual fear that all predators instilled in her.

The creature moved, coming further into the light, and she considered giving herself a mental kick. Yes, he was a predator, but a small one. Even in her poor condition, she could probably do a good deal of damage to him should he try to kill her. If he had a pack, though, that was something else. She concentrated on her senses of hearing and smell, straining them to pick out any sign of others like him.

"...I told you not to worry. I'm alone."

She might not have believed him, except that no matter how hard she searched, she senses supported his claim. That was not quite enough to make her relax, but it did quiet her racing heart somewhat.

"...Why?" She asked after a moment of silence. "I thought your kind always traveled in packs."

The predator waved one of his forelimbs in a vaguely dismissive gesture. "Rocks fell. Everyone died." He said it with a casualty that was surely feigned. She was not so foolish as to think that predators were completely heartless. Surely even this one had felt love for his family. "I was out on scouting duty," he continued, oblivious to her pity. "We'd heard a commotion. I saw you fight that big one... You were pretty impressive, for a plant eater."

That last comment caused her mind to fog. What was he talking about? Who had she fought...? The big one... the monster that had tried to...

'No.'

She shook her head sharply, banishing those half-formed images once again. 'I don't want to remember. It's still too much...'

"Ah. He hurt you pretty badly, didn't he? You'll be happy to know that he's probably worse off than yourself. I would be more happy about it myself, if I had found his body under all the rocks. No matter, though. There were plenty of other dead things to snack on these last few days."

A shiver ran up her spine at the thought. Even if she was wise enough not to question how any creature could stand to eat meat, the thought of it was still disgusting. She kept her mouth shut about it, though. Best to stay on this miniature monster's good side as long as possible. She should be grateful, really. He had obviously gorged on the corpses of those less lucky than herself. He would have no interest in attempting to eat her... at least for the time being.

"Not the talkative type, are you?" A couple hops with his proportionately long, powerful legs carried him to the top of a slanted, rocky protrusion, placing him a bit closer to her level. He chuckled slightly at the way his sudden movement startled her. "Oh, come on. I told you to relax. Will it help if I introduce myself? I'm called Feather. You'll see why at dawn. Now tell me your name."

"I..." she trailed off, surprising herself with the way her voice broke, as if expressing the sorrow and desperation that she had yet to allow herself to feel. "I don't remember."

Feather did not say anything for a moment, though she could not tell in the darkness whether that was due to surprise or just thoughtfulness. When he did speak again, his high, predatory voice held more gentleness and compassion than she would have thought possible even despite her insights into a meat eater's capacity for love.

"Well..." the small hunter said slowly, "what name do you think would suit you?"

Somehow, that seemed to be the hardest question she had been faced with yet. Survival was one thing, but identity was an entirely different level. Who was she? What was she, even, besides the obvious?

Her gaze unfocused, drifting upwards as her head tilted back. The silver-blue light of the moon drew her, changing even as she watched. A shadow passed over it, drifting aimlessly. A translucent shape, its edges shifting in a slow, continuous cycle. Breaking apart here... Thickening there... Stretching and wavering with the wind that carried it... Never sure of a destination, or even of its own survival... Ready to be torn to pieces at any moment.. Or guided to its rightful place with others of its kind. And if that happened, would there be something more to existence? Or would its life consist only of drifting, forever and always, across an unknown sky?

It was decided, then.

"My name is Cloud."