He stepped a daring foot forward, the alluring skyline pulling him closer. Small gusts of wind mildly swept past, his long, white robes undulating to its trend. The vast display of open air surrounding him aided to still his mind. The horizon was limitless, and he could almost taste the freedom that teased him so.
His gaze became disarrayed. Heat created a mirage of waves, bending and manipulating his distant vision. He tried to read through the distortion, but the hot haze made his mind buzz. His vision was soon darkened, severing the tension between burning amber eyes and an unlikely reality. When he opened them, he was welcomed into a world of blazing light and weightlessness. A prominent silhouette tore its way through the white light, its movements fluent and strong: the motions of flight.
The benign breeze suddenly blew violently by his ears. His breath left his lungs as the blitz of wind besieged him. He yielded to fate; his faith was strong enough.
Down his body plummeted as the desert land rushed to meet him. He continued to look skyward, taking in the final moment.
"Dezmund!"
A figure appeared above him, it too falling. Its arm was extended to him, and Desmond knew nothing behind his own action; he reached as well. Their fingers met, then entangled. The phantom and its imposter shared echoing contours, and time stilled while awareness around vanished.
Almost a millennium passes over before Desmond's form was engulfed within a hayrick, the impact leaving him breathless. His head reeled while he gasped in the weakest attempt to catch the ejected air. His lungs refused to fill, and he was left to suffocate. Through the golden straws, he watched the sky transcend into a cooling blue then suffuse with the darkest ebony.
Sharp breathes and shivering exhales clamored about the colorless walls. He was sat up, choking and wheezing in frantic fits, and it took him several minutes to gather his breathing. Wiping off the collect sweat from his forehead, he acknowledged his surroundings. He was back at Abstergo, in his cell-room, and far away from any sign of freedom.
A sound resonated. The clicking of heels followed.
"Vidic is impatient. You're needed... pronto."
"Yeah... yeah..." Desmond muttered in response to the her voice but not her words.
The clicking resumed and a hand rested on his shoulder. He lifted his head to this, eyes staring but not recognizing. A minuscule frown stretched at Lucy's lips. Not a single thought thoroughly processed in Desmond's mind with in this brief contact and she was out of the room before Desmond could blink.
And when he did, he realized that he must have looked like a complete uneducated fricktard.
Shaking his head, he stuffed his hands into his sweatshirt's pockets before he pushed off the bed, took his morning piss, and set course to that hell sent machine.
Entering the loft, the air was tense. Desmond could have blamed his raging headache for his displeasure, but as soon as his caught sight of Vidic's ugly fuming face, he felt like going back into the bathroom and proceed to projectile vomit. It was that sadist Vidic's god damn fault that Desmond felt so horribly sick of his life.
As routine, Vidic bitched a bit and Desmond, seeing as the cumbersome greetings will never change, ignored the scientist and promptly took his place on top of the Animus. Being hooked up, Desmond thought hard about how long this life as a subject will last... and if it will ever end.
Just what he needed: He began seeing double -triple until his vision spun him senseless. He squeezed his eyes shut in attempt to nurse the discomfort that was steadily pulsated in his skull. Desmond was no wimp when it came to something bothersome like this, but damn it! It hurt like a bitch.
"Desmond, we need you to relax."
He tried, but his head put him through hell. This wasn't a normal migraine, he fingered. This was bad, and it kept getting worse. Exceedingly bright lights flooded in. Shit, he was seeing stars!
"Desmond, are you listening to me? You need to-"
And it was so damn hot! Maybe the Animus was over heating? It was practically burning him.
"Desmond-"
God her nagging drove him up a wall. He knew! But it was hard to calm down with a head full of hurt and being fried like an egg! Not to mention having a mouth that was dry as desert sand and kind of tasted like it, too.
But he still tried; he knitted his eyebrows together while attempting to focus on the usual orders.
"Remember, Mr. Miles," Vidic's abrasive voice carried across the loft. "I will not tolerate wasted time. Remain synchronized and do not stray from obvious objectives."
Desmond rolled his eyes then yielded to the machine's hold on his consciousness.
An unforeseen rush of bodies completely caught him off guard. Desmond faltered, utterly taken back by the extreme change of pace. His hesitation earn him a unexpected blow to his abdomen. As pain exploded, adrenalin quickly surged through him. A flash of bright red: he had all the readiness he needed.
Roars and hisses encircled him -they were coming, fast and numerous. Even so, unseemly cries of defeat were cued by every swipe of his sword. They piled as he stuck them down. All movements became one: constantly deflecting then countering, until no one was left standing.
Time to make a clean exit.
The dark navy alleys were his only allies. He slipped into one after another before scaling upward. Sprinting across the roof, he heard the advancing guards' swears and shouts. He hurried, vaulting onto the next building then swiftly diving into a roof top garden. He held his breath, listening to his pursuers; they weren't shaken and were getting closer.
The smallest of noises was all he needed: knives flew like bullets, their impact devastating and powerful enough to knock the two guards over the ledge. Desmond then took the opportunity to GTFO.
While retreating back into the shadows of the night, pride was not felt for the unsightly carnage. Instead, Desmond was confused, even terrified of himself. Even if he recognized that this doing was not his but someone-else's, he could also justify that this body was also his. The way the simulation hid nothing, but exposed everything, as if he was-
He cringed. Losing his grip on the beam he was hanging by, he fell, landing awkwardly and stumbled to catch his balance.
Pain.
Flaring, merciless and surprising.
It had been too long since he felt its intensity.
He cursed. "Shit." Blood covered his hands in an all-too-familiar fashion. It was like his vision his saw some night before, but that time he was asleep and out of the Animus. Desmond felt uneasy about this.
Without any more time spared, he felt the Animus bug out. It was electrifying but unsettling and different from times before. "Different" as in "ripping his insides out". Light illuminated but did not reveal; if anything, it blanketed his surrounds, covering the night. Cloudy air swarmed around, trapping him and his howl of misery and cut ties to the simulated past. Now he was in a new world, between two realities: his and Altair's.
A/N: It has basically been a year and my fanfiction account was starting to get cobwebs. Anyways congratulations on conquering yet another chapter! For those who waited for this to update: I salute you! Really, you guys are great! I'll try to update sooner than later.
Merry Christmas and other holidays to you!
Continue reading or not,
~Blue[J]~