It wasn't the hit that made it so Gajeel couldn't stand up, nor was it the twisting and tumbling down the slope watching the sky and earth merge until his stomach threatened to release its contents on… well… everything. It was when gravity finally let his body come to a rest, cracking his skull on stone so hard he lay on the ground gaping like a fish as his ears rang with a ferocity that made his vision fill with blinding lights. He could smell blood from what he guessed was the reopening of his wound and his wrist had hit something hard enough on the way down that it lay in a strange position somewhere out of his line of sight.
He could swear his toes were going numb.
His lungs refused to take in air after the wind had been knocked out of them and his heart thudded so hard in his chest his panic instinct was threatening to kick in. He struggled in a few breaths, concentrating on closing and opening his eyes until the lights finally started fading and he could make out hazy shapes. Finally determining which way was down, he tried to push himself up only to have his stomach lurch with nausea and he toppled to the ground without even realizing it was coming for him.
"Shit," his voice choked, but it sounded heavy and lethargic on his tongue, "Diz…zy…"
Damn the ringing that kept him so disorientated he couldn't keep his eyes open.
"…" he could feel the vibrations in the earth as feet hit the ground, closing in on him, "…eel… aj… eel…"
His nose was stinging and he tried to push himself up again, but instead of the ground being pushed away he merely grated his cheek against the rock.
"Ga… are… oo… ay…"
A shadow descended over him and he tried to focus his vision on the hazy form. He couldn't find a name on the tip of his tongue, however, and the sight started pulsating with the throbbing in his head. Fuck, how hard had he hit the ground?
A small hand touched his arm and he suddenly felt alarmed. His mind was muddled and the last thing he needed was someone trying to get to him during his moment of weakness. His hand grabbed hold of the wrist and yanked it away, but the movement was slow and lacked the anger he was trying to put across. With the movement, the world felt like it had started turning under him.
"Don… touchmeh…" he slurred, and he felt his skin turning into scales as his unfocused eyes tried to latch onto something to make the world stop spinning… Goddamn the endless spinning…
Two more voices surfaced and he could hear them talking amongst themselves. What the hell did they think he was, some dying animal they found in the forest? Actually, was he in a forest? He was lying on what he thought was stone, so did that mean he was inside? No, he could feel a breeze brushing against him.
Oh dear God, the endless spinning and ringing were too much. His stomach gurgled violently and he felt the bile rising into his throat. For the life of him, he did NOT want to vomit on himself. With as much strength as he could muster, he planted his hands onto the ground and pushed with enough force to land him upright and he tilted his head over to the side and…
Everything stopped.
The ringing ended, the spinning came to a crashing halt, and he was just twisted on the ground waiting for the dry heave to let his body stop shaking. His nose was clear, the smell of blood no longer completely clouding his nostrils and his eyes focused with striking clearness on the ground. No more haze.
"What. The. Fucking. Hell." Gajeel breathed, his throat still tight with the bile that had climbed precariously close to his gag reflex.
"G-Gajeel?" Levy's hand found his shoulder and his eyes cut to the ground where his head had lay just moments before, and then travelled up, up, up, making him crane his neck at the large stone slabs sticking upright in the ground. The cave writing decorated the stones and he could see what remained of ancient paint. The stone structure was large and was shaped in what appeared to be a perfect circular floor with ten of the slabs total shooting at least twenty feet in the air. In the middle of the circle, there was what looked to be an altar.
Immediately what caught Gajeel's attention was the lack of plant life growing from betwixt the stones. With so many trees and flowers around, why weren't there sprouts?
"Gajeel, are you ok?" Levy shook his shoulder a bit, worry in her voice.
"What is this place?" he finally spoke, his voice catching in his tight throat as he forced the words.
"I dunno… no one told us about this," she murmured, her big curious eyes taking it all in. She went to take a step forward but he grabbed her leg, making her jump slightly.
"There's something wrong with this place," he growled, an uneasy feeling working its way up his spine as he stared at the altar. Something was very, very wrong.
"You hit your head pretty hard, there, Gajeel," Droy crossed his arms and leaned towards him, "You sure you're ok?"
"Not that hard," Gajeel seethed, completely appalled with their easy-going countenances. No wonder Levy always got into trouble, their instincts were duller than-
"Wow…" Levy gasped, turning in a circle to stare with wide-eyed wonder at the slabs extending to the sky, "These are incredible,"
"L-Levy! Get back here!" Gajeel's adrenaline surged at the sight of her skipping casually about the stones. His protective instincts climbed to a height he didn't even know existed and he shot forward only to come up short when he attempted to breach the circle. He couldn't will his body forward even if he'd wanted to and an angry tremor went through him, "Shit…"
"Jeeze, Gajeel, scared of a bunch of rocks?" Jet scoffed, following after Levy into the cursed area. Even Droy walked over to the rune-covered stones with a curious look on his face, completely at ease in the place. Why was Gajeel the only one who felt more wound up than a fresh bedspring? His heart was hammering and he felt nervousness, foreign and cool, send his stomach into worrisome knots. His instincts were screaming at him to get them out of there, that it wasn't safe in the least bit.
"These symbols…" Levy murmured, staring at the slabs with wonder-filled eyes, "They're not like the ones I deciphered in the caves even thought they're similar… a branch of the original language, maybe?"
"I dunno, Levy," Jet came up beside her, eyes sliding over the characters swiftly, "These seem older, don't they? See how the marks aren't as defined?"
"But that could just be because of the weather. The ones in the cave weren't exposed to the elements like these are…" she started walking around, running her fingers over the cold stone.
Gajeel almost couldn't take it. He started pacing angrily on the edge, his eyes glistening like a trapped animal's. He could feel his hair standing on end. Why didn't they just get out of there? The urgency was clawing at his throat and he couldn't maintain his composure. He felt similar to watching something terrible happen without the ability to stop it. He didn't know how, but something sinister permeated in the air around the place. Whatever this place was used for in the past, and he could only guess at what it could have been, it was something incredible and evil. Or maybe not even evil, just unnatural to the point that it staved off all forms of life from the area… except for the three idiots prancing around on the cursed stone.
When Levy approached the altar in the center, something started to snap inside of him. The need to get her away from the place intensified and he could almost feel the taste of panic in his mouth. He couldn't stop his magic from reacting as his scales materialized and iron started rolling in his stomach.
He could hear Droy say something but the words didn't process.
A memory started to surface in front of him. Blood and smoke filled his nostrils and he could see dark figures beginning to materialize from the surrounding brush. Their voices thrummed in his ears as they chanted something in a language foreign to him. A body was lying on the altar, covered in blood with sullied blue curls flowing over the unforgiving stone as a deafening roar was released upon the heavens…
"G-Gajeel?"
His chest was heaving and he was in full Iron Dragon's Scales mode. He could feel his heart pounding angrily in his chest as his vision focused to the three forms now standing in front of him. He grabbed his chest as if the action would help to calm him and he tried to calm the feelings of panic racing through his veins. He looked to the worried eyes of Levy and the blue curls falling gently around her face, so strikingly familiar to the one's he'd seen in the vision that left a haunting feeling in the base of his throat.
"We're leaving," he huffed, his voice gruff and strained as he turned away from them, "Now,"