4

In a storm sewer somewhere, Pumyra and Snarfer only stared at Lynx-O for a minute.

"But that's impossible, Lynx-O!" Pumyra finally said. "Are you sure you are not mistaken? I mean a memory from before you lost your sight is sure to be an old one, and old memories sometimes lie."

Lynx-O shook his head decisively. "Pumyra, I just described this chamber in perfect detail. The odds of a coincidence such as that happening are small. No, I have been here before." Lynx-O turned his head upward, as if to look. "The light in here is very dim. Only here near this opening could I see well enough to distinguish color. Color, Pumyra! There is no way for me to know that except to have seen it. But due to the lack of light, the senses I used mostly down here were the ones I use now. Scent, hearing, and touch. This is why I am able to recognize it using solely these senses."

Still clearly not wanting to believe it, or perhaps not being able to since her rational mind insisted it was not possible, Pumyra frowned. "So where was it you...came here?" she finally asked.

Lynx-O did not have a chance to reply, as Snarfer had found an old step- ladder that perhaps a worker had left down there, and was standing on the top on his toes to peek out from the grate. "Holy cow!" he cried. "Lynx-O, Pumyra! This is Thundera!!"

"What?" came the astounded reply from the cougar. She looked up, then climbed up to peer out as well. "Great Jaga!"

Lynx-O nodded grimly. Looking out would of course do him no good; he did not need to see. He already knew. "Yes, Pumyra. I came here often as a small cub. This was my hideaway, a place where I came to explore, and be alone."

Outside was a scene from one of the large cities of Thundera; not Lynx-O and Pumyra's own, not the main city that housed the ThunderCats and King Claudus. Thunderians walked the streets, where hovercars swooshed their way along, and cubs ran by unclothed and on all fours on the grass, tumbling or wrestling; the older ones rode hoverscooters or perhaps played ball. As Pumyra watched, she felt a wave of homesickness so strong, so crushing, that she felt dizzy had to clutch the grate to keep from falling to the ground. Seeing so many of her countrymen, seeing the everyday life she had always taken for granted; the orange, pre-afternoon sky, the buildings and spires. She bit her lip to keep the tears from falling. How long before it was destroyed? Lynx-O was right: this was Thundera. He was right.

"Pumyra?"

Pumyra shook her head and looked down, then at Snarfer, above her on the ladder but at eye level. Both were turned expectantly towards her. "Huh?"

"Lynx-O said we gotta get up there and find out where on Thundera this is...and when," Snarfer said.

Pumyra had not even heard. Trying to shake off her longing to go home again, so to speak, she nodded. "Yes...yes, that's a good idea. And find out how we got here so we can...get back." Lynx-O caught the hesitation in her voice, and she knew he probably did. As they walked along, searching for the manhole Lynx-O said was along the western tunnel, she wondered if she wanted to go back.

***

Bengali's mind gave him a brief moment where it convinced him that he was dreaming, and any second he would wake up to feel the warm sun shining through the trees, and see Lynx-O and the others playing kick the can; that was nice, because then he didn't feel the terror of hurtling downward from a spot that had started out in the Tower of Omens, and ended high up somewhere. High, too high. Way too high.

This brief moment of relief did not last long. He had dreamt of falling before, and always had gotten the logy feeling he got right before he woke up long before he neared the ground, and always awakened before he hit. It wasn't happening. Maybe it's just a vivid dream? Even so, he had heard that if you hit the ground in a dream, you died in your sleep. It was an old wives' tale that Pumyra kidded him about believing, but still, a Thunderian never dreamed being killed or being dashed upon the ground for one simple reason: dreams were based on events that you know, or have experienced. Often they are the events of the day in a jumbled puzzle of the sub conscious' making; the mind can't imagine what it's like to die, so it wakes the dreamer up. If one dies in his sleep, that means the brain would know what it's like to die, meaning it would have had to experience it.

Complicated? Maybe, but Bengali believed every bit of it.

All this went through his mind in seconds as he hurtled through the air. After the hope that it was a dream came the terror, and he screamed. However he did this for longer than he should have. When he was able to get some sort of control over himself (and still falling through the air as he did so) he opened his eyes and looked. Up. Down. Side to side. He saw nothing, nothing at all. The sky was bright blue, much bluer than that of Third Earth, and there were clouds here and there. in some places it seemed to be raining after a fashion, the rain kind of disappearing into thin air, as there was no ground to fall on.

The young tiger was dazed as he looked around. He had been falling for several minutes, but the air was warm, and as soon as he got used to the wind, and seeing no ground, it was almost more like flying than falling, maybe in the Hovercat or something similar. "Where am I?" he said aloud, and the wind snatched the words away to the clouds as soon as they were said. No land, but if he was falling, there had to be land! Falling meant there was gravity somewhere, blast it!

Not that he wanted to splat on stone or anything, but he saw no land, no organisms, only endless blue sky and puffy, whitish-pink clouds.

***

In the Black Pyramid, Mumm-Ra watched this in his cauldron, once again in his smaller form. He stood at the edge and peered in amusedly, and when he saw where Bengali had ended up, he howled with laughter. Ma-Mutt barked and peered in as well, tail wagging. "Oh, this is too good, my loyal pet," he said to the dog, in better spirits than he had been in in a long time. The mummy priest had, with his magic and evil wizardry, been to the far reaches of the galaxy, and even beyond that on occasion. He had never been to the world Bengali had fallen into, but he had heard if it, and known a few in his time who had been there.

Bengali had been right; there was no land on that world; in fact it could not really be called a world at all. It was made of atmosphere; that was it. It was, if looked at from space, a looped tube of gasses that faded out toward the edges, past the eccentric atmosphere. A doughnut or air. There was life there, very primitive life on the cellular level. In this world, it would be unlikely that anything else would evolve, and the way it was constructed, this world, it was like a giant wind tunnel. Bengali would only fall and fall and fall, round and round.

Mumm-Ra was pleased. Bengali would die from thirst or hunger, if he wasn't driven mad from falling endlessly for days. Perhaps he would be able to use the rain for water but that would sustain him for only so long. Rumbling low laughter, Mumm-Ra instructed his pet to watch over the cauldron while he rested, and sank back into his sarcophagus to recuperate, and to rest up to watch the results of his spell. Four down, several to go.

Bengali, falling in the air
Bengali

Part 3

Part 5

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