I have to keep the date… I can't let my consciousness fade.
Darkness and silence, his only companions since that green light enveloped the sky. So far, he's counted 62,481,801,608 seconds. Calculating that and taking into account the leap years equates to over 1,979 years passing by in what feels like both an eternity and a proverbial blink of an eye.
Counting while simultaneously thinking and trying to keep himself awake is a monumental task, so much that it hurts, but he's not giving up. Every 800,000 seconds he finds himself losing his grip on his consciousness, his mind pleading for him to give up and sleep, but he'd snap back a split second later resuming his arduous counting after cursing his slip-up. He needs to keep the date, has to make it through without losing himself to the depravity that is his own mind. He can't see, nor can he feel or smell or taste anything anymore, hasn't for a long time. It doesn't even feel like he's been lying around for centuries. It's a lightless, numb void where he's stuck with his own swirling mass of thoughts and equations, now automatically attuned to keeping track of time.
Every spring though, he tries to break free. Willing himself to get up and break out of this prison. Every year he fails, forced to count until the next spring approaches and repeating the same loss again.
Senkū attempts to remember Earth as he does so, recalling fuzzy images of the lush green trees and blue skies he very much loved to dominate. He tries to quiz himself on arithmetic and chemistry, rocket science, survival skills, meaningless trivia about calcite and its uses, of the renowned scientist Marie Curie and inventor Thomas Edison. He tries to complete complicated math problems factoring wind and sunlight values to keep himself sharp as he struggles to count. Losing any important information is a death sentence. He can't afford to have his mind wandering like Taiju does when Yuzuriha enters the scene.
"Now, I have to hold this beaker and keep the hydrofluoric acid steady. You'll keep the temperature stable. Putting too much can make it explode, so don't get distracted."
"I understand!"
"And please, for the love of Einstein, don't use too much heat!"
"I won't!"
Yuzuriha happens to walk in and Taiju's attention switches to her, his finger slipping to turn up the heat. I tried to stop him but by the time I yelled at him for it the whole thing exploded in our faces and damaged some of my equipment.
I gave him hell, heh; but it was funny, nonetheless.
Come to think of it, didn't Taiju have brown wings with darker spots decorating the middle of his secondary feathers? And he's sure that they weren't long as they were wide, better for carrying things and shooting upwards than speeding forward. Yuzuriha's wings are smaller, only able to carry a few dozen kilos over her own weight, her feathers the color of chocolate and tan feather bands.
But when it comes to wings, he knows his own wings the best, though the mental image is a hazy one even for him. Pure white, like no other wing color in the world, pine green tipping his feathers while lighter green speckles in spots over it. His wings might also bear Lichtenberg marks that never really faded but he isn't so sure. Maybe the same Lichtenberg scarring branching from his neck, down his arm, and ending at his hip? Byakuya once said that a one-of-a-kind set of wings like his are a special trait to have for potential suitors, minus the scars (which he mercifully ignored for Senkū's sake). Senkū remembers bluntly expressing disinterest to them all at some point until it took beating them in a sky race to get the point across. He was only twelve at the time, and Byakuya always beat them off with a stick if the races didn't work.
It would have been humorous if he took it seriously at the time.
He wonders what the old man was doing when he was trapped. Did he live through it or was he affected by the light like everyone else? But the older man was in space on the Soyuz, so the question would be: if the International Space Station was affected then the Station would have plummeted ages ago and destroyed anything within and around it to dust, or even melt everything inside with the heat from entering Earth's atmosphere while decimating a large portion of a city somewhere. It's happened before, and not just from stations or satellites becoming victims of the gravitational pull.
1… 2… 3… 4… 5...
Taiju—the big oaf was about to confess his feelings to Yuzuriha. A bit of sadness sparks within at the thought, about the teen being cut off before he could get that chance after waiting half a decade due to nervousness. He was 10 billion percent sure she would have accepted if that light hadn't stopped her. Who knows where they are or what's happened to them at all, but he'll find out. He always does. He just needs to get out of whatever's holding him prisoner before he can help them.
Maybe the skies will be as bright as he vaguely remembers? Colors have faded in his memory, but the memory of his first flight is still clear to him. It was when Byakuya thought it was a good day to be outside flying by the beach, that it would be fun for the both of them after being stuck indoors so long during a project that required adult supervision and a ton of research. Byakuya brought him to where the ocean connects with the sky and that's where he'd learned to fly with his help. It was so beautifully exhilarating that he never wanted to leave, forever wanting to fly freely with Byuakuya at his back, his wider slate-gray wings shadowing him from the sun as he refined his flying form to better suit him.
His anticipation to leave this damnable prison and finally fly free grows like a seed, steadily widening and taking root in his thoughts. He'll look forward to it. As a high altitude flier with a penchant for high speed racing he'll get his bearings once he breathes air and his wings join the winds. He knows he will. And once Taiju and Yuzuriha are found, they can all set off on the path to restoring what was lost with all the knowledge he's accumulated. With that, all he needs is time, diligence, determination, and a lot of fun.
It's what Byakuya would have wanted.
9… 10… 1… 2…
2,594 years. He's still thinking of Taiju, and Byakuya, and even Yuzuriha when he gets bored of another topic he's exhausted, like trigonometry. Those three stick the most in Senkū's memories out of any other face he's seen. His fellow science students are just that. Science students. Their faces have become a blank canvas long ago, their coats the same white material as his own, their hair color maybe losing what semblance of color they may have possessed. He does remember the city in all its splendorous human ingenuity, technology taking the reins of laborious productivity and improving the quality of life. The dark side of it all is the depravity of humanity, the suffering of the kind and the exploitation of the young. He isn't blind as to what lurked beyond the splendor and the lights, well aware that many of the students either fell in one category of three: the privileged, the hard-earned, and the unfortunate. The latter two categories held the largest number of the student body while the former only harbored fewer, easily identifiable by their clothing of choice, their accommodations, the way they behaved—Senkū was aware of it all and yet he kept to himself.
He is a middle class dependent with a single adopted father who often worked overseas in America, working for NASA to hopefully achieve his goal of going to space. Senkū helped him, of course, and it was due to his efforts in aiding the man he loved as a father to provide him a chance, a higher statistic to win over the board as a return gift for giving him a chance to learn more about science. And he succeeded.
That livestream he watched in class showed him Byakuya grinning like a loon, swarming to the host and stealing the mike to shout out to the world his love for his son and a promise to bring him a multitude of gifts once their mission was complete.
He would laugh if he has the capacity to do so.
Byakuya and his stupid ticks aside, he misses the old man, Taiju's overbearing positivity, and Yuzuriha's overwhelming kindness she showered onto him whenever she stopped by. Like the time she thought it helped give him strength as he battles the call of sleep in favor of counting. It's all he can do when there's nothing else to occupy his thoughts than counting.
5… 6… 7… 8…
He just needs to break out. He just needs to keep counting until the day he sees the world again. He'll gather allies, cross oceans for resources, even get to the moon if he has to, but he'll save humanity. It doesn't matter if it takes a lifetime to do it, he won't fail. That is a promise. A promise to his family once they reunite.
3… 4… 5… 6…
This hurts. It hurts so much. His brain is counting, the numbers ticking in the back of his mind. The forefront struggles to stay awake, determined to count no matter how much time has passed.
The limit for his awareness still remains to be 800,000 seconds in between, but it feels as though his mind attempts to break down when he reaches it. The counting continues, but he's calculated that every 9th to 10th day it feels as though he's losing his mind. The monotony, the numbness, the echoes of his own voice counting more blasted seconds seeks to crumble as his mind begs for release. He won't allow it. Refuses it. It would only put him in danger if he does.
Every year, his mind is trying to break down at least 40 times. It's exhausting, it's painful, stressful to a degree, but the numbers have to increase. His goal is to break out during a warm season. He targets spring, which gives him ample time to recover and look for food and materials. If he frees himself during the winter then he's screwed. If starvation won't kill him, hypothermia will, and he is well acquainted with the fact that he's much more susceptible to the cold than he wants to be even if he bunches his wings around him. Every spring he's tried to break out, screaming unintelligibly with curses intermixed, but he bides his time, counts another year, and bullies himself to get up.
Get up.. why won't you get up... get up, get up, Get Up, GET UP!
Senku keeps counting, his statue vulnerable to nature as humanity's footprint on the Earth is wiped away in the passage of time. The high school bears foundation damage and encroaching plants, trees growing between the classrooms and labs that were once frequented by lively teenage students.
Their clothes have long since eroded, and the building grows more unstable until a dam crumbles, age ripping its bones apart to flood the city, wiping out the school and washing away an innumerable amount of statues. Some are blessed to have been swept away unharmed, others meet misfortune as the building collapses, crushing those that were trapped within. Skyscrapers worldwide crumble, glass long gone and green colors the buildings. Animals thrive, water grows crystal clearer, and the air clears to reveal beautiful blue skies free of smog. Pictures turn to dust, data banks erode, books rot away. Physical memories of humanity gone.
Humanity and its precious history slowly fades as the years tick. Discoveries, medical advancements, evolving space exploration and so much more disappear, leaving behind a brand new world full of green and a hidden trove of disparity.
And in the middle of it all, somewhere in Japan lies the statue of a young scientist just waiting to free himself from his prison, hoping, wishing that things will be fine.
Like those little sparrows he saved from the tree—he'll save every last human, along with the 7 billion encased in stone.
When he hears something other than his own screaming voice for the first time in over 3,700 years, he almost has a panic attack.
It's jarring to know that after so long in silence, that cracking, chipping noise is as loud as several machine guns firing off in his ear, rattling his senses as a rush of almost unfamiliar noise assaults him from every direction. His heart beats wildly in his chest like a heated steam engine and he entertains the thought that it's doing everything in its power to break free from his ribcage.
It's dark outside, but as more of him is freed his mouth pushes open to suck in air. His lungs hurt; it feels as though the air within was sucked dry in the time he was petrified. What in the world…?
But he takes a moment to think as he relishes in breathing, listening to crickets and far off birds in the night.
Against his own volition, his body shuts down on him out of pure exhaustion and he later wakes up to a blinding morning.
The sun nearly blinds him, a bright film moving across his closed eyelids. When he blinks it almost makes his eyes water. It hurts, like he's become extremely sensitive to sunlight in similar fashion to accidentally turning the telescope to the sun. Even the wind feels like it's scraping along his eyeballs and skin the longer lies there and it's alarming to know when it wasn't an issue before.
It feels strange. Stranger than anything he's felt besides going through puberty, and those days were filled with an endless sea of questions regarding the chemical changes taking hold of his brain that thankfully didn't include a romantic interest, which is just oxytocin pumping through the brain. Watching his fellows in school act like fools around the opposite or same sex told him enough about the joys of growing up, as Byakuya once sang one night.
He's glad he's a human being rather than a rat or a rabbit.
Slowly, more feeling returns to him at the pace of a slow-eating acid, so slow it brings a shiver up his spine. The crumbling noises around him increase, splitting apart and then giving way to a rush of sensations that nearly overwhelm him. His body jumps and he hisses at the discomfort the action brings, muscles sore and rigid as he lifts his arms to brace himself against the ground to sit up.
Oh, for the love of Einstein this feels more like he's run a marathon up Mt. Fuji wearing nothing but a weighted speedo, cement blocks on his ankles and wrists, and carrying a three-hundred pound holstein calf!
Hold up. He's free. He's moving. He can hear, smell, see, and touch things again.
He's done it.
Oh, he can picture himself now, screaming he's broken out with tears in his eyes, but logically he wouldn't. It's much too boisterous of a reaction and even if he wanted to he would cringe just thinking about it.
Something slides off his chest and he blinks, looking down.
His lap is full of stone fragments, warm to the touch yet thin as glass as he picks up a piece. Examining it really doesn't have anything of importance popping up in his head but as he flips the fragment around he frowns. This is what's been keeping him imprisoned for so many years? A layer made of stone?
So many questions fester in his brain. Does it have properties similar to a sci-fi machine or gadget commonly referred to as nanites, with the effect of turning flesh to rock by entering the bloodstream? Is it aliens testing a weapon that works on a molecular level? A blood borne pathogen? A virus?
Thinking back to how it all started, Taiju was about to confess to Yuzuriha, the science students were all gossiping and placed bets against the usually boisterous teen while he bet that Yuzuriha would accept, because come on—she had eyes on him since the day he gave her a small bouquet of red, pink and white carnations. Senkū nearly spit up a lung from laughing incredulously and the girl never realized why while Taiju blushed ten shades of crimson.
But the thing that changed was the ominous shiver that violently ripped through him, his wings plastering themselves to his back in alarm. Whilst the other students began to freak out over the unusual reaction, he was staring at the green light enveloping the sky before it all went dark and his senses were ripped away from him.
That green light. That's the catalyst that started it all, and looking around tells him that civilization hasn't graced these lands for an extensively long period of time.
He turns his head around, wincing at a tug in his neck. Frowning, he reaches for his nape and furrows his brows when he feels something rough attached to his neck, practically melding with his skin. It's uncomfortable and feels unnatural, partially numb, but its surface is rough and hard.
A stone fragment still attached? He gives an experimental tug and hisses. It doesn't budge. Even trying to move it tugs at his hair and skin like gorilla glue and he isn't keen on mutilating himself if it is indeed attached to his flesh.
Senkū sighs and decides to leave it be. He'll get back to it once he has the time to idly investigate it. Gazing up at the trees swaying above him he spots birds flying overhead, their calls echoing in the wind. Around him grass dances to the whims of air, wind rushes from a far off valley, water courses somewhere to his right, and he can distinctly hear deer calling in the distance. It's strange, hearing the sounds of the wild with such nauseating clarity when he remembers the distant bustling cityscape filled with chattering people and the rumbling of cars.
In fact, it's too painful for him to hear all of this noise after such a long time in silent darkness. What should be distant chirping sounds like the sirens of a police car streaking by, the wind like a high-pitched accordion, and the grass tickling his legs feel as if a horde of tiny fingers brush against the pale skin. It's disturbing.
117,354,889,583… 117, 354,889,584… 117,354,889,585—no. There's no need to continue that line of thought, but as he moves onto his knees and slowly wrestles himself to stand for the first time, he finds himself distantly thinking of the numbers counting in the back of his mind like a demented clock that never stops.
April 1st, 5738 AD, Tuesday, 11:27 AM...
His eyes widen and quickly he looks for a sharp rock, anything to write as more stone fragments break off his body to pool around the indent that housed him for years.
He has to write it down, has to write the date! The date he was de-petrified from the rock prison trapping him in that void. Shuffling his hands around and forcing himself not to feel overwhelmed from the sensations, Senkū finds a rock sharp enough to do just that. He stumbles to the nearest tree, a cedar tree, and nearly topples back. Larger fragments break apart and scatter in the grass, lightening the weight on his wings. Shrugging, he works to carve the date that echoes in his mind into the bark, urging him to preserve those precious numbers even though he'll remember it forever in the farthest reaches of his brain.
Senkū pushes the rock deeper, gouging out wood even as his arm trembles from the effort. He can't tell if it's because he feels so weak from his awakening or his emotions are running rampant after realizing the importance of this.
Once done, he sits back and gazes at the date. It stares back at him. He sighs roughly before scrubbing his face. Looking to the side, he examines his pit where many of the fragments sit almost innocently.
"I'm out, but I'm the only one out here," are the sobering, sinking words that tumble from his lips. "I'll need to search my surroundings for anything relevant, and even mark that indent. It should give me clues."
The teen wanders around looking for palm-sized rocks to mark the spot, feeling somewhat uncomfortable walking around naked. He misses the comfortable fit of his coat but alone and with no one else walking around to see him he thinks it's fine, even if the wind makes his skin feel increasingly sensitive.
Lining them up, he gazes at it, the imprint perfectly taking after his own body's shape. He takes into account the position he was lying on, the way the fragments fell from his body. If he keeps them all for later analysis he can come to a solution, but for now he'll dig a hole and place every fragment he can find. There's bound to be answers once he has the right tools.
A rustle gets his attention and he tenses, but he relaxes when he sees a small group of monkeys hanging from a tree six meters to his left. A moment of silence grows between them as the monkeys stare at him before shrieking and running off, looking back at him like he's the boogie man.
The reaction throws him off.
"Am I… the first person these monkeys have seen before?" It's perfectly plausible, but the over-the-top reaction is 10 billion percent weird and he isn't questioning it.
Senkū spends the next hour scouting his surroundings, thankfully finding a cluster of vines to properly make himself look decent. The one thing he finds other than the nature that flourishes are the stone statues of people with moss and plants growing on them. Many of them were either oblivious or looking upwards in terror at the time the Green Light hit.
He also finds an alarming amount of them either damaged or worn down. Some of them were children.
If that's the case, he'll forgive the monkeys for reacting the way they did when they found a shiny monkey like him for the first time. He'd seen that full body shiver plain as day.
It's been 117,354,893,870 seconds since the Green Light turned everyone into stone. Civilization didn't survive. It's all gone. The people around him probably lost consciousness soon after being turned. The monumental task of keeping time could be seen as tortre and the stress of keeping himself awake left him with a migraine. It still hasn't gone but it's manageable for the time being. Logically, plenty of rest and fluids will do the trick for now.
Looking across the landscape, he grins. He'll make it through. He always does. A little setback like this won't hold him off for long.
Chuckling, Senkū heads back to where he woke up and gathers wood to start a fire regardless if monkeys gather at a distance to watch him. Mostly out of curiosity than hostility. The first attempt at making a fire ends with him feeling stupid. He frowns and continues, growling when he can't get it started. If he's going to have to rebuild civilization from the ground up he needs to start getting tools and materials. If the wood won't burst into a small flame then he'll have to give it a rest. Already sunset is upon him and he needs to find a relatively safe place to sleep. It'll have to be up in the trees.
He sighs and lets the wood be, leaving it in the clearing for later use.
The trees around him are abundantly large, sporting massive trunks and wide branches the average diameter of 3.35 meters. Long enough to house him for the night. Spotting one high in the canopy at about 10 meters, he cracks his neck, wincing at the tug of the fragment, and gets ready to unfurl his wings, eager to fly up after the exhaustion bled from his body.
He widens his stance with a grin, ready to feel the rush of air that comes from a single, powerful flap and perhaps the shocked shrieking of the nearby monkeys as he pulls them out, but he stops.
A scream releases itself from his throat, raw, powerful, and feeling like someone is ripping the delicate appendages apart from the inside, through delicate hollow bones and sensitive cartilage, and Senkū can barely breathe.
He drops to his knees as burning, blinding pain strikes his back muscles, shocking his nerves similar to a lightning strike. Shivers wrack his body, sweat drips down his face as another scream lodges itself in his throat. He tries to move his wings forward, desperately needing to see what is wrong with his wings for them to be in so much pain, but the action only forces a piercing shriek from him as he braces himself against the ground. He looks back, craning his neck as far back as it can go. He tries to open them again, only for them to stop at 13 inches and refuse to open any further.
Senkū's face slowly shifts from pained confusion to horror, ruby red eyes dark swirling with fear, the emotion rippling through his body. His breathing elevates, his heart rockets in his ribcage.
"No… No, it can't—this can't be happening. This can't, I can't, no, no, no, no, no, NO…!"
He pushes off and races through the forest for the river he spotted over the cliff, panic and horrified shock feeding his adrenaline. He crashes through the canopy, yelping when his foot snags on a root that sends him crashing to the forest floor. He hastily gets up, uncaring of the scratches and welts that accumulate in the course of his mad dash to the waters, ignoring the panicking screeching of monkeys as they follow at a distance.
He grunts when he slips and slams into a tree, tears gathering in his eyes.
"I have to be dreaming. I have to be. I'm 10 billion percent sure this is all just a psychedelic trip from a spiked drink someone must've slipped in that can back at school. Laced with amphetamines, or LSDs, or even as far-fetched as ketamine. I might be dreaming this whole scenario! It isn't real for wings to suddenly not function. It's entirely illogical and improbable! I can't lose my wings, I can't!"
He breaks through the treeline feeling faint, and drops at the riverbank to hover over the crystal clear water rushing through the wood.
His image reflects his fatigue, the pained face sweating buckets, the shaking arms barely supporting themselves. And his wings, he quickly notes that they barely move, not even a twitch, and when he attempts to purposely twitch them a shock of pain travels through his being as he doubles over and bites back the urge to throw up what little remains of the last meal he's had back in 2019.
Senkū's lip wobbles as his body sinks to the gravel, fists clenching tight. He curls over, breath hitching as the first sob rips through his throat, back heaving as more follow and crystalline tears join the river underneath.
"Please… not this… why this…?"
What has he done to deserve this? He never hurt anybody. He never hated anyone in his life. Never has he lashed out without purpose or desire to harm, only playing the neutral party with his words alone. Sure he never did have many friends to associate himself with but he was content with the way things were. He cared for his small group and he would defend them in any way he can. But...
There is no chance of survival here. He's going to die in this wild land of the Stone Age without his wings.
His chest feels it's sinking, as if a rock sits in the middle of his ribcage as his heart beats beneath.
His wings are crippled.
He cannot fly.
Chances of survival dramatically drop to a millimeter.
Senkū chokes as more sobs escape his lips, ruby red eyes losing the shine they had upon awakening. Fingers rise to fist his delicate dual-colored locks and he shuts his eyes tight wishing for this nightmare to end, for him to be back in modern day Japan waiting for the next sky race to participate in or an upcoming storm to test his skills against, where Byakuya would then attempt to convince him to apply trackers in all his clothes and shoes just for peace of mind while Taiju waits at the door like some hired bodyguard.
But here, he has none of that. His eyes show him this as he reopens them to see the same river flowing freely, the same trees that grow unimpeded, and the calls of wildlife for miles all around. He's all alone fending for himself. He has no combat skills to his name or even a weapon he's proficient in using defensively.
His image stares back at him swimming with grief. Tears stain his face, snot joining the streams, and his face twists to show the sheer loss he feels. It makes him cry harder. Makes him feel vulnerable.
Senkū whimpers as he removes his fingers from his hair to dig his fingernails in his shoulders, crying turning to wails as he hunches until his forehead kisses the gravel. A few of the monkeys nearby watch in solemn silence as the boy weeps.
Soon, his wails turn to screams. His screams echo for the world to hear as one boy is torn apart by agony and grief.
His wings are crippled.
A strange, alarming sense of numbness takes root in his mind.
His condition leaves him sitting at the riverbank in a grieving daze, his throat raw and agitated after screaming for an hour.
He doesn't stay long, getting up and heading back without so much as a whimper, finding a large tree not far from his revival spot that is more than triple the size of other trees and collapsing against the bark. Careful not to jostle his wings he sits there and thinks, possibly the most he's done even after de-petrifying.
He needs tools. Weapons. If he can fashion himself a few spears and knives his chances of surviving will increase. Not by a large margin, but enough to give him an edge.
His heart feels as though thorny vines are gripping it tightly.
Ruby eyes flick across the landscape and settle on a cropping of rocks further up the hill, past the tree and a cave he hasn't seen before. Dismissing the cave, he sighs and heads to the mound of rock to pick out a few varying in lengths between 3 to 8 inches and larger rocks to sharpen them.
Sitting down, he grimaces as he eyes the rocks. Sharpening them to a piercing point will take ages, if not days of trial and error, and he is no master crafter to flawlessly make them. He'll have to learn on his own and he hopes he doesn't chop any fingers off by accident.
Getting to work, Senkū lifts the rocks and thrusts it downward, flinching when the vibration travels to his back.
This may be 10 billion percent more annoying and problematic than he anticipated, but he has no choice.
The monkeys return and watch from the trees, hidden behind bushes. Senkū doesn't spare them a glance, refusing to entertain them. He slams the stone and cries in dismay as the bigger rock breaks apart. He stares at it and then to the rock accusingly.
I must be doing this wrong.
Perhaps grinding it would prove to be a better solution rather than smacking the damn things.
Several hours later finds himself tired, shaking, and in some level of pain, but he's done it.
Ruby eyes stare at the few sharpened rocks he gathered, one already secured to a thick club with rope made from stringed vines to form an axe, sharp and reliable enough to cut through trees. He then fashions himself a set of stone knives and a few spears in case he ends up finding trouble. A few of them have chert tips, a strong rock that won't break easily. It was hell to sharpen, too.
With the extra rope he twined together from the leftover vines, he moves to his next set of plans.
Fire.
The few days he spent in the wilderness, he felt a slight chill even within the abundance of foliage surrounding his chosen branch. A fire would scare away predators, or at the very least deter them from attacking him outright. A warning is far better than getting his throat slashed open out of nowhere, and with the inability to fly he's practically a sitting duck.
"It's almost 9PM. I need to start a fire soon." Senkū eyes the remains of the stones he broke and grins. "Well, I can most definitely use those for the pit."
Setting the pit doesn't require a lot of science, just common sense. He then sets the wood and stick inside, and begins rolling the other stick using rope. He eyes the monkeys looking at him as if he's an idiot for doing these things but it only makes him grin as smoke billows from the wood.
"You wanted a show? Let's give you something special I call…"
In a roar of flames, the wood ignites and Senkū stands, triumphant as the warmth banishes the slight chill, scaring the monkeys so much one passes out while the other two run for the canopy, shrieking and screaming.
"Fire!"
Senkū watches them run and falls on the ground, chuckling at the reaction.
"Ah. Next is lumber, but it's late. I should rest before I start going through hell and killing myself from exhaustion."
Looking up at the stars, he loses the grin and frowns.
Byakuya. Taiju. Yuzuriha… I wonder how you guys are doing. Where you are right now. If you're okay and safe somewhere. I believe you're all okay, wherever you are. I'll find you. You can be 10 billion percent sure about that.
Just… wait for me. I'll get there eventually. Then we'll rebuild what we lost.
Together.
He was right. His body is telling him to kill himself, drop dead head-over-heels and belly-up like roadkill.
Lumber he can easily chop down with a mighty swing of his stone axe, but attempting to hunt is a laughable matter at his own expense considering his stamina on land was the poorest score ever recorded in his school's history books.
But deer are elusive and slippery, and Amami rabbits are more trouble than they are worth catching. His body just can't cope with the ongoing stress of pulling timber to his campsite and then hunting for meat without his wings to lessen the burden. His legs are screaming at him for the exertion he's placed on them today.
Well, traps and snares will have to do. The few he set up a few meters into the treeline will hopefully yield a hefty meal. And luck comes his way when a plump six-point buck becomes his very first victim. He skins the deer, purges the corpse of its organs and strips it of its meat, putting it over the fire.
It's 10 billion percent the most heavenly thing he's eaten in a long while. An idea takes shape as he rips the meat from the ribs in his palms. Plans to create a hut come to fruition.
The next day, he meticulously crafts the boards the hut will need, the few neat planks he carved lean against the big tree he decides to call home. Small hands shake as they push and pull the stone across the wood, shaving off the rough bark to give way to the cambium, then to the sapwood which he peels off for later use, and lastly reaching the heartwood where he chips the wood into sections and slowly carves out the boards he needs.
The slab of rock he pushes and pulls is enough to sand it down but it's not perfect. Without proper sanding tools it won't be as smooth as modern hardwood floors but at least it's doable. Lacquer is also out of his reach for the time being, so the floor of his soon-to-be-made hut will seldom be baby-butt smooth; at least it won't be poking through him with splinters and whatnot when sleep takes him, so he's thankful for that.
Senkū spends hours carving out floorboards, all long enough to make a decent-sized floor plan that can house two and a half Taijus width-wise and the remaining half to support the walls and ceiling once he cuts down another large tree. He looks at the little diagram in the dirt and frowns, exhaustion creeping in his bones.
Sleep hasn't been aplenty since he started plans for his hut after acquiring sharpened tools, lumber, and clay, tirelessly gathering supplies and materials to build shelter. The big tree is perfect but the manual labor is taking a heavy toll on him already. It's hardly been a week. He can't keep up for much longer when his arms shake like a newborn's; and without his wings he's at the mercy of the dangers lurking in this Stone World without anyone to save him.
Growling, Senkū takes the roll of rope, two wooden boards, his axe, and the basket of mushrooms he'd gathered after cutting the tree down to the massive cedar acting as the foundation. Setting the items down, he uses the pulleys to lift the boards onto the branch and then carefully climb it to set them in place. Without nails or any sort of adhesive available to him, he only has the option of locking the boards together like jigsaw puzzles and using clay as insulation.
Senkū chuckles despite the exhaustion ravaging his body.
"This'll do. An age-old technique developed by the French without the use of nails or glue, and with support from a few extra boards the roof will be up and running. I'd only need something to cover my head and I'll be set!"
Pride over his accomplishment blooms in his chest, red eyes glowing as ideas seed themselves in his mind. Sure, if he had another person to help him he'd be done long before today, but he's the only one walking among the sea of statues and the feeling clogs his arteries something fierce.
The world sings its song as sunset looms over the world. Senkū's determination speeds him through installing the roof and rejoices when it's finally done, and though he could've waited until morning to finish it he finds himself feeling antsy, wary of his surroundings. The idea of leaving the leftover construction a moment longer would delay the process by a day and Senkū isn't keen on waiting. Not even a thunderstorm forced him to wait and that never stopped him from flying in one either.
However, getting the walls and supports of his lab done would take a few more days. four, if he's diligent and quick enough. With his pulleys it'll be quicker, acting as a makeshift crane to hold up the boards without hurting himself.
Sighing, he looks down at his hands. They're callused, dry, shaking violently, almost losing their grip on his axe. He sets the tool down and lies back on the porch of his hut, taking a deep breath as his wings touch the wood. Growling, he curls on his side and props his head to look at the stars slowly emerging from the swallowing darkness around them, their gloss swimming in the sky like a sea of glitter. His legs swing over the edge at a slow rhythm.
Tension bleeds out as his eyes soften, tracing the familiar constellations blinking into existence as the final vestiges of sunlight die out, bathing his world black. Quickly setting up a torch, he hides beneath it, wary of the muted dark around him. Inside, he has a sleeping bag made from the hide of another deer he caught the night before, waiting for him to use it. For now he gazes at the sky before he settles in for a possible restless night, careful not to put pressure on his wings as he curls.
He might not even need the hide bag for tonight. There is no faint chill in the air and the warmth of the sun still warms the boards.
He tries to sleep, to let his breathing even out, hoping he'll enter REM sleep before dawn and that no nightmares grace his slumber with knives and fangs and blood smattering the walls as something eats away at his chest—
His wings shiver. Senkū's eyes snap open in alarm.
A howl echoes from deep within the forest and Senkū sits ramrod straight, dread forming in the pit of his stomach as grass rustles beneath his hut, ferocious growling gathering by the dozens. Tense, Senkū gulps and slowly moves to crawl to the safety of his hut, but he tentatively looks over the edge to see what's going on and immediately regrets it.
A growling of a hungry pack of giant wolves surround his hut, glowing yellow eyes spotting him with a flicker of hunger.
Senkū pales and his hands shake.
Timber wolves. But those are native to America, Asia, and most of northern Europe. How can there be wolves in Japan when the Japanese species died out long before petrification?
Could these timber wolves have adapted to the area long ago and somehow grew twice their original size in just a few thousand years without culling by human hands? He thinks as to where they might have come from and the only logical conclusion would be that some might have escaped from a zoo that wasn't closed properly. If that's the case, it's understandable that they continued to live here, thriving as they are now.
He has no chance against a pack. They would pick off the flesh from his bones with just a snap of their jaws and he'll drown in a sea of his own blood.
No! Stop thinking that. If you think about it, it only gets worse. The nightmares will 10 billion percent come back and there would not be a millimeter of sleep to be had.
Yet, the rustling continues. Their impatience grows as they try to claw their way up the tree. It's too steep for them to climb and their weight does them no favors, but Senkū can't relax, masking his breathing enough that the animals hopefully won't hear. His heart beats against his ribs and the instinct to fly away from the predators rouses his wings, the fear making them move. He hisses from the pain it brings and pales when the rustling stops, the clearing growing quiet before jaws snap at the edge of the floor boards with a resounding snap. Too close to where his left foot is.
Senkū reels back with a cry and shuffles away from the edge to crawl away from the porch, watching with trepidation as more jaws snap at the edge and catch on the wood, splintering the boards as their sharp teeth catch. Their eyes flash in the low light of the torch.
Spotting his sleeping bag, Senkū dives into it and curls in a tight ball, hoping the wolves will leave after such fruitless efforts in killing him. He grabs at his stone knife and holds it, bearing it towards the opening of the bag.
Tears gather in his eyes. He fights the urge to clasp his hands to his ears to drown out the growling.
Please, for the love of Einstein go away.
Dawn greets his eyes once he snaps himself from a sleepless trance. He looks around warily, narrowing his eyes at the treeline around his hut for any sign of the wolves that tried to get to him the night before. He only sees the tracks they left behind, the grass disturbed around the base of the trunk. He swallows down bile as he recalls how close those jaws were to the edge of the boards, how powerful those snapping jaws sounded as they jumped at him. If they can't climb up the tree he's safe enough, but he'll also have to be wary of the lions, too.
Sighing tiredly, he laments the loss of yet another sleepless night, aches and sores making way for another harrowing day full of building plans. It doesn't rouse the same excitability he possessed earlier upon revival and he sincerely doubts it would return unless he's had proper rest and time to process his close brush with death. There's also the urgent need to make more weapons to defend himself, noodle-armed as he is. A stone axe, knife and spears by themselves aren't sufficient as a weapon if he can't use them well enough.
So, he adds the finishing touches to the hut, using rope to make a curtain to cover the doorway, creating baskets to gather edible fungi and plants, and curing the pelt he skinned from the deer to cut the leather into pieces, using the rope to essentially sew the parts together. Soon, he's the proud owner of a high-collared leather garb with a leather belt holding a few pouches and bags. He has enough to produce arm bandages and shoes. Though, looking at the final product one would assume the garb looks more like a shaggy dress and the shoes like infantile shoe-wear, or "booties" as Yuzuriha once told him.
The world around him spins a bit and he wipes the sweat from his forehead. Oh, how he wishes another person could help with the manual labor. He has been pushing himself almost nonstop to finish the hut, mostly out of fear and determination. He can feel his muscles locking up and his balance teetering.
"Shit, without giving myself time to rest my body can't keep up. I can't ignore it anymore."
He props himself against a tree and rubs his eyes with the heel of his palms. He doesn't want to take any more time off from getting important things done, but with it being the end of the first week in April, he feels he isn't making enough progress.
Closing his eyes and breathing in, he fights against the temptation for rest, calling for him like a sinful mistress. He sighs.
"Maybe later. Still need a bit more lumber, need more food. I should check the traps again before it gets too dark." He looks up and groans. "And it might rain soon."
Well, no time like the present. He's almost done; then he can look for Taiju's and Yuzuriha's statues if they're nearby.
It's peaceful when he starts making his way over to his hut, cracking his neck and frowning at the fragment on it. He wonders if it has to stay on or it'll crumble on its own in the future. He shrugs. Letting it be isn't doing any harm, other than give him a crick in his neck.
He whistles softly as he gathers his tools to put away for later when he notices something off. A shiver runs through his wings, as painful as it is. His whistling tapers off as he strains his ears, body tensing.
It's far too quiet. The crickets that usually chirp come evening are absent, the birds have stopped their calls, and the wind ceases. It's unnervingly still and he has an inkling as to why when he spots something slinking through the brush just as lightning flickers and the boom of thunder roars in the heavens.
In that split second, a face emerges from the foliage. Savage, ferocious, hungry-eyed with tawny fur merging with a regal mane of dark-brown, yellow eyes glowing and pinned on him.
The rain hits him next, soaking his clothes and hair with cold water, and the next flash of lightning reveals the creature coming closer, a rumbling growl sending shivers up his spine.
A lone male lion has its sights on him and he's the king's next banquet.
Panic sweeps through his body and he drops his tools with a gasp. He takes off running for the hut as fast as his poor body can go, yelping when his wings shift on reflex to fly. The lion picks up on his pain and pushes off for a dash, unhindered as the soft earth beneath its paws turn to mud.
A loud yowl rumbles from the forest and Senkū looks back to see the enormous lion closing in, the ground quaking from the force of its weight. His eyes open wide in fear and he pushes himself harder, aiming for the rack of spears leaning against the tree.
Just as he is in reach of one his foot slips on the mud. He gasps and falls, grappling for purchase to keep running and reaches out again.
A shadow slowly looms above him, engulfing his form and drowning out the barely visible light from above. Just as he reaches for a spear a heavy weight crushes his lower half and teeth bury themselves deep into his right leg. Senkū screams, blindly reaching for the spear as the lion lets go of his leg to roar in his face.
Senkū meets the animal's eyes and all he sees is his terrified face and the swirl of hunger melting with yellow, one last flash of lightning revealing the king of animals to be his last witness.
The lion bares its fangs and Senkū blacks out, noise drowning out and numbness setting in his bones.
I feel warm… but it's dark again.