(Reala's mate left intentionally unidentified. Fill in with your favorite Reala OTP. ;3
Read and review, please.)
Peace pressed upon Reala's house. Cold stars lit the still night. The General and his slept within, she snuggled up to he. With a slight sigh, he rolled onto his side, out of her arms, towards the edge of the bed; she whimpered slightly as she pulled her empty arms toward her. As Reala adjusted himself, getting comfy, reality ripped open beneath him; suddenly, he found himself torn from unconsciousness, falling, and something—the lethal knowledge rushed to him the moment he awoke: a syringe that Dot had filled to the brim with venom from an Inland Taipan—impaling the tender flesh of his inner elbow and emptying its contents into his veins. Shit, shit, shit! As the plothole spat them onto the dirt floor of Dot's secret underground room, he slapped the syringe from his arm, but it was too late: When the glass shattered, not so much as a drop of liquid splashed onto the ground.
Reala roared, and Dot flinched back, but not fast enough: His claws raked her face, and oh, how the red blood poured. Shrieking, her expression twisted with pain as she fell back—straight into another plothole, one to take her safely away. Reala growled fiercely; he would have her dead, oh yes, but she was not his greatest concern right now. Every second he wasted brought him closer and closer to death; he needed to move fast. It was only a matter of time before he started to feel the poison's effects.
At top speed, he tore up the stairs towards the door that led to the overworld—a maren lock prevented him from warping—and slammed into the heavy iron from which the door was crafted, yet as he crashed into the metal, the sound of impact rang much louder than it should have. His eyes widened, and his heart skipped a beat. For a flickering moment, he felt true fear. A door like this would have been tough for him to smash through in Nightmare, but here, in the human world, with his power weakened as it was? He thought himself only just capable. But not with a weight. Not with the enormous boulder that now rested upon the door.
"No!" he cried, not yet giving up, and smashed into the door again. And again. And again. With all his might, he threw his body against that door until he could feel a bruise blossoming across his upper arm and half his torso ached, but his need to escape far overshadowed such small pains. He charged the door again—but a spasm in his right arm, temporarily cutting off his flight magic, sent him careening not into the door, but the floor. He was panting now and, groaning as he pulled himself up, examined his arm. Up to his elbow he was fine, but beyond... His forearm and hand trembled, the muscles painfully contracted into a sort of paralysis; only spasmodically would his fingers obey him. "Dammit..." he muttered, struggling to turn his hand into a fist, then shouted, louder, "DAMMIT!" and slammed his working fist into the stone steps beside him. He could feel it now, truly feel it, through all the pain that was slowly spreading throughout his body: It reached from every shadow, circling him, drawing ever closer, his greatest ally and most despised tormentor... Death reached for his heart.
Halfheartedly now, his shoulder hit the door. The painful paralysis had spread to his right leg; he could no longer stand without support. He had lost control of his entire right arm; though he constantly sent it demands, its responses were becoming ever less frequent. He thought of his mate, still fast asleep—of course she still slept; he had to remind himself that only a handful of minutes had passed since he left her. She lay sprawled across the bed, curled over the place where he should have been. He thought of his Master, who was doing what little he could from Nightmare to salvage the lost General. Reala tried to move, tried to gauge how long he had left: Not long. The painful muscle contractions and paralysis they caused were spreading ever faster; he remained in control of precious few places, and even those were rapidly shrinking. He noticed a pain in his gut, like a searing knife: The poison was beginning to take his internal organs. Perhaps he wouldn't lose his entire body before he died after all, but such nonchalant thoughts were quickly drowned out by the sudden irregularity in his breathing. He gasped and choked; the poison had hit his lungs, and some small part of him, separate from the rest, began to panic. His body screamed for air, but the poison withheld it. Dying is painful, he realized, and thought longingly of his mate one last time before everything faded to black.