Meteor

The falling of the meteor would have been considered a remarkable astrological occurrence if anyone had been about to witness it. As it was, the empty vastness where it fell had no witnesses to speak of, had nothing at all in fact. If there had been birds, its impact would have silenced their dawn chorus. But there are no birds. There is nothing but the charred earth and blackened choking crater.

And inside the crater, a creature stirs.

For the longest time, the pitted hole is its world. It knows of nothing outside of it, and cannot even comprehend that something beyond it can exist. It's legs twitch with surprise that they have freedom to move. The small, dark crater is its universe and its overwhelmed by how large and bright it is.

The ground hears the creature. A soft, shifting whisper made by loose earth under clenching fingers. A creaking smother of earth compressed under a trembling body. The ground hears hesitant movements, uncoordinated limbs dragging themselves in the dust; a dull thud of heavy feet, stumbling to support dead weight.

The wind touches the creature. Caressing itself over ragged skin thats rough and tender to the point where no touch can be comforting. It feels sweat and tremors. It feels an unsteady pulse tapping through paper flesh. The skin itself is sick, pours clogged with a substance worse than dirt. The wind looses itself in hair, course and ordinary.

The sky sees the creature. It sees something once great now fallen, a pitiful thing that cannot support the weight of its own burden. Around its hollow shell it wears clothing it used to know, black trousers and a white shirt; the rest of it is gone, lost to some inferno it refuses to acknowledge. The sky sees red rivers oozing through light cotton.

The world tastes the creature. It tastes of salt and blood and ash and rust. It tastes vile and the world wants nothing more than to spit it out.

In the nothingness the creature shudders, and begins to walk.

Behind him he leaves footprints branded into the warped sand, and there's something dully satisfying about leaving things in his wake. Little imprints that prove he exists. Even if he doesn't anymore. He's not sure, electricity and fire flare to aggressively in his mind to think about those sort of things. The world and everything in it are observing him, something that feels natural. He is supposed to be observed.

It's almost seven hours later that he finds the sharp metallic hulk of a transmissions tower. He stops underneath its shadow and for the first time lifts his face to the sky. The wires above him tingle with sharp force as electricity jolts through them. It makes him flinch but he doesn't remember why. The tower, belonging to humanity, looks down at him and understands the things nature can not.

It understands a face thats split in two; one half is human, the other half a mess. The flesh is thin and swollen, blue and purple bleeding to yellow and green. Colours that strike boldly up his cheekbone and pool around his eye-socket. It understands the irregular, wheezing pants of lungs that struggle to work. It understands the grated skin of battered hands, fingers that are thick with misuse dripping sluggish, red drops onto the hungry earth. It understands the creature below it as a broken thing.

The ground hears, the wind feels, the sky sees, the world tastes. The tower understands as it shatters the surroundings with its ugly humanity.

Castiel remembers he is Castiel.

It takes to long to find something that makes him stop walking. When he first stumbles upon a road he blinks with lack of understanding, but he begins to follow its empty tracks, even though he misses his footprints. Theres emptiness around him and for a blissful moment he's happy to think of nothing and be content with just a name. Eventually, however, his burdens begin to catch him up. Walking along the road from starting-point nothingness into destination nowhere, Castiel stumbles and falls. Something is burning, his back is ribbons of flesh.

He notices he doesn't have shoes.

Sharp and insistent, a pain reverberates through him. It builds from somewhere deep inside, causing his stomach to clench and piston acid up his throat. But its also inside his skin, and inside his skull where it crackles and fissures like a furious spark. His face throbs, his arms quake, his back and throat are raw and burned. Theres blood on his hands and it wont go away.

The only movement he's seen are two vehicles that sped past him. Whatever souls they harboured within their hard shells, he wasn't privy to. Perhaps they didn't have any, were just hollow empty beasts. What they were or not, they ripped through his life without a second thought. Castiel certainly doesn't own a second thought; when he's lucid enough to think, he knows he barely has a first.

He feels like something very important is missing.

There should be voices. Why are there no voices? They spoke garbled sounds and made his head burn, but they were the only consistency in a horrific blankness. The absence of their noise makes him sick, so much so that, mindless and bewildered, he collapses and retches up painful bile. But he can't hear that either. He can't hear anything. A noiseless world is resting thick and heavy on his shoulders.

Panic snakes its way down his throat, forcing ice through his veins. Unbearable pain assaults his senses. He can smell rancid blood and pus and ooze. Grated by the rough asphalt, his fingers try to cling onto the world he's quickly slipping from. He should keep moving, but his body and mind wont obey, so Castiel retches again and is suffocated into unconsciousness by the silence.

When he finally wakes he knows its to a silent world. When he finally stands, he does so in silence. Treading blindly on his path once more, he thinks hard about how he is named Castiel - because anything is better than the unquenchable silence.

It's dark when Castiel finds a town. It's a fact he decides to note even though it means little to him, its been dark and light several times since he found his name and lost his senses. A sign proudly states Cowley and Wyoming along with other nonsensical words. Castiel is relieved he can't read them all, and trudges steadily onwards. The ground creeps downwards and the world changes from velvet blackness to harsh colour as artificial lights glare painfully in his sun-burnt eyes. Everything here is hard and fast; movement and light and energy throw him off balance, he'd got used to the blurry monotonous world of before.

He instinctively stays away from people. Perhaps they might help him, he doesn't know if he's allowed help. The first sight of them had sent him shivering into a corner. Their movement and their faces and their thoughts and their intent were almost as overwhelming as the silence. They reminded him of angels. They made him remember fear.

But eventually he finds he can ignore them if he forgets to remember they exist. A creaking ripple of pain flares along his ruined back, up his spine and sinks into his skull. The world pitches again, its almost common occurrence now. He's nearly dead on his feet, but through his silent delirium he somehow manages to find three things:

First he finds water: a feat which is neither difficult or requiring thinking, which Castiel assumes is why he manages it in the first place. There is a dented metallic object tipped over on its side, its wheels waggle pathetically in the air like an overturned pig. But its gray shiny skin has collected a puddle of water that glimmers. Upon approach Castiel can see the flaring artificial lights softening in its oily surface.

Somewhere along the way he also finds a coat. It's not long or tan or a trench coat, but its dark and will hide the blood he knows shouldn't be there. The material is course and stiff and silent, it moves unwillingly over his arms and drags defiantly over his back. Its passage creates waves of heat. It must be heat, because pain can't possibly be this unbearable. Castiel feels himself gasp and cannot stop his body from shaking.

He notices again that he doesn't have shoes.

The final thing he finds is a coin. The coin is the most important, more important than anything even if he can't remember its use. He stares at it for an age before the silence makes him throw up the water he so greedily choked down. People stare, Castiel doesn't need awareness to know that they are. He doesn't want attention, bad things will happen. So he stumbles away from the scene and, reeling with each moment, half collapses against a wall. He reminds himself again that he is Castiel and watches blankly as the cars drift past. Their headlights blur together leaving snakes of light hanging in the air. He feels their rumble and tastes their fumes but he can't hear them. And still there are no voices.

There is the ever familiar disjointed sense of being. Its the thing that makes Castiel unsure he exists, even though he does. But then sometimes he doesn't. He looks down at the blood on his hands, now fresh and wet from the water and his fall. He stares at it hard. Harder than the coin. He stares until he sees nothing but the blood, until the strange spots in his vision threaten of overwhelm him, but he can't make the blood disappear. He can't heal his wounds.

But he knows he used to be able to.

So now he knows that ability has been ripped away from him.

Just like the voices.

I like to call this chapter an exploration into writing senses.
Poor Cas... don't worry, he's coming back slowly but surely.

Thanks for the reviews guys, warms the cockles of my heart!