Author's Note: Shh, no one come at me. It's late, and I've been bouncing back and forth between all of these stories. I couldn't help myself. I had to get this out there. I don't know if anyone but me is going to find it interesting, but I can't wait. I'm sorry about all the mistakes, I'll take care of any of them whenever I get the chance or when I go through an inevitable rewrite in the future - hopefully far from now. This first chapter is definitely going to be confusing so sorry that it won't make much sense. I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
Warnings: Unreliable narrator, minor depictions of ripped skin.
He knows her. She is familiar when everything else is not. Her existence is imbued into every fiber of his being. His knowledge of her is intrinsic. Like a part of her is woven into every strand, every fiber of every part of him. His essence laced with her life. Every breath he breathes, she does too. Like they are connected on a level beyond understanding. In his blood. His bones. In the space between his cells. She was there. He knew that. Even before he knew what she was, where she was. He knew that she was a part of him beyond the seeing eye.
Sensation is her gift. His memory is her own. Every part of him is her. As she is all of him. He has always known her. He knows there was a before the himself of now, but it has never been without her. Even before he was him, there was still her. She transcended the two 'hims'. She exists with both, and the space of time in which neither existed. Always there. Always.
Her voice has always been his own. When he speaks, he hears her. When he listens, so too does she. They are interconnected on a level beyond understanding. At least his own. He knows that no one before knew what to do when he spoke of her. To them, the 'her' that lived inside of him was sickness in his brain. Were voices no one but he heard. A hand that touched only him. To them, she was nothing.
To him, she was everything.
She has always been there by his side, so he knew he would never be alone. Even when no one stood beside him.
But everything he is, every part of him, was from and for her. All that he is, was, and will be is all connected to her. She is as much part of him as he is of her. But unlike her, who has always been, she made him. Without her, he would never be.
He has always known her. Always heard her even when there was never an audible sound. Has known that she was always there, when nothing actually touched him. And he could hear her voice, soundless and unexplainable, but knew that she was speaking. Watching. Guiding. Protecting. Loving.
He knew, without a doubt, even when he knew nothing at all, he knew that she was his mother.
And his mother loved him very much.
Even with him knowing that he always knew this, his memory begins with water. He knows, instinctually, that there was a before him now, but he doesn't know that person. His memory starts as a haze. Blurred images behind a film of motion. A slight green hued amorphous shape that wrapped around him, holding him in an uncomfortable chill. He misses the warmth she placed inside of him, wrapped him up in. He doesn't like this. He doesn't want this.
His first breath brings pain. A shock of agony straight to his chest. A sensation passes over him. It takes a moment, but the word comes to him. Panic. Terror. Fear.
He struggles, something hurts his stomach. His hands beat against something icy and smooth. His fingers move along its surface, trying to find something to use, to free himself from this pain in his throat and chest as the green amorphous thing around him pushes in on all sides, filling the empty space between himself and the smooth surface. Filling up his throat and mouth and lungs.
A burning sensation in his chest. His hands - as they beat against the smooth surface. As he struggles to be released from this dragging amorphousness. Water, his brain tells him. He's trapped in water.
He hits, hard, against the smooth surface and reality cracks. A latticework of spirals working away from where his fist hit. He sees images beyond, moving closer to him, getting more defined, but he can't worry about that. He can't focus on that when he can't breathe. When things that shouldn't be inside of him are. He pulls his hand back and hits the break in reality and it spreads.
His vision blurs, the edges darkening as panic settles in. His chest hurts. He needs to breathe but he can't. He has to get out. He has to get out. He has to get out.
Another hit, this one fuel with adrenaline and panic so strong he momentarily forgets himself, trying for another breath that doesn't come. His body convulsing hard enough to hurt, as he hits the crack once more and it's enough. The liquid - the water - that surrounds him hisses. The figures in the amorphousness move away. Muffled noises of alarm as the water breaks through the smooth surface and blast away from him - and then pulls him along.
He hits the ground hard on his shoulder and hip, pain shooting through him. There is a tug on his stomach, sharp, white hot, brutal. A ripping sound as he skids across a frictionless surface.
His back hits something and it falls over him, and a moment later he slams into something else, something that doesn't give. Something hard and cold. A sharp edge cuts into his back, making him flinch in combination with everything else that hurts him. The breath that he barely managed to suck in is forced out harshly. He coughs and spits and cries. Sensation is too much. Is too strong. He knows little beyond pain. He doesn't like this. He doesn't want to be here. He doesn't want to feel this.
Mother. Mother. He wants Mother.
The air that desperately fights his throat with the liquid, both going in opposite directions, hurts. He curls up, body shaking and heaving, trying to stop feeling this bad. Everything hurts. His body - pain in his chest and radiating from his shoulder and hip. His head - a pounding headache. His ears - everything is too loud, too much. His eyes - bright, glaring, stabbing lights into the back of his head.
And no matter how deep a breath he tries to take, it's not enough. It doesn't feel right. It doesn't taste right. It isn't filling his lungs like he knows that it should. Like he's only filling his lungs part of the way, no matter how deep of a breath he tries to take.
There is chaos around him, loud noises that sound like screeches and screams.
Blinking rapidly, he looks around to see many strange beasts circling him. Their faces all twisted and strange. He looks around through long wet strands of inky black hair framing his face, gasping as he pushes up from his side at their feet. The smooth ground is slick with the water that pulled him down. Sharp, clear shards of broken reality in his hands and side. He looks around, gasping for air that never feels like it's enough, like it is filling up less and less of his lungs with every additional breath that he takes.
Mother? Where is she?
Some of the strange beasts are helping others off the ground, placing hands on spots of red on their bodies and moving them away carefully. Most of the beasts are staring at him, all with orbs of different shades of brown, green and blue.
Eyes, his brain tells him. They're eyes.
Leaning up onto his left hip he reaches up, touching his chest, still gasping for air, before his hand gets caught on something. He looks down to see a strange tube connected to his stomach. It's torn and bloody a part of the way down. He reaches down and touches it, but feels no pain. He touches the spot connected to his body and there is a tenderness, like he had harshly pulled on it when he fell. His eyes, blearily, follow the skin connected to his stomach into a strange tube, huge, bigger than the beasts around it, towards one side. There is a part where flesh meets shining gray.
He doesn't understand what he's seeing. But it's scary. It's all scary. He doesn't want to be here. If he wants to leave, his brain tells him, he has to break the shackle holding him here. He grabs the fleshy thing attached to his stomach and tears the broken part until it severs, a horrible ripping sound that makes the beast squirm and scream, backing away in horror as a bit of blood trickles out of the tube on his stomach - now extended about three or so inches from his body. He presses it tightly to him, skin around the edge already sensitive before pushing to his feet.
The crowded beasts back away, giving him a wider berth as he spins around wildly, trying to find some semblance of escape. He hits his head off of the top of the space that they're in, making his teeth clatter together. His already throbbing head hurts even more at the impact. He can't stay here. He has to leave. He has to!
In a panic, he runs. He knocks over objects and people. He runs into walls and has to duck to get through divides in spaces. Doors, his brain says. The creatures hop out of the way, pressing into the walls or scream in terror and run from him, ducking around into other passageways. There is so much noise, loud and screeching, it hurts his ears, and there are bright flashing lights that stab him in the eyes every time he sees one.
He races through the passageways, slamming into everything in front of him. Tripping and falling over and over again, scraping his hands, knees, hips, and arms. A particularly hard hit to one of his ribs leaves him even more winded than he was before. He can't breathe, everything hurts. He's trapped. He can't get out. He needs help. He needs help.
Mother! Mother! Mother!
And in his blind, frantic race through the passageways, something pulls his attention after what feels like a lifetime of running, but probably wasnt anything more than a couple of minutes. At the end of a hall, beasts ducking away when he gets too close, is a door with natural light pouring through a hole near the top of it. A red light flashing above it. His eyes almost glaze past it, still panicking over the fact that he can barely breathe, and everything hurts all over his body, but then a sensation pulls at his mind, and he knows, instinctively, that is the path to freedom.
Choking and panicking, he races for the door, slamming into it hard enough for pain to radiate through his shoulder, hands and head. No matter how hard he pushes, nothing moves, it's solid. A higher pitched voice starts screaming louder than all the others, and then it's mass panic as the beasts retreat as fast as possible from him, sealing themselves behind doors that he passed to get here. Wheezing, lungs aching, head getting lighter, he grapples with everything hanging onto the door, unable to fully stand upright in these pathways.
He drops down to his knees, clutching at his throat, wheezing and coughing. He lowers more and more to the ground, the side of his forehead pressing against the door. One hand on the tube on his belly and the other at his chest, his vision darkens, eyes rolling up into his head, the pain in his chest is unbearable. The other hand is pressing against the door.
Mother! Mother! Mother! Please! Please, help.
His vision goes black for what feels like just a moment before something presses against his mouth and nose and he sucks in a weak breath, feeling a touch of relief before breathing in deeper and deeper and deeper. His eyes flicker open again for a bleary moment to see a beast with a curly red mane of hair, leaning over him carefully, holding something to his face. There is a strange shiny thing in front of its face, but those eyes are wide in horror, fascination and curiosity.
He blinks a few times, mind finally clearing up as he stares at it, bewildered. Its brown eyes widening.
Mother. Mother saved him.
He jerks up, grabbing onto the door, panicking still, he is pushing on it as the beast beside him moves back and out of the way, holding some sort of box in its hand that connected to the thing that it put against his mouth. After pounding away at the door, it finally opens, blaring sounds nearly split his head in two, but he doesn't care. He feels heat rush in at him, and this dull feeling at the edge of his senses, strengthens and he feels...
Mother.
He falls down a set of stairs, battering his hurt body more. But he feels something coarse and then something grainy pushes against his skin as he crumbles to the dirt. He slowly sits up onto his hip again, ignoring the radiating pain of his body and head, looking around to see...
His mother.
And she is so beautiful.
He runs his fingers across the dirt and grass, looking around the open field. He can see the forest beyond rows of dirt and different plants. He feels her warmth wrap around him. She can feel the gentle touch of her finger-like breeze across his skin. His breathing now so much easier, and despite his pain, despite the discomfort of the grass poking into his bare thighs, he is happy. She's here. He knows that she is. Somewhere close, reaching out for him. But he can't hear her here. The noise behind him is so loud. He hears a loud slam from the door he went through.
He glances over his shoulder to see the beast with the red mane standing there, still staring with wide eyes. He stares at it for a long moment before struggling to his feet and racing toward the forest as fast as his hurting body can. He hears the beast call out to him, but its yowling doesn't register to him. All he knows is that he has to get away. He has to get to Mother. She will keep him safe. She's here, he knows it. Even when she was always by his side, always woven into his every fiber. He has never felt this close before.
Now, instead of her feeling just inside of him. Now she feels all around him, wrapping around him like a blanket.
He hears more sounds, things drawing closer, but he doesn't stop. He keeps running as fast as he can, ignoring all of his pain and the fear gripping his heart at all of these things that he knows that he should know, but doesn't have any words for. Everything is so jumbled. Everything is so confusing. But he's here. He's home. He doesn't stop running until he's beyond the boundaries of the plain and the strange structures he saw with a quick peak behind himself as he ran, and as far away as his legs can take him, in search of his mother.
Despite his pain and exhaustion, he finds her before dark, having run since the sun was high in the sky. She radiated a beautiful purple glow, all her tendrils extending from her branches dangle close to the forest floor. He makes his way to her trunk. His bleeding from cuts and scrapes all over his body and everything still hurts. But he doesn't care, his heart is filled with joy as he curls up into a little ball right in front of her trunk, protected by her bright light.
He wraps his tail around his thigh, resting one of his cut-up arms beneath his head as he stares up at his mother. Finally, he can feel himself start to relax. Thankfully nothing chased him around in the forest. He ran on his own, following his feelings and thankfully Mother kept everything else away from him so that he could make it to her. He only stopped a few times to catch his breath and to pull shards of reality from his body. Things that poked and pulled at his skin that he could remove to feel alleviate at least some of the pain. There wasn't anything he could do about sticks and twigs and rocks digging into his feet or catching his split skin as he ran.
But none of that mattered. All of it could be forgotten about easily because he did it. He found her!
Finally. After so long.
Tears well up in his eyes as he starts to cry, curling up into as small of a ball as possible while still looking up at his beautiful mother. He was so scared. He was terrified when she wouldn't answer him. When she didn't show herself. But she's here now, wrapped around him. He's safe, he knows. With her, he knows that he's going to be alright. He doesn't have to worry.
But still he cries, because he was scared. Because everything hurts. And he missed her so much.
She feels so much stronger, so much louder than before. Her existence wrapping around him like a blanket. The fear ebbs away bit by bit, making him more aware of the pain in his head and body, but he can ignore it so long as she's there to help him. There to make him feel better.
He's exhausted. Everything hurts and even crying has drained what miniscule bits of strength that he had left from him. So, he curls into as small of a ball as possible and closes his tired, wet eyes. He relishes in the safety and serenity of his mother's protection. Despite the beasts roaming the forest, hollering and fighting in the darkness beyond, nothing breaks into the path of light coming from his mother, as if she's simply telling them all to stay away.
He's so thankful that she's there. Always looking out for him. Always protecting him. His sweet, gentle mother.
He, thankfully, slips into a dreamless sleep, granted that last bit of peace. So many things that he doesn't understand happened to him. Were around him. But he doesn't want to think about that. He just wants to sleep. He wants this pain to go away and enjoy finally being home.
The forest goes silent about an hour or two after the son fell asleep. Prey and predator alike hurry to their burrows, their caves, or as far away as their legs or wings can carry them. Stalking through the forest, having traveled for miles, the beast makes its way toward the bright, glowing tree, unbothered by the silence left in its wake. Her other children aren't used to the beast wandering the forest again. It has been... a long time.
The beast makes its way through the path leading to the foot of the tree, stopping at the sight before it.
There he lay. The knobs of his spine poking out as he curls into a ball away from the beast. He's wound up as small as his body can fold. There are cuts and scrapes everywhere that the beast can see, punishment for waking up too soon. But his mother never intended for that. So, she sooths his pain, glowing brightly. The beat lumbers closer, unhurried, looking down at the son. His tired, sleeping face unflinching as the beast draws near. That will have to change. The beast will teach him.
But for now... for now, he is tired. So, the beast will let him rest. The beast glances over the wounds it could see, not smelling anything alarming aside from the copper of blood. No sickness, no disease. All things that will heal with time and rest.
The beast slowly circles the boy, feeling the mother laughing at it for its interest. She reminds him just how long it's been since it has had any cubs of its own. There is a small part of it that missed those days. Despite how long it has been, it misses its cubs, even though all of them are dead and gone, having returned to their mother a long time ago. It chuffs at the caress of the wind, pulling lightly at its neuro-whips and spines sticking out of its face fan, shaking its massive head before settling down behind the son, lowering its head onto the dip of his ribs, waist and hips. Almost perfect fit for its massive face.
It curls closer, offering warmth to the wounded, naked creature beneath it, offering a bit of happiness as the forest sings to life once more. She is happy, the beast knows without the forest singing with joy, a bright, massive explosion of sound that doesn't shake the son for even a moment, too lost in a deep dreamless sleep. And why should she not be? She's waited so long for this moment.
The moment her son came home.