Oswald's Spark – Chapter 8: Different, Somehow

Oswald was descending down a tube. He felt calm. He was asleep, but that didn't mean he wasn't calm. Floating down, he got stuck onto the side of the tube for a second, trapped in some black thing, but he struggled in his sleep, and got free. He floated down, and continued floating.

He was enjoying this feeling. He felt free, for the first time since Ortensia… Oswald shook his head gently in his sleep. He didn't want to feel that pain again. Not now.

Slowly, he opened one of his eyes, and saw the twinkling of lights. He closed it, then opened both his eyes in terror. He looked around. He was floating, and there were small and large white dots surrounding him. He wasn't on Earth.

"I'm in space."

The rabbit couldn't even hear himself, yet he could breathe in space. He was panicking, trying desperately to move, which he could with ease, but he didn't notice. He needed to get back down to Earth. He couldn't see it anywhere. Why was this happening to him?

He started scurrying, moving his limbs in full circles, until eventually, he gained some momentum. And then some more. And then even more. And then a ridiculous amount more, at which point, Oswald realised he was on fire.

Literally.

Hurtling amongst the stars in the ink-dark sky, he was a comet, with no clear aim, screaming. However, he spotted the Earth just on his right!

He tried turning, but a field of fire was in his way, so he tried again until he just about managed to nudge himself in the right direction. He tried relaxing, but he was burning, and his hands ached. He closed his eyed and prepared for a rough landing.

And then…

Everything went dark.

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Oswald stirred. He tried to feel the ground, and realised he couldn't even feel his body. His head turned around and he spotted it buried under some dirt, surrounded by grass. Using his ears to walk, the head reattached itself, and the rabbit got out.

He was on a planet, but not the one he'd expected it to be. Covered in green grass and shaped like tracks, with even a loop-de-loop, the bunny was very confused.

He was able to remember everything that had happened to him. Everything before that was clear too. His mindset was functioning as well. But he was unsure about what was going on.

So he just sat down, and stared at the small tulips in front of him. He took a deep breath, and let it out. He had no idea where he was. And as he watched the grass waver in the wind, he decided to get up and try to do something.

And although he was lost, he could remember lots of things that could help him. Including the instructions to a certain machine he'd built, once upon a time.

But then he saw something unbelievable.

It might just have been a hallucination, but he was sure he saw a blade of grass turn grey, and droop. It could just have died, couldn't it?

Oswald looked again and it was green. It was just his imagination.

He looked down at his hands. Unlike any of the others you and I have seen, his hands were perfectly normal. The same as ever. Maybe he just wasn't worthy of powers.

Oswald had tried to hide his emotions for a long time, but at this, he finally accepted it. He was almost all alone without Ortensia, the Blot was ruining the home he'd taken years to create, and the mouse was in there, probably wrecking it even more. He only wanted to be loved again, if not remembered. Once, he had been, now he was no longer.

Somehow, his words of sadness brought something in him to light. He was probably at rock bottom right now, yet coming to terms with his emotions made him realise that he could only go up from here.

He had something for the first time in what truly seemed like forever. Hope.

But it was no use just sitting around and waiting for a miracle to happen. Which is when something truly strange started once he touched his regulators. His body started fizzing and glitching into pixels, and a shockwave from the earth sent him plummeting down to the ground… Except there was no ground anymore. He was sinking somewhere else.

And once more, everything faded to black.