Reo's eyes weakly flicked open in the darkness, his consciousness slowly returning. He found it hard to breathe. His chest was congested with the side burning much more painfully, terribly so. An immense weight pressed over his whole being, the weight of his broken body tripled and crushed underneath.
Reo forced his heavy body up, his arms trembled vigorously as his whole body resisted this action. Reo, maintaining a faint hold on his weak consciousness, fought through the opposition of his body. His muscles, bones, limbs, and joints all screamed out in grinding pain.
He pushed his body up, feeling the weight of the piles of rocks pinning him down roll off his back. Reo struggled his way out of the massive pile of rubble from very under.
The rocks and boulders pressing down on him fell to the ground, and small dust clouds filled the immediate air around him.
Reo coughed, with each time, he regretted doing so. The intensified pain in his left side made the simple action of breathing a living hell.
With each painful breath he coughed, Reo felt the blood rush up his throat and out his mouth. Gritting his teeth tightly, he winced back from the pain, placing his right hand over his left side.
His vision was still dark, smeared with red and hazy. His thoughts were slow and murky, a painful banging inside of it.
Reo breathed in and out, struggling against the pain. His senses slowly returned and settled, he felt something slowly trickle down one side of his face. The small line of blood flowed down like tears to his chin.
The red in his vision was from the thick amount of blood masking his face from his bleeding forehead.
His thoughts still slow and drowsy, Reo didn't even try to wipe the blood, and instead turned his head and slowly shifted his gaze around.
'What... happened?'
Following a piercing pain in his head, the memories came flashing back like a broken dam.
'The tunnel caved in!' Reo gasped inwardly.
The partial cave-in of the tunnel paths: with the hard ground giving in underneath his feet, Reo was swallowed up and plummeted down a dark empty vacuum, deeper underground.
The collapse of the ceiling came next.
Massive pieces of rocks and boulders fell against his head, crushing his body and sending him tumbling deeper. Reo held on for the early half of his descent. His body slammed into pieces of rocks and boulders, the debris raining against him like bullets, sharp stones and pebbles tearing into his skin, one even grazing just under his left eye.
The terrible descent continued with a loud rumble. Reo braced himself, gritting his teeth. He fought against the pain and the rain of debris. The massive rocks he slammed into broke bones, dislocated joints, and bruised his skin. His fall seemingly forever, came to an end. And with it, the worst pain Reo could have sworn to have ever faced in both his lives.
He instantly blacked out, overwhelmed by the pain, as soon as he limply crashed into the hard ground like a broken piece of doll. Then the rest of the boulders and rocks, with all of their mass and numbers, crushed against him.
The memory alone intensified the harrowing pain his body screamed out from.
He glanced down to see the still body of the little girl underneath him. The little girl had been with him at the very moment the ground gave out, and with him, they both endured the rapid and seemingly endless fall.
Throughout the whole time, Reo had been intent on keeping the girl safe. He had tightened her in his embrace, shielding her from the rain of debris and boulders with his back and body. Whenever they were to crash into something, Reo would turn, sacrificing his own body to break the fall at the very last second. He was confident in his body's durability, confident enough to survive crashing into boulders.
But the little girl's body, at a single glance, obviously wouldn't provide the same insane level of resilience.
The girl, despite all of Reo's efforts, still suffered a degree of minor damage, when compared to Reo. Looking against her pale skin, there were deep and shallow gashes from pieces of sharp stones and rocks. The side just under her left eye was swollen up in a blue bruise, and the side of her forehead bled from a deep cut.
The girl was still.
But she was breathing, Reo could tell from the white mist that escaped her slightly parted lips within irregular intervals. Her face was flushed and wet from the sweat mixed with her blood. And on closer inspection, he could see the tips of her fingers tremble feverishly.
Reo let out a small sigh of relief.
He pulled his body out of the climbing rubble pile, forcing his way through the harrowing opposition his limbs and bones cried out in.
'Keugh...I was lucky!' Reo thought behind gritted teeth. He survived the whole thing, more or less.
His body was different, more so than kids within his age limit. It was stronger, faster, more agile, and far more durable. But it was still five.
Of course, his durability and endurance played a part in it, but Reo surviving such a drop and making it out like this, was nothing else but luck.
Reo pulled the little girl out with him and wrapped his fractured and broken arms around her. He stood unbalanced against his two feverish feet. His whole body was sore and throbbing excruciatingly.
His consciousness still faltered, a pulsating pain in his head as he tried to focus a thought.
Reo looked around, taking in his new environment. During his fall, it was all pitch black. With the ground opening up and swallowing him whole, Reo's vision was overwhelmed by a thick darkness. He judged his fall to have been a long one, and as he fell into the ground, it's obvious to say he only went deeper underground.
Compared to the fall, Reo was offered enough room for vision. An eerie translucent blue glow permeated the air and space making the surrounding, further with tiny luminescent spores floating around.
Even with his dreary mind, Reo quickly recognized this place. The altar that looked sculptured out of fine stone far across shimmered from the ghostly lights permeating through the massive pieces of mosaic right above it. The only piece of this place that was left untouched by the various impurities or the underground chapel.
Reo stared at the star symbol carved into the wall surface at the back of the altar with weak knees. The altar bathed in the ghostly translucent light, permeating through the glass mosaics from a source unknown, like being bathed by a spotlight.
Maybe it was because his mind was slow, murky, and lethargic, but Reo felt a strange pull to the fine piece of the altar. His eyes fell close, heavily, and just as sluggishly, opened as he blinked.
But the strange chapel was much different than the last time he saw it. The underground chapel, in all of its ruined beauty, felt different.
Various candles were lit around the altar and stone tables. But that was it. Collapsed pillars and pieces of massive rocks and boulders were still littered all over just as they were before. A number of the stone benches were crushed to pebbles and dust, with the remaining wrapped around and coiled with adventurous roots and vines. Part of them even grow with moss.
It was as much a ruin as he had last seen, the lit candles being the only new addition to the ruin.
But something still felt different. It was an uncomfortable feeling that Reo still didn't bother to pay much attention to.
He couldn't.
His mind was in disarray and murky.
The uncomfortable feeling, however, still clawed at the back of his mind.
Reo took his first step and instantly slipped on something. He fell against his broken shoulder as he hit the hard ground. The mind-blogging pain forced his already faltering consciousness to flicker.
His shoulder wasn't just broken, the joint was now dislocated. Reo's expression twisted, contorted in excruciating pain, as he instinctively fought back the overwhelming urge to cry out. Intense muffled moans still squeezed their way out his mouth, the tears gathering in the corner of his eyes.
Reo held his broken shoulder as he trembled feverishly against the ground. The pain continued to burn through his mind with no sight of it subsiding anytime soon.
Reo huffed in pain, the veins bulging all over his face. When he looked down, he realized he groveled in a pool of warm blood.
Reo stared at the still-growing pool, a little lost. Ripples formed against the red surface at his slightest movement.
Slowly, he traced the source of the blood, trailing back the the pile of rubble not too far behind.
The light in Reo's full eyes shook mildly.
Underneath a sizeable massive boulder, Shorty's head was a crushed bloody pulp.