✎ Fel's Creative Journal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tinfoiltennis) wrote2021-01-01 11:32 pm
tinfoiltennis) wrote2021-01-01 11:32 pm
Entry tags:
[ look i don't know what to tell you buddy. it's more raw first draft ffx au. ]
i wake up, i enter a fugue state, i churn out another square for the patchwork quilt. this is my design. anyway if you're along for the ride on watching my creative process this is like, an actual honest to heck designed to be the first chapter, good lord.
The night that the sky tears open, Martin is sitting on the roof.
It’s been a favourite spot of his for years. Slip up the back stairwell of his building, follow it spiralling around all the way to the top. Through the door that’s meant to be locked but has been just out of alignment enough for years to make it easy to shimmy open without the key. Through a small gap between the two run-down domes crowning the old building, and round into the tiny alcove behind.
It’s quiet up here, which is part of why Martin likes it so much. The rest of Zanarkand isn’t quiet, as a rule. Even in his tiny apartment, there’s still plenty of noise that bleeds through the walls on either side, or from the family of five that live upstairs. And while it’s nice, in a way, sometimes, to have the reminder that there are always other people in this city just going about the business of living their own lives, sometimes… well, sometimes Martin just wants the quiet. Sometimes old habits die hard.
That, and the view from his apartment isn’t nearly as good as the one from up here. Martin’s apartment building is old; the windows are all tiny things, designed for keeping the glaring midday sun out as much as possible. Practical things. They weren’t designed with the view in mind.
The roof, though, that’s a different story. Martin doubts the people who built the place had any notion of anybody spending time on the roof. Which, naturally, means that the view up here at night is stunning. The sweeping expanse of Zanarkand stretching out, the domes and spires reaching up in great, elegant urban tangles that rise in layers higher and higher the closer they get to the city centre. The great arc of water cascading over the blitzball stadium, the smaller falls that pour off the edges of the round floating platforms that house the most fashionable districts of the city. Seen at sunset, when the last rays of light make all of that water look like shining crystal burning with liquid fire, before the day fades and the lights of the city slowly start to turn on, one by one – it’s beautiful.
Zanarkand isn’t always beautiful, but seen like this, on that cusp of one light trading places with another, it may just be one of the most beautiful sights to have ever existed.
Having such an unparalleled view of everything also means that Martin sees with crystal clarity the precise moment that a great wave of water rises up from the ocean and starts sweeping towards the city.
Martin’s first impulse is to run – but where to? The wave is massive, a colossus towering above even the highest spire on the highest platform, above even the water kept suspended in its arcing path over the city. Where can he run from that? Even if he makes it down the stairs and out the building in time, there’s no escaping something that vast. He’s going to drown. The entire city’s going to drown.
Then the wave stops.
Pressed against the wall on the roof of his apartment building, terrified out of his mind, his head still spinning with thoughts of how the sea had been completely calm until only a few seconds ago, and how he really, really doesn’t want to die – Martin starts to wonder if he’s dreaming.
The wave hangs there for an instant, suspended mid-motion like a frozen image from a spherecast.
Then, it changes.
Martin watches as the water reshapes itself, slow and fluid, sculpting itself into a giant sphere that floats over the city. It’s like a blitzball pool, almost – except there’s no machina powering this monstrosity, no spinning gyros forcing the water to remain in that shape, and not even the pool in the stadium is this large when it’s filled. Martin could swear he sees the shapes of the buildings closest to the edges of the sphere warp, turning fuzzy like the blurred edges of a child’s watercolour painting.
For a moment, he wonders if maybe he fell off the roof. Maybe he’s lying on the ground right now, and this is some kind of bizarre dying vision.
It’s not a vision.
Martin doesn’t know where the thought comes from, but he knows it’s true. However impossible this is, however unreal it is – it’s really happening.
The sphere of water convulses. There’s a booming sound, quiet at first but getting louder and louder in Martin’s ears, and as the sound spreads, there’s another right behind it, this one the sound of splintering metal and cracking, groaning masonry. His ears still ringing, Martin can only watch in growing horror as smoke starts to rise from the collapsing skyline closest to the sphere.
What is happening out there?
Another convulsion, and this time a series of dark shapes come shooting out from somewhere inside the water. Martin can’t tell if they’re aiming for anything, exactly – his eyes catch some falling close to the dockside, others embedding themselves in buildings.
The shapes start moving, and his stomach turns as Martin realises that the things are alive.
The sounds of sirens and distant screams carry on the wind. Martin feels certain that his legs are going to give way at any moment – but a blur of movement draws his eye, and he has to move closer to the edge of his little alcove for a better look.
Because if he’s not completely lost it – there’s someone out there fighting those creatures.
It’s impossible to make out details from this far off, but the stranger is armed with a sword half as tall as they are, and is making short work of the dark, buzzing shapes and writhing limbs with movements that are as graceful and fluid as they are impossible. In a series of quick slashes, they effortlessly cleave the ones in front of them clean in two, before circling around to the larger one behind and dealing it several punishing blows in quick succession.
Martin rubs his eyes, and the figure is gone.
More alarmingly, the gargantuan orb of water still hanging in the sky looks closer than before. A lot closer.
He’s got to get out of here.
That’s the first thing Martin thinks, and then with a jolt of new fear he remembers all the other people in the building, and he knows: first, he has to warn them.
Martin scrambles back through the gap between the domes, spends an agonisingly long few seconds frantically trying to get the door to the stairwell open, and then hurls himself through it, racing down the first spiral as fast as he can without breaking his neck.
There’s an emergency switch on every floor, ostensibly for if a fire were ever to break out, but Martin figures this situation is worth at least ten fires. The switches are old tech – still sphere-activated of all things – but they still work just fine. Martin hopes they still work just fine.
He shoves his entire weight at the door leading to the top floor landing until it bursts open with a loud bang, and almost trips over his own feet racing for the emergency panel. He slams his elbow into the glass panel covering the softly glowing sphere set in the wall and reaches in to grab it, letting out a small sound of pain when a jagged edge of glass nicks the side of his hand. There’s another recess in the wall to the right; Martin wastes no time, setting the sphere inside it with fumbling hands and praying he doesn’t drop it.
The effect is immediate; as soon as the sphere slots in place, a loud, grating sound blares through the corridor, building in pitch and intensity until it makes Martin want to grind his teeth. Within seconds, someone sticks her head out of her apartment door, almost wrenching the thing out of place in the process.
“What the hell’s going on out here?” she hollers over the din of the alarm, scowling at him, and oh, Martin doesn’t have time for this, he really doesn’t.
“Big - thing outside!” he manages to shout back over the noise. He tries to use his arms in a futile attempt to show her just how big it is. Other doors are opening now, more people come to see what the fuss is. “Huge, round water thing heading this way – you heard that, that explosion noise a few minutes ago? You’ve got to leave, we, we’ve all got to leave right now!”
Her eyes widen. “Shit, like on the spherecast?”
As soon as he sees she’s got the message, Martin turns and runs for the stairs.
“Just get everyone out!” he calls back over his shoulder, hoping she hears him.
The sound of voices rising in panic as word spreads dogs his steps, but Martin’s already stumbling down to the next floor. Here, too, there are already doors open, the sharpest of his neighbours already making their way towards the nearest flight of stairs. Martin gives a heavy bang to every door that’s still closed when he sprints past, and tries to hurry along the people still standing in their doorframes wondering what’s happening.
Down another floor, and another. Like most buildings in Zanarkand, the one Martin lives in is decidedly round, and so by the time he hits the third floor he’s starting to feel a bit dizzy, not to mention out of breath.
Down here, the alarm’s been going for along enough that people seem to have got the message – the corridor is crowded, with people pouring towards the stairwells as fast as they can. Martin still catches sight of a couple of people who’ve made time to stuff a bag as full to bursting as they can, and one older man clutching a heavy trophy like his life depends on it, his face twisting in anger when anyone tries to tell him to leave it behind.
In the crush of people, a few children start crying. Martin holds his breath, feeling people pushing on all sides, and lets the sea of frightened faces carry him towards the next flight of stairs. Someone stumbles ahead of him, and Martin reaches out on instinct, catching them by the arm and hauling them upright before they can trip and take everyone in front with them, or be crushed underfoot.
“Come on, come on, keep moving!” he shouts, raising his voice as loud as he can to compete with the wailing alarm.
He doesn’t know if anyone hears him, and maybe it doesn’t matter anyway. When Martin spills out onto the street with the rest of them, with more still behind, he gulps down the outside air and stumbles away from the door to let everyone else get out, trying desperately to get his bearings. He’s not even sure what side of the building he ended up coming out on. Everything is chaos and confusion, panicked people fleeing in every direction with no thought for anything besides escape.
Until it isn’t. Everything goes silent, the screams and the sirens stop, and Martin swears that everything just - freezes.
A tall man, his face in shadow under a rich purple hood, gold talismans strung from many cords on his belt, stands in the middle of the road.
“It begins,” he says.
Sound and movement crash back into the world with the force of a fierce ocean wave.
A sudden change in the light in the corner of Martin’s eye makes him look up.
He doesn’t scream – but only because what he sees robs him of any breath to spare for it.
Above him, the great bulk of the giant sphere floats suspended, warping the air around it into that soft, buttery-edged haze he saw before. This close, the effect makes Martin’s eyes water.
The asphalt in front of him cracks as something pierces it from above, and this time Martin does scream.
When the dust from the impact clears enough for him to see, he finds himself face to face with the buzzing, twitching creatures he saw at a distance before. They’re even worse up close; taller than Martin, with chitinous, spindly legs and stiff, quivering wing-like appendages that remind him of seashells.
Martin tries to scramble backwards, but a chunk of rubble catches at his foot and pulls him down, turning his ankle in the process. The things move toward him with a low, droning sound, and the lump of rock Martin flings at them goes wide, his already poor aim thrown off by the throbbing pain in his ankle.
Martin braces himself to just throw himself sideways whenever he sees them lunge, when a bright burst of light and loud crack abruptly scatters the lot of them into a lazy group of soft, pastel-coloured lights.
“Can you stand?”
The voice is deep and weathered with experience. Martin squints up through the blue afterimage left on his retinas; a lanky, wiry man in a beaten greatcoat stands before him, his grey hair cropped close to his scalp and his dark skin lined with a life hard-lived.
Martin’s never met this man in his life, but the giant sword is a dead giveaway. This is the same man he saw running circles around these monsters up on the roof.
“I – I think so,” Martin says shakily after a moment of catching his breath. He tries to get to his feet, hissing when he puts too much weight on his bad ankle too soon. “Shit. Think I rolled my ankle going down.”
“I can do something about that, but then you need to run,” the swordsman says.
So far, he’s been watching the street around them, the rippling shadow of water above them, and he hasn’t stopped to look at Martin at all. Satisfied that no danger is imminent for the moment, the swordsman turns to look at him now – and flinches back like someone who’s seen a ghost, a spasm of anger seizing his face for an instant between the shock.
“This cannot be!” he rasps. Martin fights the urge to shrink and stumble away as best he can, taking his chances with the monsters on his dodgy ankle.
“S – sorry, I – what?” he manages.
The swordsman studies his face for a few seconds with a fierce expression. Whatever he finds pulls from him a soft gasp, his eyes widening once more. Martin watches the man’s jaw clench as he swallows, clearly having a hard time mastering some kind of anger. For some reason. Martin finds himself anxiously standing there, distant, panicked screams echoing in his ears from other parts of the city, wondering what he could have done to offend this stranger, and hoping that whatever it was, it isn’t bad enough to get him killed.
“I see,” the swordsman says at length, his voice even once more. There’s still thunder in the set of his eyebrows, but he regards Martin now with a look he can’t fathom. There’s something like wonder in it, and something, perhaps, all too much like pity.
On reflection, Martin would rather deal with the anger.
“It seems fate has brought us both to a strange turn,” the swordsman says. He looks up towards the underbelly of the great sphere, scrutinising it. Martin realises that it hasn’t moved at all since the man saved him.
Wait, is the monstrous calamity after this stranger?
“Alright then,” the swordsman nods out of nowhere. He reaches out to Martin with one hand, bringing the other in an odd gesture before him, as if gently parting the air in front of his chest.
Light glows at the tips of the man’s fingers. Martin feels a rush of warmth flow through his body and realises the next instant that his ankle has stopped throbbing. He glances down at his injured hand; the cut he got from the building’s stupid antiquated alarm system is gone as well.
“The danger will pass from this city once I cross its threshold,” the swordsman announces, as though that’s a perfectly ordinary thing to say, and as though he didn’t just heal Martin’s injuries with a kind of magic that nobody in Zanarkand has been able to do with that much ease in hundreds of years.
“H— Hang on!” Martin protests, “Are you saying you brought this thing here?!”
“Not intentionally,” the man says. He sounds sincere, deep regret in his voice. “But I’m not from this city. I fear that Sin knows I don’t belong here, and is trying to ensure my removal the only way it knows how.”
There are so many questions Martin wants to ask, but the swordsman’s face is suddenly lit from above with a sickly orange glow. Martin looks up, his eyes struggling to focus past the blurring and warping of the air, and lets out a strangled gasp.
The thing bearing down over their heads doesn’t look like water anymore. It’s like – like a tear in the very air itself, a jagged hole ripped open in the sky, revealing something behind that burns with a menacing fire. Glimpses of rough, craggy skin warp in and out of the haze, along with something that looks disturbingly like a giant, glassy eye.
The buildings around them are crumbling apart, gradually imploding in small pieces before being drawn up into this horrifying maw, stretching out thinner and thinner until they vanish completely. There’s a dead weight to Martin’s limbs, to the give of his ribcage – he feels like he can’t get a proper breath in suddenly. He wants to run – does he ever want to run – but he can’t lift his feet.
The swordsman must be in the same bind. He grimaces, his face already distorting into nightmarish proportions, and looks at Martin with an intensity that’s still somehow reassuring, even through the blind terror.
“Very well. Perhaps you will also be needed,” he says in a low undertone – and that’s the last thing Martin knows before the world rips apart into a searing flare of light – and a deep, crushing darkness.
The night that the sky tears open, Martin is sitting on the roof.
It’s been a favourite spot of his for years. Slip up the back stairwell of his building, follow it spiralling around all the way to the top. Through the door that’s meant to be locked but has been just out of alignment enough for years to make it easy to shimmy open without the key. Through a small gap between the two run-down domes crowning the old building, and round into the tiny alcove behind.
It’s quiet up here, which is part of why Martin likes it so much. The rest of Zanarkand isn’t quiet, as a rule. Even in his tiny apartment, there’s still plenty of noise that bleeds through the walls on either side, or from the family of five that live upstairs. And while it’s nice, in a way, sometimes, to have the reminder that there are always other people in this city just going about the business of living their own lives, sometimes… well, sometimes Martin just wants the quiet. Sometimes old habits die hard.
That, and the view from his apartment isn’t nearly as good as the one from up here. Martin’s apartment building is old; the windows are all tiny things, designed for keeping the glaring midday sun out as much as possible. Practical things. They weren’t designed with the view in mind.
The roof, though, that’s a different story. Martin doubts the people who built the place had any notion of anybody spending time on the roof. Which, naturally, means that the view up here at night is stunning. The sweeping expanse of Zanarkand stretching out, the domes and spires reaching up in great, elegant urban tangles that rise in layers higher and higher the closer they get to the city centre. The great arc of water cascading over the blitzball stadium, the smaller falls that pour off the edges of the round floating platforms that house the most fashionable districts of the city. Seen at sunset, when the last rays of light make all of that water look like shining crystal burning with liquid fire, before the day fades and the lights of the city slowly start to turn on, one by one – it’s beautiful.
Zanarkand isn’t always beautiful, but seen like this, on that cusp of one light trading places with another, it may just be one of the most beautiful sights to have ever existed.
Having such an unparalleled view of everything also means that Martin sees with crystal clarity the precise moment that a great wave of water rises up from the ocean and starts sweeping towards the city.
Martin’s first impulse is to run – but where to? The wave is massive, a colossus towering above even the highest spire on the highest platform, above even the water kept suspended in its arcing path over the city. Where can he run from that? Even if he makes it down the stairs and out the building in time, there’s no escaping something that vast. He’s going to drown. The entire city’s going to drown.
Then the wave stops.
Pressed against the wall on the roof of his apartment building, terrified out of his mind, his head still spinning with thoughts of how the sea had been completely calm until only a few seconds ago, and how he really, really doesn’t want to die – Martin starts to wonder if he’s dreaming.
The wave hangs there for an instant, suspended mid-motion like a frozen image from a spherecast.
Then, it changes.
Martin watches as the water reshapes itself, slow and fluid, sculpting itself into a giant sphere that floats over the city. It’s like a blitzball pool, almost – except there’s no machina powering this monstrosity, no spinning gyros forcing the water to remain in that shape, and not even the pool in the stadium is this large when it’s filled. Martin could swear he sees the shapes of the buildings closest to the edges of the sphere warp, turning fuzzy like the blurred edges of a child’s watercolour painting.
For a moment, he wonders if maybe he fell off the roof. Maybe he’s lying on the ground right now, and this is some kind of bizarre dying vision.
It’s not a vision.
Martin doesn’t know where the thought comes from, but he knows it’s true. However impossible this is, however unreal it is – it’s really happening.
The sphere of water convulses. There’s a booming sound, quiet at first but getting louder and louder in Martin’s ears, and as the sound spreads, there’s another right behind it, this one the sound of splintering metal and cracking, groaning masonry. His ears still ringing, Martin can only watch in growing horror as smoke starts to rise from the collapsing skyline closest to the sphere.
What is happening out there?
Another convulsion, and this time a series of dark shapes come shooting out from somewhere inside the water. Martin can’t tell if they’re aiming for anything, exactly – his eyes catch some falling close to the dockside, others embedding themselves in buildings.
The shapes start moving, and his stomach turns as Martin realises that the things are alive.
The sounds of sirens and distant screams carry on the wind. Martin feels certain that his legs are going to give way at any moment – but a blur of movement draws his eye, and he has to move closer to the edge of his little alcove for a better look.
Because if he’s not completely lost it – there’s someone out there fighting those creatures.
It’s impossible to make out details from this far off, but the stranger is armed with a sword half as tall as they are, and is making short work of the dark, buzzing shapes and writhing limbs with movements that are as graceful and fluid as they are impossible. In a series of quick slashes, they effortlessly cleave the ones in front of them clean in two, before circling around to the larger one behind and dealing it several punishing blows in quick succession.
Martin rubs his eyes, and the figure is gone.
More alarmingly, the gargantuan orb of water still hanging in the sky looks closer than before. A lot closer.
He’s got to get out of here.
That’s the first thing Martin thinks, and then with a jolt of new fear he remembers all the other people in the building, and he knows: first, he has to warn them.
Martin scrambles back through the gap between the domes, spends an agonisingly long few seconds frantically trying to get the door to the stairwell open, and then hurls himself through it, racing down the first spiral as fast as he can without breaking his neck.
There’s an emergency switch on every floor, ostensibly for if a fire were ever to break out, but Martin figures this situation is worth at least ten fires. The switches are old tech – still sphere-activated of all things – but they still work just fine. Martin hopes they still work just fine.
He shoves his entire weight at the door leading to the top floor landing until it bursts open with a loud bang, and almost trips over his own feet racing for the emergency panel. He slams his elbow into the glass panel covering the softly glowing sphere set in the wall and reaches in to grab it, letting out a small sound of pain when a jagged edge of glass nicks the side of his hand. There’s another recess in the wall to the right; Martin wastes no time, setting the sphere inside it with fumbling hands and praying he doesn’t drop it.
The effect is immediate; as soon as the sphere slots in place, a loud, grating sound blares through the corridor, building in pitch and intensity until it makes Martin want to grind his teeth. Within seconds, someone sticks her head out of her apartment door, almost wrenching the thing out of place in the process.
“What the hell’s going on out here?” she hollers over the din of the alarm, scowling at him, and oh, Martin doesn’t have time for this, he really doesn’t.
“Big - thing outside!” he manages to shout back over the noise. He tries to use his arms in a futile attempt to show her just how big it is. Other doors are opening now, more people come to see what the fuss is. “Huge, round water thing heading this way – you heard that, that explosion noise a few minutes ago? You’ve got to leave, we, we’ve all got to leave right now!”
Her eyes widen. “Shit, like on the spherecast?”
As soon as he sees she’s got the message, Martin turns and runs for the stairs.
“Just get everyone out!” he calls back over his shoulder, hoping she hears him.
The sound of voices rising in panic as word spreads dogs his steps, but Martin’s already stumbling down to the next floor. Here, too, there are already doors open, the sharpest of his neighbours already making their way towards the nearest flight of stairs. Martin gives a heavy bang to every door that’s still closed when he sprints past, and tries to hurry along the people still standing in their doorframes wondering what’s happening.
Down another floor, and another. Like most buildings in Zanarkand, the one Martin lives in is decidedly round, and so by the time he hits the third floor he’s starting to feel a bit dizzy, not to mention out of breath.
Down here, the alarm’s been going for along enough that people seem to have got the message – the corridor is crowded, with people pouring towards the stairwells as fast as they can. Martin still catches sight of a couple of people who’ve made time to stuff a bag as full to bursting as they can, and one older man clutching a heavy trophy like his life depends on it, his face twisting in anger when anyone tries to tell him to leave it behind.
In the crush of people, a few children start crying. Martin holds his breath, feeling people pushing on all sides, and lets the sea of frightened faces carry him towards the next flight of stairs. Someone stumbles ahead of him, and Martin reaches out on instinct, catching them by the arm and hauling them upright before they can trip and take everyone in front with them, or be crushed underfoot.
“Come on, come on, keep moving!” he shouts, raising his voice as loud as he can to compete with the wailing alarm.
He doesn’t know if anyone hears him, and maybe it doesn’t matter anyway. When Martin spills out onto the street with the rest of them, with more still behind, he gulps down the outside air and stumbles away from the door to let everyone else get out, trying desperately to get his bearings. He’s not even sure what side of the building he ended up coming out on. Everything is chaos and confusion, panicked people fleeing in every direction with no thought for anything besides escape.
Until it isn’t. Everything goes silent, the screams and the sirens stop, and Martin swears that everything just - freezes.
A tall man, his face in shadow under a rich purple hood, gold talismans strung from many cords on his belt, stands in the middle of the road.
“It begins,” he says.
Sound and movement crash back into the world with the force of a fierce ocean wave.
A sudden change in the light in the corner of Martin’s eye makes him look up.
He doesn’t scream – but only because what he sees robs him of any breath to spare for it.
Above him, the great bulk of the giant sphere floats suspended, warping the air around it into that soft, buttery-edged haze he saw before. This close, the effect makes Martin’s eyes water.
The asphalt in front of him cracks as something pierces it from above, and this time Martin does scream.
When the dust from the impact clears enough for him to see, he finds himself face to face with the buzzing, twitching creatures he saw at a distance before. They’re even worse up close; taller than Martin, with chitinous, spindly legs and stiff, quivering wing-like appendages that remind him of seashells.
Martin tries to scramble backwards, but a chunk of rubble catches at his foot and pulls him down, turning his ankle in the process. The things move toward him with a low, droning sound, and the lump of rock Martin flings at them goes wide, his already poor aim thrown off by the throbbing pain in his ankle.
Martin braces himself to just throw himself sideways whenever he sees them lunge, when a bright burst of light and loud crack abruptly scatters the lot of them into a lazy group of soft, pastel-coloured lights.
“Can you stand?”
The voice is deep and weathered with experience. Martin squints up through the blue afterimage left on his retinas; a lanky, wiry man in a beaten greatcoat stands before him, his grey hair cropped close to his scalp and his dark skin lined with a life hard-lived.
Martin’s never met this man in his life, but the giant sword is a dead giveaway. This is the same man he saw running circles around these monsters up on the roof.
“I – I think so,” Martin says shakily after a moment of catching his breath. He tries to get to his feet, hissing when he puts too much weight on his bad ankle too soon. “Shit. Think I rolled my ankle going down.”
“I can do something about that, but then you need to run,” the swordsman says.
So far, he’s been watching the street around them, the rippling shadow of water above them, and he hasn’t stopped to look at Martin at all. Satisfied that no danger is imminent for the moment, the swordsman turns to look at him now – and flinches back like someone who’s seen a ghost, a spasm of anger seizing his face for an instant between the shock.
“This cannot be!” he rasps. Martin fights the urge to shrink and stumble away as best he can, taking his chances with the monsters on his dodgy ankle.
“S – sorry, I – what?” he manages.
The swordsman studies his face for a few seconds with a fierce expression. Whatever he finds pulls from him a soft gasp, his eyes widening once more. Martin watches the man’s jaw clench as he swallows, clearly having a hard time mastering some kind of anger. For some reason. Martin finds himself anxiously standing there, distant, panicked screams echoing in his ears from other parts of the city, wondering what he could have done to offend this stranger, and hoping that whatever it was, it isn’t bad enough to get him killed.
“I see,” the swordsman says at length, his voice even once more. There’s still thunder in the set of his eyebrows, but he regards Martin now with a look he can’t fathom. There’s something like wonder in it, and something, perhaps, all too much like pity.
On reflection, Martin would rather deal with the anger.
“It seems fate has brought us both to a strange turn,” the swordsman says. He looks up towards the underbelly of the great sphere, scrutinising it. Martin realises that it hasn’t moved at all since the man saved him.
Wait, is the monstrous calamity after this stranger?
“Alright then,” the swordsman nods out of nowhere. He reaches out to Martin with one hand, bringing the other in an odd gesture before him, as if gently parting the air in front of his chest.
Light glows at the tips of the man’s fingers. Martin feels a rush of warmth flow through his body and realises the next instant that his ankle has stopped throbbing. He glances down at his injured hand; the cut he got from the building’s stupid antiquated alarm system is gone as well.
“The danger will pass from this city once I cross its threshold,” the swordsman announces, as though that’s a perfectly ordinary thing to say, and as though he didn’t just heal Martin’s injuries with a kind of magic that nobody in Zanarkand has been able to do with that much ease in hundreds of years.
“H— Hang on!” Martin protests, “Are you saying you brought this thing here?!”
“Not intentionally,” the man says. He sounds sincere, deep regret in his voice. “But I’m not from this city. I fear that Sin knows I don’t belong here, and is trying to ensure my removal the only way it knows how.”
There are so many questions Martin wants to ask, but the swordsman’s face is suddenly lit from above with a sickly orange glow. Martin looks up, his eyes struggling to focus past the blurring and warping of the air, and lets out a strangled gasp.
The thing bearing down over their heads doesn’t look like water anymore. It’s like – like a tear in the very air itself, a jagged hole ripped open in the sky, revealing something behind that burns with a menacing fire. Glimpses of rough, craggy skin warp in and out of the haze, along with something that looks disturbingly like a giant, glassy eye.
The buildings around them are crumbling apart, gradually imploding in small pieces before being drawn up into this horrifying maw, stretching out thinner and thinner until they vanish completely. There’s a dead weight to Martin’s limbs, to the give of his ribcage – he feels like he can’t get a proper breath in suddenly. He wants to run – does he ever want to run – but he can’t lift his feet.
The swordsman must be in the same bind. He grimaces, his face already distorting into nightmarish proportions, and looks at Martin with an intensity that’s still somehow reassuring, even through the blind terror.
“Very well. Perhaps you will also be needed,” he says in a low undertone – and that’s the last thing Martin knows before the world rips apart into a searing flare of light – and a deep, crushing darkness.