DOWNFALL

[almostinhuman]

((CORBIN AZINGER START))

He lay in the snow, dazed and groaning in pain, a small spray of red splashed across the white around him.

He shakily rose, pushing himself off the ground on his hands and knees. Directly under him he could see the rock his head had struck on his way down, red and glistening. One of his hands gingerly touched his forehead, feeling the torn flesh and slick, warm blood. The brush of his fingers against the wound stung agonizingly, but he made no sound at the pain. He couldn't afford to freak out, the way so many of his classmates probably were. He had to keep it cool. There was a good chance this injury wasn't as bad as it felt, after all. Panicking would probably just injure him further.

He turned his head, looking up at the torn gutter of the roof he'd just fallen from. He'd been placed there while he was still unconscious, and woken up to find himself two stories off the ground out in the cold. There'd been no clear way down from there, no ladder against the side of the roof or door into the house proper; his efforts to use the gutter to climb down had merely led to it near-instantly tearing apart and hurtling him towards the ground below. Frankly, he was lucky it hadn't killed him, even if he was unlucky it had happened in the first place.

Somehow, the circumstances of waking up like that pissed him off almost as much as the kidnapping itself. The fall wouldn't have happened if they hadn't functionally trapped him up there. Didn't seem very fair at all. He doubted everyone was getting such a rude wake-up call.

He started getting to his feet, trying to properly rise. The moment he put weight on his left foot, he realized that wasn't happening; his ankle screamed in furious agony at him and he fell back to his knees, nearly doing likewise. His heart, already beating fast, was now utterly racing in panic. As if the hit to the head wasn't bad enough, he'd gone and broken something in his ankle, too. How was he supposed to walk, much less do much of anything else? More than the head injury, this was practically a death sentence.

His hands dug into the ground as he screamed into the snow. The scream of a man on the gallows, crying out in impotent rage with what little time he has left. Spots appeared in his vision, his head wound flared in pain, and he almost felt like he was gonna pass out. His hands covered his face as he took slow, deep breaths, still shaking. His resolve to stay coolheaded had met with far worse of an obstacle than he'd realized.

Eventually, he crawled to the supplies he'd dropped before his ill-fated climb. He grabbed the trident and planted the butt of it into the ground, pulling himself up along the shaft. He stood unsteadily, using the weapon as a makeshift cane; it was inadequate at the job, but it would have to do. In his current state, it was probably the only use he was gonna find for it. He managed to awkwardly sling his other bags over his shoulders. Perhaps there was something in them that could help him tend to these injuries, but he wasn't gonna stay out here to do it. He needed somewhere secure, and somewhere he hadn't just drawn attention to by screaming at the top of his lungs.

He limped away from the house.

((Corbin Azinger continued in Dirty Harry))