will graham (willgrahams) wrote in the100, @ 2015-08-03 12:09:00 |
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i.prelude
The burnt-out husk of this new earth - its people, its new orders and laws - hadn't managed to turn Will's senses off. If anything, the patterns that connected people together, the thick strings of their own intention and guilts, were just as strong. Perhaps it was because the mountain housed a thousand and one different worlds within it. But with his empathetic mind in overdrive - with fantastic beasts and tales made flesh - solace (from others, from the beast within himself) could still be found in the water.
Some happy coincidence of fate managed to require his presence outside by virtue of his brand new occupation, and whenever he could easily arc a reel over a body of rushing water, the beast always managed to roll into its back. He could wade into the stream and lose himself, as Hannibal often suggested. It was a simple task and it brought him back to true north.
But that day would be different.
ii.entr'acte
At first, it was a splash that alerted him. But he believed it to be the splash of a fish caught on the hook. Then a cry from one of his fellows. Will's attention, thus diverted, piqued his own instincts to fever pitch. One fisherman went beneath the waves. Then another. And before he felt the slick curl of scales at his ankles, he found himself in motion.
(Reports would later indicate Graham dove in after his fellows; reports would indicate a river swathed in blood and Graham himself attempting to pry the jaws of the beast back from the man who lost his life.)
iii.finale
And in the hospital, crammed beneath starched white sheets and surrounded by the beep of machines monitoring himself and others, his slowly shuttering eyes didn't need to hear the medical staff to read their faces. Lucky to live.
Yes, he supposed. Only a finger missing. It was luck, indeed.