Whaaaaaa.... (open)
He had been evacuating people from New Troy, making sure that the citizens were getting out, doing what Eric told him to do, staying behind to gather the strays and assuring those who were weak or injured wouldn't be left to the mercy of whatever was happening to the world. Aidan didn't mind, not really. He wanted to help. Of course he did. But he also wanted to find Dean and Evey. Make sure they were okay. The decision to stay and do his job had been a hard one, when all he'd wanted to do was run.
As the last people were being ushered out the gates, another big quake hit. Aidan remembered feeling the rumble of it under his feet before his brain knew what was happening. The world below him collapsed, and he fell. He fell and fell and there was nothing but black. He thought he'd lost consciousness for a while, he had no recollection of the end of the tremor, and the sensation of waking up. Above him was a great chasm, far away was night sky. He'd certainly hit his head, he could smell his own blood. He felt weak.
The sounds of others stirred him from his self focus, he'd called out to them and gotten moans of pain in return. Death entered his nose, a scent he was intimately familiar with. Aidan crawled toward the closest mutterings to try to calm and assess the injured. He found a man with his lower body crushed, a man who was not going to live. Nearby was another, a woman with a broken neck. Another, a woman with some kind of unseen internal damage, Aidan could see her belly swelling with the blood. And another, a kid who may have just barely turned fifteen, bleeding out quickly.
He tried to do what he could for all four of them. The youth went quickly. The woman with internal bleeding, not long after. But the other two lingered. He saw the pale glow of sun twice before they truly started to die. It was then that he realized that unless he helped himself, he would die as well.
It killed Aidan to do it, but he took the crushed man first. Draining him completely of blood, filling himself up. It wasn't much, but it gave him the strength to stand. He cradled the woman softly. He told her that he was sorry. She told him that it was alright, she knew he needed to live, to help others. She knew that she would not, and she wanted to do something good for the world. She told Aidan that he had taken care of her grandmother in the hospital, that he had been kind. If only for that, she owed him.
This made Aidan feel worse.
But he would not squander the gift.
When he was finished with her, Aidan laid her head softly on the ground, and closed her eyes. She looked oddly peaceful, as long as he didn't look at the angle of her neck.
He'd looked up, dreading what came next, but began the climb quickly.
By the time he reached the top, he was thankful he'd fed before beginning. He was worn out. The hole had gone deep into the earth. Miles. His arms felt numb and weak. His legs shook. He'd thrown himself over the edge and managed to crawl far enough away that he wouldn't fall back in, realized that he was laying on grass, and lost consciousness again.
Waking up now, Aidan felt the grass on his cheek, smelled it. The sun was bright and warm on his back. He still hurt from the climb, still felt weak. How long had he been laying out here? Raising his head a little bit, Aidan spotted a child staring at him, eating an ice cream cone.
Ice cream?
Grass?
Aidan rolled onto his back to look at the sky. Beautiful pale blue with white fluffy clouds. Trees surrounding him. The sounds of children happily playing. And... was that a goddamned kite? A dog yipped happily, Aidan's body tensed, thinking it was one of the wild dog packs, but a frisbee flew by over him and a golden retriever jumped him like a hurdle, tail wagging. None of the dogs had been that clean looking. Nor that willing to play.
"What... the... fuck..." he breathed out, wondering if he'd had too much blood. Usually when he was blood drunk, though, he was scarier to look at. And it was people he hallucinated, not places.