Darkness surrounded him, a rich, layered dark. Not just the absence of light, but more than that. This was darkness with a texture, a posh lineage, a confident, almost arrogant, attitude that told him it had had excellent practice in being what it was.

With the dark came a smell from long ago in his past. Wet leaves and rot. Mulch and must, mildew and other rich things that might start with an 'm', but whose names slipped his mind as he floated back into consciousness.

Alive. His environment smelled alive. And even better, so was he, apparently. A memory flashed through his mind. His pod tumbling through an enormous cavern, plummeting towards a vast lake of molten rock, right before he blacked out. Yet here he was, unscathed. Or... was he?

Mud and crushed leaves - ah, mud, that was the word he had been looking for - coated his chin and mouth. He could taste the earthy wetness of it, even though he couldn't see it. How could this be? He should be in his pod, not outside in some kind of jungle.

The ground below him felt solid enough when he pressed his hands against it, feeling around with gentle care, just in case he was teetering on the edge of a cliff. He had seen movies where the hero came to, hanging in his seatbelt in his car, half over the edge, where the slightest motion might send them to their doom. But he hadn't been driving a car, and he was no hero.

The pod. The last thing he remembered he had been in the pod. They were wonderful things, a very recent invention. When you were inside, they would, in theory, protect you from anything. At the same time, the gel that supported your body had sustaining and healing qualities that bordered on the miraculous, though the working was slow. Once the pod was sealed, it would keep him in a stasis, nurturing and nursing him back to health, for as long as it was programmed to do. Or until it broke.

So why wasn't he in it?

When his questing fingers had found no obvious instabilities in the surface around him, he rolled to his side, tucked his legs beneath him and sat up. Something wet slapped him in the face, and he immediately went down again, his heart almost jumping from his chest. What was that? Getting back up, but this time, tried to be more careful. A branch with wide, wet leaves sprang back to hit him again, but he caught it. A plant. A nervous giggle escaped him. He just got slapped down by a plant!

From this more upright viewpoint, he had a little more light to see by. There were dense bushes around him, explaining the shadows and the darkness. Above his head, trees covered the sky, blocking all the light.

He was... outside. Not just outside of a building, but really far outside. Another world, since there were no trees left in his. Not growing wild and untamed like this, with unruly shrubbery and dirt, real dirt.

So it had worked. The mad plan had actually worked. They had prepared a long time in advance, Val, Hyram and him, trying to make plans for all kinds of eventualities. Most were nothing but vapid fancies, but they managed to get the plans for a portal route to another world, a very faraway world, that had some settlements on it. More importantly, it was deemed a Rebellious Realm, horrible as that alliteration was, which meant that it was still free.

Or.... They thought it had been. Memories trickled back in now, showing him those last moments in that lab. What had Hyram said?World was compromised. We're taking another one.

Another one. There had to have been another world, free of the yoke.

All their planning had been for the other one. They'd mapped out the fortifications, the best regions to settle in, had even sent people and supplies there. When had they made the switch?

You are the only one who can stand against that chaos.

What chaos? Was this even safe? Did he have weapons?

His hands went to his hips. Nothing. Not even a scrap of clothes. Oh yes, he remembered now.

Suddenly feeling extremely exposed and vulnerable, he dropped into a crouch and tried to think. Naked and alone, stranded in a realm he knew nothing about. His pod was gone, and he did not know if they had got any supplies through. That translation had been incredibly long. Usually it took only a blink of an eye, showing maybe a hint of the realm that lay between realities. This time... he shuddered. He had never seen anything like that. It must have been Hell, the actual biblical place, or maybe the realm that had stood as a model for it. The things he had glimpsed, the monsters coasting through the air like giant balloons. The lakes of lava bubbling below him, and the air so hot it set the rocks on fire. Not, he thought, a good holiday destination.

Usually, translation time directly related to distance. So... How far away was he?

He couldn't stay here. First principles of survival. Food, shelter, and, well, clothes. Weapons would be nice. If he was going to walk around barefoot, he would need some light. He held up his hand, opening his palm to the sky. Nothing happened.

Frowning, he tried again, this time flipping his hand with more insistent flair. Light. He needed light. Not difficult at all, so why wasn't it working?

He thought the pod had healed his wounds. His hand should light up on his command. He held his hand in front of his face, close enough so he could see it, despite the darkness. Then, with a very deliberate motion, he snapped his fingers.

The sky above him broke open in a burst of fiery light and something shot through, crashing loudly into the trees. The sound of complete trunks snapping like twigs was deafening. The air glowed with the sparks following the object's path, leaves burning from the heat, then extinguishing into puffs of wet vapor.

Another pod. It had been glowing an angry overheated red, but it was a pod, he was sure of it. Who would it be? Val? She would have been smart and jumped through right behind him, wouldn't she?

Sitting here snapping his fingers would do him no good. Light or no light, he had to move. Fortunately, the trail of smoldering broken branches was easy to follow. The mud below his feet was cold and slippery and several he fell down so many times, he expected it would coat him in such a heavy layer of dirt, the lack of vestments wouldn't be an issue. He spit out another mouthful, tried to wipe the muck from his eyes, only to rub it in deeper. Blinking fiercely against the stinging grit, he plodded on, following the trail.

It stopped as abruptly as the pod had appeared in the sky. One moment there was some kind of path stretching out, outlined in smashed trees and shrubs, scorched wood and heated dirt, the next it disappeared, dropping out of sight.

One foot slithered out from under him, suddenly finding only empty air beneath it, instead of solid ground. With a startled yelp, he swung his arms wide, grabbing anything that could hold him, slow him.

The broken trail was what saved him. His fingers locked into the tangled mess of branches, slowing his fall. Down at his feet, he saw the same world as he had been blithely walking around in, only it was a lot lower down. As in, a lot. The treetops greeted him with a seductive sight, whispering the promises of downy softness in their pillowed canopies. If he would let go, everything would be fine, because he would bounce around a little, and then come to a satisfying rest in the greenery. Mists rose from the ground even farther below, shrouding anything below those highest treetops in glowing nebulas. The moon was out, full and bright in the sky, looking larger than he was used to, and holding a dark blue tinge. It looked magical. It almost made him forget he was dangling by the most tenuous of holds over a deadly drop.

Slowly, hand over hand, he dragged himself back up, every moment expecting one of the abused bushes to give way, and sending him tumbling to his doom. It didn't happen. His arms burned with the effort. While his injuries had been healed during his stay in the pod, it couldn't make up for the lack of exercise, both in the pod and before, locked in a cell. He had barely any functioning muscles left, and what was still there protested vehemently at the amount of abuse. In the end, his arms just gave up, his fingers unable to maintain any kind of grip, his body trembling with the effort and the adrenaline reaction. No matter how badly he wanted to go on, his body flat-out refused.

He expected to be dragged back to the edge, to teeter there for another second and then finally, make that last failed attempt at flying. Nothing of the sort happened. There he lay, in the still steaming slurry that had been a peaceful woodland just moments before, half-tangled in vines and branches, his skin scraped in places he would have rather not been scraped, and covered in more mud than any swamp-monster from the flics he had seen. And he lay still, stable, on non-moving ground. He managed a shuddering exhalation, raising his head, and roll on his side.

Alive.

He was so going to chew Hyram out for picking this realm, this landing spot. He would pull no punches about this. What had they been thinking? Launching the pods down at a cliff-edge? The pod he had been following had to be somewhere down there in the green depths, lost to him. He did not know who was locked inside, but he hoped for them the shell could withstand the landing.

Then again, his shell had, somehow.

He almost jumped out of his skin when he heard the sound behind him. It was inarticulate and soft, but it had nothing to do with normal tree-sounds. Trying to get his breathing back under control, he fought the urge to get up and run in the opposite direction. For one, he doubted that his legs would hold him for long. But he had also experienced first-hand how incredibly dangerous running around in the dark in this environment might be. Where there was one sudden drop, there might be others. He did not want to repeat that experience.

So, running was out. What did he have? No weapons. There had to be animals here. Hyram would never have chosen a world without a stable source of meat, and if Val had had any say in it, that source would be of the 'fun' all teeth and claws predatory kind. She loved a challenge and fight, that woman. So he might have a predator hunting him right now. But would they make that sound?

He listened again, tried to hear it over the thunderous beating of his heart. There it was again. A low moaning sound. Weak, not angry. An animal in pain.

Val would probably jump it, put it out of its misery and have a wonderful dinner after. Patrick looked at his bare, scraped hands. Well, he could go and see, couldn't he? That probably couldn't hurt? And to be honest, now that that spike of adrenaline was wearing off, he did notice the first tentative pangs of hunger. If that got bad enough, even he might become desperate enough to eat his meal raw.

Unless he found his pod. Then he could just climb back in and rest for a while, say, a few years, until the rest of the crew was here and they could have a few laughs about this terrifying first night.

He started back on the path, going slowly and stopping to listen every few paces. That's how he saw the break in the wall of debris. He would have walked past it, writing it off as just a gap, but now that he was really paying attention, he saw it wasn't natural. Something had broken out from the path. More careful now, taking special heed to the ground, he moved into the hole. The first thing he noticed was the smell. It was awful in its enticing-ness, the sweet odor of charred meat. Despite himself, his stomach sat up and paid attention.

At the same time, there was the stench of excrement and blood, heavy in the air now that he moved a little away from the path.

A sharp stinging pain lanced his foot, and he jumped back, only to hit a bar of needles against his side. Who would leave nails lying around here? No, not nails, he realized as his eyes grew accustomed to the lower light levels. Thorns. Thumb-long spikes grew out of some branches here. A shiver ran down his spine. These were a kind you wouldn't want to run into at full speed, especially not stark naked. Or, he thought as he saw the irregular white shape hanging like a boneless rag-doll against the tangled wall of branches, a little way off, be flung into it at full bone-crushing speed.

Ignoring the danger to himself, he stumbled towards the form, the human hanging there. The head moved slightly, followed by another pathetic moan, and Patrick stared at him in horror.

He had seen the kid only recently, one of the twins laying covering fire to aid the retreat. The dark and spiky hair stuck to the head now, the eyes closed. He was as naked as he himself had been, but bloody scratches covered his skin. The way he hung there against the leaves made his skin crawl, which only grew worse when he noticed the angle at which the boy's feet were folded back behind him, like there wasn't a bone left in them.

"Tar!" he said, wanting to hug him, find a way to take him down from this horror-show of a landing spot, but refusing to think about how he had to do that.

"Tar, it's me, Patrick."

Another groan, stronger this time. That was good, wasn't it? It meant the boy could hear him. He had to get him down, somehow.

And then what? He had no medicine and no food. He had no idea if there was internal damage and he might aggravate that by trying to help. And there was no way he could clean deep punctures like these, and with that increased risk of infection, it might be more merciful to let the boy die here.

"P-pt"

It was so soft, he might have missed it. But he understood. Pat. Patrick. The kid was conscious enough that it knew him. And who was he kidding? Like he would ever leave anyone behind. Boss Hyram had called him. Yeah. Of the Lost. The Pathetic. The weak. The broken. Oh, they were broken over and over, so why start leaving his people behind now? Because some overgrown berry bushes had ideas over their station?

"Sorry lad," he said, stoically ignoring the tears welling up in his eyes. He gripped the boy's shoulders and then, carefully, taking care not to trip, not to walk into any more of those nasty things, he pulled back, taking the boy with him. He bit his lip against the bile that rose as he felt the resistance hold on for a few seconds and then wetly give way.

The scream that ripped free of the kid tore through him like the thorns he had freed him from. It almost made him let go, but he knew that if he stopped now, he didn't know if he had the stomach to continue. Tightening his grip on the increasingly more slick shoulders and back, he dragged him with him, clearing the hole, back onto the trail.

Outside there was a piece of trunk with its bark stripped off, offering a surprisingly clean horizontal surface. He heaved the kid on top of it, then sat down, panting. The screams grew weaker again, resettling in the helpless groans. He wanted to scream in impotent rage at the futility of it all. Here was Tarsus, one of the best fighters he had known, despite his young age, maybe only topped by his twin Shard, brought down by bush. Who was he kidding? He had no way to help him. Maybe Hyram could fashion a travois, splints, bandages and medicine from the wreckage of plants around him, but he sure couldn't.

Hyram had said they'd sent supplies ahead. He didn't want to believe everything had disappeared into those depths below. He had no way to get there safely, and Tarsus wouldn't be traveling any time soon either.

He stroked the crusted hair from the boy's forehead and stopped. There was a ragged half-healed scar in the center, now caked with blood and dirt. There used to be a gem there. They all had one.

His hand flew to his own face, already know what he would find. Nothing. A mess of scabs and grit and a sharp pain when he dug around, trying to deny what his fingers were telling him. No gem. No special powers. Nothing. That explained his inability to produce a light.

He should have expected that they would take it. It would have been hard to keep him a prisoner. But he hadn't thought the Tyrant would go this far on his friends. His former friends. They had been friends, all of them. Ruling those realms, having fun. Until the Tyrants' ideas of fun diverged too much from his and his friends. Until he started to ask uncomfortable questions. He had to ask one of himself now. What to do next?

"I'm sorry," he said, his throat feeling raw after who knew how long of disuse. "I have to—" His voice broke. The kid's face was pale and waxy in the moonlight. He had no idea how quickly infection would set in. He wasn't a doctor. Even if he had an operating theater and a ton of supplies, he wouldn't know what to do.

Unless.... He had a pod.

That thought stopped him. There had to be another pod here, his pod. He hadn't seen a track running off the cliff from where he had found himself, so his pod had to be somewhere close. If it still worked, he might be able to get it to keep Tarsus safe until he had found the others.

"I'm sorry," he said again, but this time with more certainty.

"I have to leave you for now. I have to get you a pod. I promise, I'll find it, and come back to help you."He took Tar's hand and squeezed it gently. It felt too warm already. That wasn't good. Maybe the thorns had some kind of poison on them. He had read once that some varieties had that.

"Stay here. Don't move. There's a cliff edge close—Please don't go running—"

He broke off again, remembering now, and not wanting to look at the kid's feet.

"Please," he whispered, "stay put, stay calm, and wait for me."