~~David~~
Deja vu hit him. This was the second time in four days he plummeted toward the ground with a woman held in his arms. It wasn’t nearly as big a drop this time, but it was a drop straight onto a pile of rocks. Would he survive? Probably not. He’d land, his skull would crack open like a dropped egg, and his brains would splatter.
Fuck. He really wanted to have more sex, especially with Jes and Dao.
That, was a really shitty final thought before the end.
His back hit the mountain slope. It was steep, but not so steep it didn’t create some friction against his body. His cloak yanked up against his neck as it caught on some rock outcroppings, and both he and Dao, still tight in his arms, swung to the side slightly before it came loose and their slide down to the mountainside resumed.
How come they weren’t tumbling? Falling like this and hitting the mountainside, he’d expect everything to be a spinning mess. Oh, Daoka had her hands out, and her nails were dragging along the rocks, and they were doing a much better job snagging on rocks and grooves in the mountainside than his shitty grip could. Somehow, they weren’t spinning out of control and breaking their backs against stones.
It didn’t last. Daoka shrieked a click as a large rock sticking out of the mountain wall came up underneath them, smashed into her side, and the stumbling started. He didn’t let go of her. He tried to keep her away from the wall, to put himself between her and the rock, but everything spun and up was down and up again and rocks came at him from random directions he couldn’t understand anymore.
And then it all stopped. They still had maybe a hundred feet to fall, but something stopped them. He forced his eyes up from the death waiting for him, and up at the wings flapping hard. One of the wings looked dented and broken, and Jeskura screamed with each flap.
They hadn’t stopped, but they’d slowed down considerably. Parachute speed. Shit.
“Jes!” he yelled. “Be careful to–”
Too late. They landed on the pile of rocks between the two mountains. The ravine, now a big mess of brown boulders, red dirt and black pebbles, had grown quiet with their descent, but it echoed with the sounds of screams as the three of them collided hard with the ground.
A common misconception was, if you did a straight parachute drop like the military did, you landed softly. You very much did not land softly. You hit hard, and if you didn’t know how to land right, you’d break something. Thankfully he’d managed to relax a bit, enough that the landing hadn’t hurt all that much. That was weird.
No, wait, that wasn’t the reason.
Shit. Shit shit shit. He forced himself to his feet. No bones broken. Holy fuck his fingers hurt, and a few of them bled from their tip, and some random parts ached from hitting the mountain slope, but otherwise, he was fine. Dao wasn’t.
“Daoka!” he yelled, and squatted down over her. “God damn it, Dao.”
She smiled up at him as she clicked a few times. She’d moved him at the last minute. He’d landed on her.
“Dao…” Jes, five feet away, stood up, and collapsed a second later with a scream that hit his bones. The arm of her left wing was broken, and so was her left ankle.
“Oh fuck.” He gulped and looked between the two demons. Oh fuck oh fuck what to do what to do.
Jes dragged herself closer to Dao, now on her hands and knees, and glared down at her friend.
“Daoka you idiot. You…”
Dao clicked a few more times, but they wavered, and a few pained moans slipped into them. The satyr was worse off than the gargoyle. Her right arm was broken, and so was her left leg, above the knee. A femur break. Oh fuck.
“Oh fucking god, I… I’m…” He sank his fingers into his hair and stared down at the two demons. “Fucking god, I–Caera! Oh fuck, Caera! Caera!” He walked away from Jes and Dao, and scanned the mess. The ravine went on for a kilometer in either direction, and the pile of rocks the avalanche had created went on for maybe a quarter of that. A small avalanche. Not so small when it happens right underneath you.
“I… I gotta find Caera,” he said. “You two, uh…”
“Go,” Jes said, groaning as she grabbed her broken, bent wing arm, and yanked.
The shriek she unleashed cut David down to his guts. He would have vomited if he could. The sight of flesh stretching, and the bone inside pressing against the skin before Jes twisted the limb and forced the bones to realign, was too much. He turned away, clutching his stomach.
That wouldn’t have worked on a human, not on Earth at least. Bones didn’t just magically realign like that. Either demons were very durable, or all afterlife bodies were, but he was damn content to not test it, not after dislocating his shoulder when he’d arrived. Even now, he looked down at his bleeding, throbbing fingers, and did his best to think about anything else. Find Caera, and don’t think about broken bones being yanked on and forced back into other bones.
“Hurry the fuck up,” Jes said. “Christ. I’ll help Dao.”
Without looking back, he walked away. But when Dao clicked a couple times, he stopped and turned.
“Will Dao be–”
“She’ll be fine,” Jes said. “I’ll get her up and moving.”
“Your ankle–”
“It’ll heal, now find the damn tregeera.”
“But…” He stared down at Dao, at her broken limbs, and came closer. “I–”
“Fucking. Go.” Jes sat up, reached out for her foot, twisted and yanked, and fell back as she screamed again. He heard the click and crack of bone that time.
Dao smiled at him and waved him off, clicking softly. Not softly, weakly. She was hurt, really bad. So much for protecting her from the fall.
He clenched his fists, and walked in the direction Caera had fallen. Up and over a pile of rocks, around some giant boulders, and through some jagged stones. When Daoka screamed behind him, clicks mixing into her high pitched wails, he covered his ears.
It didn’t take long to find Caera. The tiger lady lay on her side, bits of her dark skin ripped open on her legs and arms. Even her tail had a long gash along its side. But none of her limbs looked broken, and she was breathing. Eyes closed, but breathing. Unconscious? If she had a concussion, he should probably wake her up. Was that even a thing in the afterlife?