Flames of Blue

I woke up in pain. Mother of all things unholy, it’s worse than getting punched in the… chest…

‘Wait, what?’ As the realization of how the pain got there caught up with me, I also found that the pain was, in fact, coming from my chest. I tried to reach up and check myself for broken parts, but… my arms didn’t really seem to want to respond. I could open my eyes, but I couldn’t see anything anyway.

‘Dammit.’

  Calm down. Nothing’s happening that could pose a threat, unless I’m buried underground…  Breathing deeply helps. It always helps when I’m under psychological strain. In and out, nothing to it, just think. Why am I here, where IS here, and why…

‘Oh, yeah.’

My thoughts drifted back to the events of yesterday, recalling the features of that kid… god? Apollo, the blond haired, fiery eyed teenager that had simply walked up to me and asked if I wanted to be sent to another dimension. Or universe, I can’t recall. As the memories filled my thoughts, I simply had an epiphany. ‘Holy shit, I think I’m on Equis.’

‘No way, that crap only happens in fanfictions. The only way I could be- Wait. The kid created solar flares, and he sure didn’t look like an astronomer. There’s no way that could have happened without the public, including me, knowing about it. Much less with only him knowing…’

‘I Honest to god think I’m on Equis. There’s no other reason for any of this to happen, I’m an Average Joe. I don’t owe money to anyone, and I’m pretty sure I don’t have any enemies in New York,  so I don’t think that anyone would waste their time to hire someone to talk about some fantastic trip to another world, then knock me out and bury me alive in whatever… this… is… Where am I anyway?’

‘No, I’m done. I’m not gonna argue with myself pointlessly until I run out of air in… whatever I’m in. After all, I might be on Equis. MIGHT. No guarantees, so I might as well get myself moving.’

This time when I tried moving, I could move my arm slightly. Strange, but it felt weird, like my hand was unresponsive. And that my arm was a lot, I don’t know, thinner and longer? That’s what it felt like. My arms must’ve fallen asleep. No biggie, I can still work with them. I pulled my legs, (which also felt shorter) up a little, trying to find feeling in my toes. I couldn’t really feel my feet very well, either. Strange.

‘Wait…’

Suddenly I didn’t care if my body was unresponsive. I flailed what I thought to be my arms at what was most likely the roof of the object I was inside of. I soon found out that it was long and wide, but not tall. I hit it with my supposed ‘shrunken’ arm, and I heard something scrape and give off a cracking sound. I kept flailing against the ceiling of the confining space until some dust fell on my face, and in my eyes.

“Ugh, dammit…”

‘What was that…?’

“What…?”

‘No way.’

“There’s absolutely no way…”

‘Fuck, I was right. My voice changed. It’s not too much higher though, I can deal with this.’

I continued focusing on my main task of getting the hell out of whatever I’m in, still hitting the roof almost uselessly with my strangely limp arms.

‘Maybe I can bust my way out, I’ll try kicking.’

And that I did. I lifted up my legs, as they were, and smacked them up against ceiling of the large, horizontal-ish box I was encased in. They stuck.

“I knew it.”

I pulled my feet off of the roof of the box, and placed the rough pads of my soles on it instead. From there, I started scratching my way up, out of the box…

Using my brand-new set of talons.