The Old City

0.66: Seneca Wakes

He was trapped. The forest had come to an end and Seneca now faced the edge of an open cliff face. A heavy fog blanketed the space ahead. It was too dark and too far to see how deep a plunge off its side would be. But he'd come here for some reason...guided by something.

Red eyes burned in the tree line, staring at him with starving malevolence. They stalked up and down the edge. They dared him to make a move.

Seneca pulled his gaze away, though he didn't dare to look away for more than a moment.

There was no way out.

He couldn't think. His mind was suffocating under the impossible choice: Did he fight the wolf he couldn't beat, or jump from a height he couldn't survive?

He looked back.

The wolf stepped out of the trees. It was huge, its rippling muscles visible even in the darkness, its teeth shining against the moonlight, its eyes hungry for him. This creature was designed to kill.

Seneca's foot slipped as a rock gave way beneath him. He was already at the end of the cliff. There was nowhere to go.

Perhaps I can get it to attack...he thought. If it has enough momentum, it might go over the edge.

A fruitless idea. For all its crazed stares, the wolf was more methodical than that. It would not be bested. Not again.

And it was getting closer, so close now. Seneca could hear its slopping growth, hungry for man flesh. He could also hear something else...

What's that, he thought. Crashing. The rolling of the waves. In the distance below, a light.

They were high up, too high up. This wasn't fog...it was clouds. Then the light beneath him wasn't a moon or a star or the sun.

The wolf attacked. Its heavy paw swiped at him, extending a ferocious claw aimed straight at Seneca's chest.

But Seneca leapt off the ledge of the cliff.

He dove into the clouds and felt drops of water smear across his face as he accelerated downward, falling faster and faster. It was nearly like freedom to be this high, but didn't kill you at terminal velocity.

He broke through the clouds and saw the world beneath. Soran, his home, and the dim light he'd seen from above.

How could it have been anything else?

Seneca continued to fall, streaming down like a shooting star. He willed himself toward the city and somehow the world obeyed. He willed himself to the one place he knew he had to be.

The Lighthouse.

The Treehouse

You have to wake up, damn it. It's all fallin' apart.

Angelica sat on the floor next to Seneca. Five days after the fight with Firkaan and he was still unconscious.

They were alone – well, save for Marcus. But he just stood in the corner watching them both, not saying a word, so it was like they were alone.

She knew he felt guilty. And he should. She just wished he'd feel guilty somewhere else. She wished everyone would just leave them be.

Ryster kept saying there was nothing more they could do. Thanks in part to his dense aura, Seneca's wound was healing nicely, and the doctor expected to remove the stitches in a few more days. He would need a few more weeks to rebuild his strength and range of motion, but having avoided major organ damage, Seneca should recover back to his full self.