Saving the World - Awakening

The First Steps

The next time C giggled, Eliot swore he would strangle her.  It was bad enough that he was teetering on the edge of death. A crowd had gathered below him, making the situation infinitely less appealing to him, not that he had wanted to traverse the gap in the first place.  With a deep breath, Eliot surveyed his situation.

There was one rope that was strung to the middle of the ledge, obviously the one he was supposed to begin with.  All around there were ropes strung up, some angled upwards, some angled downwards, and some angled far to one side or the other.  The one in front of him angled steeply upwards and to his right, far from the doorway on the other side.  He would have to jump from rope to rope in order to get to the rope leading to his destination.

"Come on, Ellie!  Just jump!" C squealed.

Eliot clenched his fists in anger, a rush of fury coursing through his veins.  He jumped down and grabbed the rope attached to the ledge he had been standing on.  His palms were pinched sharply as he clung to the rope.  Once again needing to calm down, he took a few deep breaths as he advanced across.  Hand by hand, meter by meter, he slowly made his way along the rope.

Only a few minutes passed until he had to jump to a different rope, the one he was on was angling too far upwards, away from where he needed to be.  He looked around for the best rope to jump to.  He readied himself to swing over to a rope on his left, when he saw something in the corner of his eye.  Mr. G was gone, he had ran off suddenly only moments before.  C was still giggling, but didn't look as sincere about it.  Something was happening outside of his little ceremony. 

He shook his head.  "It doesn't matter, nothing does besides staying alive."  he thought to himself, intent on his task.

One, two, three - he swung and once again the ropes rubbed his hands painfully.  Still, he was one step closer to his goal.

Eliot looked around him again.  The sun was high in the sky, shining down on him.  Sweat lined his brow, and his grip was getting slightly looser.  He couldn't focus, maybe the light was distracting him too much.  He was seeing stars now, holding on had never been so difficult. Something inside him told him to just let go, which was crazy considering the multiple-story fall. There was no way he was less than ten stories in the air, an obviously fatal fall.  Still the desire to let go didn't leave him.

The crowd below the ropes was getting bigger and bigger. A few kids were throwing rocks at him, but none were even close to hitting him.  He watched as the stones soared upwards and slowly lost momentum and plummeted.  His fingers started loosening on the rope.  He could join those rocks, just fall to the ground and not have to worry.

With a TWANG Eliot let go of the rope.  A rush of calm seemed to burst over him as he fell. He had heard many men talk about their "near-death" experiences, and as they almost died their life flashed before their eyes.  What they really meant by that, he couldn't say.  As he fell to his death the only thing he thought about was how stupid it was that he would die among the Side Show cult.

Eliot closed his eyes and fell, accepting his fate.  All the while, the voice in his head kept repeating "this is only the first step."

* * *

Eliot's ears popped as he slowly opened his eyes.  He looked around himself, confused.  There were people everywhere, surrounding as close as they could get.  They seemed to be keeping a particular distance away, and whenever someone would get closer they would grab their ears in pain.  He felt like he had fallen from the top of a ladder and landed on his back, which was strange considering he had fallen from ropes ten stories in the air.  How he survived, he had no idea.

Then the popping got worse. Everything around seemed to be going wild.  He couldn't hear, just that constant popping.  His eyes started to water, and he grabbed his ears desperately.  His ribs burned with pain, but he didn't care.  The only thing he could focus on was the piercing pain in his head.  He tried to reach out around him for help, but they would just back away.

As Eliot writhed in pain, B attempted to restrain him.  Eliot hadn't noticed B in the circle of bystanders, but just like the others B couldn't approach him without pain.

After a few more minutes of agony, the popping began to subside.  Slowly Eliot stopped moving and lay on the ground, sweat pouring from his forehead and chest heaving.  B cautiously approached him with his hands outstretched.

"Eliot?  Eliot, can you hear me?" B inquired.

"What-what happened to me?!" Eliot screamed.

"You fell." B said simply.

B shook his head as he considered Eliot's question further.  What had he done to Eliot? The crowd parted behind B to make way for a stretcher carried by two people that looked to be doctors.  As they carried Eliot away, the crowd seemed to dissipate into smaller groups.  It looked like this would be the talk of the town for a few days.  B followed the doctors through the halls to the infirmary, where Eliot was being looked at.

As he watched the doctors work, B's mind spun.  The serum was at work in Eliot, that much was sure.  But what was it doing?  Both of his child proteges were currently incapacitated at the time due to his serum.  A wave of guilt hit him; was he single-handedly ruining two lives?  Or was he aspiring to save many others?  His thought process was interrupted as his giant friend strode up to him.

"G! How are things with Samantha going?"

Mr. G shook his head glumly.  He felt responsible for what happened to Eliot, and a little part of him felt responsible for Samantha. Both of them were in critical shape, and he had no positive news for B.  With a sigh, Mr. G began to break the bad news.

"Samantha is still deep in whatever it is she's experiencing.  The doctors don't even know if it's a coma, and don't know how to treat it." Mr. G hesitated as B's face grew more and more grim. "Also, our sources have reported that Czar is planning something, something big.  They give us a week, max."

B clenched his fists in frustration.  He could only wait to decide his next move.  He placed his bets on both Samantha and Eliot being enough to counter Czar, but it looked like his only hope was that Eliot would heal quickly.

"Is he gonna be ready for all of this?" Mr. G asked tentatively.

B shook his head in resignation.

"He had better be."