How the Mighty Fall

Downfall

He was falling. Reuben was falling, right before Jesse's eyes. "Reuben! No!" She yelled with huge eyes, listening to her best friend squeal until he was no longer audible, nor visible.

Jesse turned her gaze back to the Command Block with a yell of fury, angry tears in her eyes, gripping her sword tightly. With another shout of pure anger, Jesse swung her sword in a skillful arc, plunging it into the Command Block.

That was it..! She's done it! The tentacles started spazzing out, flinging Jesse back and forth quite a bit. Then, as a last attempt to defend itself from its inevitable and rapidly approaching death, the Wither Storm did something Jesse wasn't expecting.

As Jesse struggled to get free, she felt a sudden, white hot pain that went through her abdomen. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out.

She looked down-or up, rather, since she was still being held upside down-to see the insides of the Wither Storm crumbling and exploding, but what she also saw was one of the thinner tentacles, pierced right through her abdomen. She could see her own blood...

For a moment, Jesse couldn't even really process what she was seeing. All she knew was that it hurt. A lot. Her grip on her sword loosened subconsciously, and the next thing she knew, the tentacles went slack, and she was plummeting down the same way Reuben had.

Everything was exploding, everything was falling apart. The sounds were deafening, so much so that Jesse could barely even hear herself screaming. Or maybe she wasn't, she didn't really know. Things were starting to go hazy as she fell.

Light...there was light. There was water, ground...people? Jesse couldn't tell. The last thing she saw was the water. The last thing she felt was the sting of that water as she crashed into it, and the feeling of blinding pain in her side.

Jesse suddenly had thoughts of her friends. Of all of the good times they had together. Even the bad ones. They were all together, and that was what mattered.

Then, Jesse's mind wandered to Lukas specifically. Why? She didn't know, and she didn't have the energy to answer her own internal question.

Water was filling her lungs, which would usually make Jesse immediately try to swim to the surface. But...she didn't. She couldn't. She tried for a moment, but she just...couldn't.

After that?

Well, after that, it all went dark for Jesse.

~oOo~

"C'mon, Jesse..." Olivia murmured, staring up at the Wither Storm with a look of major worry in her eyes while simultaneously being aware of the Endermen that were still everywhere, as were the others.

She cast a glance to her left, seeing Axel looking up with the same uneasy expression.

Shifting her gaze to the right, she saw Lukas and Petra donning the same looks on their faces. Petra barely even remembered anything, yet Olivia could tell she too was worried about Jesse.

Though upon closer inspection of Lukas... Olivia saw something she wasn't quite sure that she really saw before. Lukas looked worried and concerned like everyone else, but combined with that was a look of what seemed to be horror. She swore he was whispering something, pleading, under his breath.

In fact, he was. As Lukas stared up at that horrible storm that Ivor had created, all he could think about was Jesse. What if she gets hurt? What if she's already hurt? What if she's- Lukas cut off his thoughts quickly, refusing to even think of the possibility that Jesse might not...might not make it.