Season 02 - Episode 01

‘expensive materials within’

Black.

Deep, thick, endless black.

In every direction.

Forever.

Ak is floating in nothing, shoulders hunched to his ears, arms hanging loose at his sides. His feet are similarly dangling below him, as if he is somehow standing on fresh air. As he becomes increasingly awake and aware, he feels a vague panic that he is blind. He blinks and stares and manages to make out some vague grey ghosts, hints of shapes and textures. He is not blind, it is just very, very dark.

This first panic is then shouldered aside by another as he realises his feet are not touching a floor. A nightmare memory of falling flashes before him so that his stomach lurches and he attempts to flail his limbs. Vicious lines of pain race through his bunched up shoulders and neck however, abruptly halting his movements.

He hears himself cry out and gradually swings back to hanging still. The sound falls away from him, swallowed up by the black. His tries to order his jumbled, tumbling mind. He remembers walking a dark corridor and being attacked by people he couldn't see.

Then suddenly a noise and the floor was gone and he was falling. He wonders if he is dead. Is this what being dead is? Just floating in endless blackness? But if he is dead, why do his neck and shoulders hurt so much?

Tentatively and in stages, he raises his right hand to behind his head, huffing through the pain this causes. His straining, fumbling fingers discover a great knot of fabric at the base of his neck and a hint of hard edged metal within.

He finally realises why his shoulders are hunched and hurt so much. His shirt has caught on a jagged piece of metal, abruptly arresting his fall and leaving him dangling. As he twists and shifts however, he hears the fabric tear and freezes, clenching everything from his teeth to his toes.

After a few seconds, the fabric holds firm and he begins to breathe again. He has no idea how far he has fallen and no idea how much further there is to fall below. The initial panic recedes and now a slow dread begins to build as Ak thinks rationally about his options.

He can hang here until he dies of thirst. He wonders how long that takes and reflects that it's the kind of thing his adoring public probably assume he knows. The other option is to somehow free himself and hope he survives the fall. He realises that this option has a time limit. The fabric of his shirt is pulled up tight under his armpits and his arms are beginning to tingle. Soon they'll be too numb to lift and he'll be stuck with option one.

Unwilling to decide just yet, he takes stock instead. Before they all fell together, the people who robbed him had taken his bag, shoes and coat. His finds that his pockets are empty too. He sags a little in despair but then the back of his hand brushes against something metallic hanging from his belt.

His multitool!

Crafted by the most talented artisans from the rarest and most expensive materials. Within its sleek, ergonomic grip, the multitool contains an array of slender, fold out limbs, each a different survival tool. Ak fumbles frantically with the clip then almost drops the multitool into the void and so slows, forcing himself to work calmly.

With some difficulty, he holds up it up in front of his face but it's too dark to make out the details. He's casually carried this tool on his belt for years, a subtle display of his extreme survivalist status. Never once in all that time has he ever actually used it.

With agonising care, his fingers explore the tool while gripping it tightly until eventually they discover a knife. The options from before return and stare at him from the blackness. If he does nothing he will certainly die. If cuts himself loose and lets himself fall, there's a tiny chance he may not.

More than anything he just wants to be back home, comfortable and safe. He wishes and wishes for things to be different then finds, with a sob, that they're not. Slowly, painfully, he reaches up, behind his head and starts to cut through the fabric.

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