Into the Abyss

This is not good, thought Tom in one of his semi-lucid moments between thoughts of assorted types of pain, agony, et cetera. So far, in the last few hours since he smoked that joint, he had really done nothing but experience new and varied forms of pain, Tom decided. Fortunately, this pain was not so all encompassing or soul wrenching as the pain of formation or whatever it was called in Astlan; however, that did not make it any less intense. It was in fact a type of pain he was a little more used to, or at least able to cope with. This was the type of pain one felt after landing stiff legged from a long fall, only a lot worse, because this was a fall of several thousand feet. It was also the pain of having one’s breath knocked out, and one’s lungs temporarily collapsed, and that of a severe shock throughout the entire skeletal system. All in all, a bitch.

Eventually, Tom managed to draw in a shuddering breath and slowly open his eyes. He looked down at the ground expecting to see his broken legs, shattered all over the place. Instead what he saw was ground that resembled the pictures taken of the Martian deserts and which came half-way up his thighs. His legs it seemed were imbedded in the ground. They had actually punched two holes in the ground, and he was stuck in the ground. Not good, but at least they weren’t shattered. In fact, as he reanalyzed the pain, he realized that his legs must still be intact, so that the pain could feel like it was sending lightning bolts up his leg bones, which it did.

Boggy came flying down from above at this point. “I told you to relax and not think about it. Now look what you’ve done. You’ve gotten stuck.”

“Yeah,” Tom panted. “Got... my... breath... knocked... out... too.”

“Shouldn’t do that.”

“I... really-didn’t mean to fall.”

“Oh, not that. Although you shouldn’t have done that either. I meant breathe.”

“What?”

“Personally, I never breathe except to talk. Too much of a hassle for too little muscle exercise. All that ever happens is that it gets knocked out of you, or you accidentally breathe a noxious smelling vapor.”

“Don’t you need to breathe to live?”

“Nope, we’re energy fields remember. We’re not alive in the normal sense.”

“Then if I’m just an energy field, why do I hurt.”

“Well, that’s a little more complex. Actually you are physical, sort of. We’re mainly condensed energy... actually that’s all matter really is too; but we are just less condensed. Anyway, your demon body does have senses, or something close enough that our mind perceives them as traditional senses. One of these sets of nerve like pathways, or senses, simulates our old pain receptors. This is, of course, for similar reasons, survival etc.; however, in our current forms, it’s not quite so necessary. However, we do still want something to simulate a sense of touch, to gauge pressure. So think of this pain as an overload of those senses. The pain from formation however, that’s something different. That’s more of a spiritual pain, in other words, it hurts because it’s doing something unnatural to your essence or self, and our minds interpret it as pain.

“Interprets my ass,” interjected Tizzy as he came in for a landing, “if it hurts, it’s pain. Plain and simple.”

“Well,” Boggy said, glaring at Tizzy, “whatever you chose to think. You can experience unpleasant sensations, even though you’re not totally material.”

“Yeah,” Tom seemed to be saying that an awful lot, he thought. The pain was finally starting to subside, a little. “So, how do I get out?”

“Raise your arms, and we’ll try and pull you out,” Boggy suggested.

Tom complied, and Boggy grabbed his right arm and Tizzy his left. The two demons launched themselves into the air with all their might and pulled as hard as they could. Slowly and with a lot of effort, Tom began to rise from the dirt. His legs pulled slowly out of the holes, until suddenly, a point was reached, and the earth gave way. The three demons went flying up into the air as the ground reluctantly gave Tom up.

Slowly they settled back down. Tom’s legs, he noticed, appeared to be intact, but they did ache a lot more than they had up on the pillar. In fact, when they set him down, he could not stand. His legs hurt way too much, so he had to kneel on his hands and knees. He found it was too hard to sit directly on the ground with his animal like legs and his long tail.

“I don’t know if I can make it to those mountains, let alone find a cave right now. I’m way too sore and too tired to even really try,” Tom told Tizzy and Boggy.

“No serious problem. I doubt anyone will bother you right here for awhile, if you want to sleep here,” Boggy reassured him. “However, you really need to fly again as soon as possible. Otherwise you may end up too scared to fly, and a demon who can and doesn’t fly has a lot of trouble.”