It was night now.
The hospital was quiet, apart from Ryven's father of course, his snores filling the room like distant thunder.
Ryven finds himself awake, staring at the dark cieling. He was so tired just a few hours ago, and yet when he was ready to fall asleep, he couldn't.
He didn't know if it was the excitement, or the nervousness, but his mind raced without direction.
Clutching his pillow, he coddled it preciously, thinking of what his tutor taught him.
He thought long and hard about this so called power he may have obtained.
For some reason, the spider didn't kill him immediately. It played around with him.
Why? He wondered. The fact that he was able to access his own expanse also seemed to rattle Michael, Vale, and even the creature itself. Was it that unexpected?" As his thoughts continued to swirl, his skull being used as a toilet bowl, his eyelids grew heavy.
He closed them only for a moment, yet everything around him seemed to change.
The bed beneath him felt like it dissolved, his body giving way to gravity as he fell.
He tried to open his eyes, yet they wouldn't listen to him. All he could do was feel.
It was like he was suspended in a place with no air. His stomach didn't lurch, and his heartbeat didn't race. It was as if his body felt no urge to struggle and survive.
Then, without a jolt, nor any transition, he found his feet touching the ground.
His eyes darted open, the cold giving him goosebumps.
He tried to breathe, yet he couldn't. It wasn't like he needed to, but his body was so used to it.
Looking around, it was exactly as Vale had described.
He stood at the center of a vast crater, surrounded on all sides by a bleak, grey wasteland.
Ahead of him, suspended in the endless void like an ornament on a baby mobile, hung earth.
"Huh."
It was the only word his mind could manage.
For a long moment, he simply stared, arm slowly lifting toward the distant sphere.
"It's so small from here…" he breathed.
His gaze dropped. He shifted his weight and moved his left foot forward. Then another step. And another.
It felt wrong
As if he was a toddler, relearning his first steps. His body didn't trust the motion, and each step turned into an awkward bounce.
The crater slope may not have looked that steep from a distance, but standing at its base, Ryven realized just how hard this task was going to be.
He tried to take a deep breathe, forgetting the fact that there was no air to breathe in.
"How am I ever going to get used to this?" He asked himself, looking down at his body. It was only at this point that he realized he was almost completely naked, apart from some bright orange underpants.
He chuckled a little seeing them.
After all the dystopian style horrors and monsters he expected to see, he didn't expect to be put on some sort of moon wearing nothing but a tight pair of orange boxer briefs.
Shaking his head, he looked back to the task at hand, climbing out of this massive crater.
He backed up a bit, sprinting forward-or at least trying to.
What actually happened was more like an exaggerated moon hop, limbs flailing as momentum carried him farther than he intended. His foot hit the slope at the wrong angle, and instead of climbing, he floated upward for a moment, then slid straight back down on his back with all the grace of a drunk penguin.
He hit the ground with a soft thud and just lay there for a moment, staring up at the silent void.
"God, it's fucking cold." He muttered, pushing himself back up.
"Okay. Round 2."
He bounced forward again, this time bracing for the weirdness. His feet tried to dig into the slope, gaining as much traction as he could before taking off. He got 3 steps, then four, then five
His balance shifted.
His center of gravity disagreed.
His entire body leaned too far forward.
And then,
bounce
bounce
slide.
He tumbled down the slope like a beach volleyball, landing flat on his back once again.
This time, he didn't get up right away.
Instead, he covered his face with both hands and groaned.
"What the fuck…"
He got up again, eyeing the slope as if it was his greatest enemy.
"Fine. If walking doesn't work…"
He dropped to his hands and knees.
The first couple movements were clumsy, his arms lifted too high, his legs kicked too much, every shift creating a tiny uncontrolled bounce. But slowly, awkwardly, he found a rhythm.
Hand.
Hand.
Knee.
Knee.
Pull.
Push.
He wasn't elegant. He wasn't fast.
But he was moving.
At some point, the incline got to a point where it was no longer really a crawl, but a small climb, where Ryven gripped upon small pieces of moon rock, pulling his body up which was much easier to do thanks to the low gravity.
…
Finally, after a few more moments, Ryven's hands gripped the edge at the top of the crater. He winced, trying to catch his breathe as if he could even breathe as he pulled himself up.
He laid there like that for more than a few minutes before looking up at the space around him.
Just as what he saw from the bottom of the crater. There was nothing.
"This looks so dull, he muttered, looking back up at earth.
'Is this what my life will be like now?' He wondered, releasing a small sigh.
He was idle only a few moments before continuing his exploration.