The ground arrived faster than I'd planned for.
Two floors of dark and the street coming up in a single continuous rush and then all of me found the road at once, hip first, and the sound of it was inside my own skull rather than outside it. Bone. The wet give of something that wasn't supposed to give. My vision went white at the edges and came back in pieces.
[ Vitality restored. Hip restoring. ]
[ 40%. 50%. 60%. ]
I got a hand under me and pushed.
The leg didn't answer. I made it take me anyway. I came up on one knee, then both, then the bad leg, and the world tilted once and settled.
The pain went up through the hip into the base of my spine and sat there, and I remembered I hadn't eaten in a full day, and that the thing in my head was building me back out of a body that had nothing left in it to build from.
[ 00:00:45 ]
[ 00:00:44 ]
The ability counting itself home while I limped.
