He ran at first.

He ran because it was the only thing he could do. He couldn’t stop to see the stars. He couldn’t stop to see what foreboding landscape he was barreling straight into. He couldn’t stop to rest, and he couldn’t stop to contemplate. Contemplating was the thing he could not do. And everything else would only give him one thing: time to think.

The destination was irrelevant; Peter didn’t care where he was going. That would have involved thinking. Even as it was, he was fighting with heaven and earth just trying to avoid it even though he was charging ahead at full speed, his scaly legs straining and sending him forward with the momentum of a semi-truck. They were more powerful now, now they could probably... Instantly he gritted his teeth, banishing the thought. He knew what would happen if he let it get a foot through the door.

The terrain was unforgiving for such a reckless charge, and repeatedly he kept nearly or actually tripping over its uneven, jagged surface that seems to spike up from the ground like thorns, ready to trap the unwary traveler. The sky was dark, clouds obscuring the moon and most of the stars from view; what little light came down reflected at odd angles against the twisting, shearing obsidian pillars and spikes. All of this he was probably seeing better than he could before with his new eyes, but immediately upon forming this thought a wall of pain arced through his mind, driving him to push his legs faster.

Strong and fit as he probably was, he most certainly couldn’t keep this up forever. It didn’t matter how strong you were; anything running for fifteen minutes on full adrenaline was in for a rude shock once the burst of energy started to die down, and Peter inevitably felt his legs weaken like jello and his chest felt like it was futilely trying to power a diesel locomotive. Slowly but surely, he slugged to a halt, unable to keep up his reckless pace. Disoriented and exhausted as the surge of energy wore off, he trudged along the uneven rocks. But he couldn’t outrun the thoughts that flooded into his mind as they burst through like storm surge. Panting and grimacing in pain, he tried to shut them out by closing his eyes, tightening his muscles, anything! But nothing worked, they just came again and again and again.

How could you?...

Screaming, he was in the air before he knew what was happening, his now gargantuan wings pumping the air beneath him and sending him soaring upwards. The strange, alien, but somehow familiar sensation barged itself into the fore of his thoughts, and he looked down bewildered at the terrain below as it raced beneath him. The rush of the wind brushed past his smooth scales, and a strange euphoric sensation gripped him as gravity pulled down but he continued to soar. Here he was, actually flying. He was flying on his own.

If only they could see...

Peter gasped as he saw the face of his little sister Angel, staring at him in his wonderful but inhuman act. It’s force smashed him in the gut and knocked the wind out of him; his wings suddenly stopped beating the air as he plummeted like a rock, the jagged obsidian spires surging up threatening to impale him. Almost as an afterthought he tried to beat his wings again, but even this was done with a surge of guilt, and he slammed into the side of one of the serrated formations of rock, shattering it. His bones felt like they were shattering too, but he didn’t have time to dwell as he bounced against the side of a small cliff wall and flipped over, landing with a fierce thud on the stone below.

Groaning in agony, Peter could barely breathe. He laid on his side, sprawled out on the bare rock. In time, he caught his breath again. But he didn’t get up. He stayed where he had fallen, seemingly oblivious to his situation. His massive form stayed apathically limp, not even squirming to adjust for the uncomfortable position he was in.

There was no sound of him rising, there was only a deep, wheezing sound and an occasional despairing gasp for air. Soon a pool formed beneath his massive snout, flowing from a trail leaking through his steadfastly closed eyelids that refused to open. A distant voice in the back of his mind suggested moving on, but the rest of him simply asked to where? The night wore on as tears began crusting up below his eyes; eventually his eyes simply wore themselves out, the only sign of life the sound of his pathetic unvoiced whimpering.

---

The sun was out by the time he came to, nearly straight up in the sky and searing the black landscape that stretched as far as the eye could see. What should have been toasting him alive, though, seemed to relax him. It wrapped him up like a warm, cozy blanket, soothing his aches and pains, rubbing away his weariness.

Except that for a single choice, he would not be enjoying it as he was.

His pacific rest corrupted into acid, and reality came crashing back down. At once all good thoughts were immolated, left to burn as their charred smoking ashes crumbled to the ground. It was surreal and absurd; it was gone, everything was* gone*. And here he was, experiencing it. Things like this weren’t supposed to be real, they were only supposed to happen to other people. You didn’t just lose everything you had in your life, everything you ever cared about because of one single choice, it was absurd. Yet, here he was, rotting away in soul if not in body on the hideous serrated rocks that wanted to tear the flesh off anyone who was stupid enough to come out into this barren Hellhole. Here he was, no longer a slightly skinny wiseass college freshman but a huge rust colored dragon who could crush boulders if he wanted to... except that he lacked the strength to brush aside a dust mote.

Time passed by like a bloody carcass being slowly dragged across the ground, sticking and leaving a painted trail of red in its wake. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the image of Angel staring at him out of his head. Not that he tried hard anyway; it was a labor to continue breathing such as it was. Slowly but surely, however, his sister’s gaze grew ever brighter and more intense, closing in on Peter and sucking all the air from his lungs. In the end, her gaze pierced him to depths he could not longer withstand. He struggled against the pain and heaviness of his heart and started moving again.

This time, though, he didn’t run. Instead, it was just one foot in front of another as he slogged along. It was only now that he got a good look of what lay ahead of him now that the sun illuminated the landscape. Everywhere, in every direction were rocks, black, sharp, wicked rocks. In the distance, mountains looking as though they had been forged in Hell and thrust up to the surface dominated the horizon on either of his sides. Ahead there were no such mountains, but a vast rolling sea of rock formations and hardened basalt lava flows, with no end in sight. Behind... well, he had no intention of looking to see what lay in that direction, much less head that way. It may have been the most beautiful, bountiful place he had ever seen, much less conceived, but it may as well have been Hell itself despite its stunning beauty. Its splendorous waterfalls and lush wildlife were magma chambers and torture pits. If he never saw them again, it would be too soon, because the memories were solid as stone and sharp and jagged as glass.

Even so, he merely kept his pace, simply trudging along and he made his way up and over the old lava flows and sheer cliffs. It would have been easier by far to fly, but the mere thought of that made his sister gape in that hideous terrified stare again, nearly making him collapse on the spot. So he kept his pace. The slow, mind numbing repeated act of walking kept him slightly distracted at least; it wasn’t enough to drive away the memories, but it was better than standing still and letting them drown him on the spot. Thoughts flowed and drifted into his mind one by one, and he looked them over in exhausted, drained indifference, but not quite... It was strange in a way. He had always thought that people, reaching the point he was at, just completely shut down, becoming utterly indifferent and numb. But it wasn’t so. He thought that in a merciful way he’d just block out everything because it was so traumatic; as he was he couldn’t have asked for a greater blessing. But no. No, God wouldn’t have it. No, his thoughts didn’t go away. He was numb, but not utterly. His heart felt heavy, like a dead weight that wanted to pull him to the ground and through it all the way to Hell. Thoughts of Angel, even his brother and mother, brought a slow tide of poisonous grief.

All it would have taken was a soft wind to knock him over. His body sagged, struggling in vain to keep himself afloat. He walked with a broken momentum, his eyes locked on the ground in front of him, unable to look anywhere else.

What had his whole life been? The boy in the mirror, what a damn big lie it had all been! He saw the smug smile, the certain knowledge, the unspoken judgments, the self-righteousness. But now... now he saw an enormous scaly snout. He felt power. He felt raw energy. But it was all gold dust in the face of a hurricane, leaking out from him and flung dispersed and useless into the wastes. Throughout his whole being an empty question was asked again.

How could you do it?

Inevitably his thoughts kept returning to his new form. His blessing. His choice. It felt powerful, and he couldn’t forget what it felt like for it to wash down upon him, how it felt to be surged, to be caught up and lifted into Heaven and be transformed from the inside out. He was more powerful than he could have ever imagined. Trembling, Peter realized that he was going to live the rest of his life like this. He was going to be powerful, king of all he surveyed, virtually invincible. It was worse than any nightmare he had ever had.

He may have been a great and terrible beast, but he felt like a worm, a parasite. He had leeched life, potential, hope, and a promise all for this power he had.

Leaning over forward, Peter couldn’t keep his balance anymore. His stomach quacked and thrashed as he felt the acidic tinge of bile creep up at the back of his throat. He probably couldn’t have stopped it anyway, so he let it happen. There was no food in his belly, so all that came pouring out was bile. It appeared more as poison slime, and it smelled a Hell of a lot worse. As it came hurtling and dripping out of his tooth filled mouth it splattered onto the rocks; within moments it started to fizz and bubble fiercely. It took a moment for Peter to realize that that it was acidic, acidic enough to start dissolving rock. It made sense from a rational point of view, he guessed; a dragon would have to be able to dissolve more sturdy foods than what a human could stomach. Rationality didn’t carry as much weight as it should have though, as his attempt to explain it away into its neat little hole in the universe was powerless against his weak stomach, which felt twice as queasy at the sight and realization that it was different from what it had been. Bracing himself, he upchucked again and felt like he was draining a swimming pool through his mouth.

The acrid smell and sizzle of the acid made his chest feel all the heavier, more filled with poison, so he didn’t linger. He trudged on... and on... and on...

It was nightfall again by the time he his legs finally gave out and he couldn’t go on. Undignified he flopped to the ground in a disorganized heap, sighing sighs that did nothing to relive the quiet tension in his chest. Pitifully he moaned, unable to conjure the will to protest against the universe any more than that, so exhausted in mind and body was he. He could have roared, he could have belched fire, he could have slammed the ground with his limbs or his mighty tail. But no, he moaned, though it felt more draining than a marathon and only served to drive away the quiet tension for a fraction of a second. It was strangling him slowly from the inside out, not grand at all but like a dull toothache in every part of his body, continually sapping away at his strength and motivation. He didn’t even have the resolve to cry, he simply sat there unable to do nothing more than breathe, and even this was a burden of a thousand boulders.

Quietly desperate for relief, his weak and pitiful eyes searched, trying to find the smallest distraction that would occupy his mind. All that was visible were the rocks and barren landscape all around him... and the stars. Up above him the night sky shone brilliantly, and it took him a moment to realize that there were strange, unfamiliar shapes up there, constellations that had different stories to tell than the ones he was familiar with. Was God up there too? If so, wasn’t he responsible for all of this? Couldn’t some of the blame be put on God? If the universe was supposed to operate on some kind of divine plan, wasn’t there accountability to that plan?

But even as he thought it, it rang utterly hollow. It was as ridiculous as blaming his childhood upbringing for how he turned out as a person. He, the always right Peter, had always prided himself on being his own person, someone who made his own decisions, deserved the credit for when he was right.

... And the blame. He had been the one offered a choice, and he and he alone had decided.

As if in acknowledgment of this fact, the stars stayed unmoved in the heavens, painting their picture, going on with life. It didn’t matter what he had done, what kind of person he had shown himself to be, they would go on. The universe would go on. God would go on with whatever he wanted, leaving poor pathetic Peter behind. He had destroyed himself, and the stars offered him no hope. The world, both this one and Earth, would just go on without him. It had been his choice, and now he was alone with it.

The world didn’t care about him anymore. God didn’t care anymore.

Why should they? They would have been insane to do so.

The quiet tension built up inside, and Peter felt as though gravity was increasing and sucking him down into the dirt. Exhausted, he whimpered his way into sleep.

---

Angel’s stare plucked his eyes and gouged them out violently, and set his stomach on fire. Peter squirmed and thrashed in agony, but found no reprieve. The convulsions sent him reeling so hard he hit his head on stone repeatedly. An instant later he found himself lying among the hideous black rocks of the wastes. His heart was raging and his arteries and veins threatened to jackhammer their way loose and spill his innards across the barren landscape. Deep desperate breaths and clinging weakly to the rocks failed to ease his shock, at least at first. Slowly his heart slowed down to normal speeds, and for a moment it seemed like all was going to be well once again.

But that was before he remembered, which inevitably followed his uneasy slumber. He was unable to stop the memories once his conscious mind had been awakened, and his entire being was filled with the despairing somber reminders. It did not come as a torrent, but as a creeping gas, like a nerve gas; you could wave your arms or try to hide from the wafts of poison that descended on you, but ultimately you simply could not control the wind. It moved according to wherever the unequal pressures of the air surrounding it beckoned, irrespective of what you wanted or desired. It didn’t matter if it hurt; if the pressures dictated that the wind run you over, the dictation of the wind was going to win over your dictation every single time.

Across the horizon the sun was creeping just above the horizon, bringing with it the new day. Peter whimpered to himself.

His stomach churned uneasily, and a slight wave of lightheadedness came over him. Belatedly the realization came that he was started to become dehydrated. He wasn’t sure what the exact signs would be; he was supposed to be a dragon and all, but wasn’t sure they were quite just cold blooded like any old lizard or crocodile; he probably was to some degree but...

The churning stopped, but his stomach only settled into a stalemate, feeling decidedly ill at ease. Only now that Peter thought about it did he realize how thirsty he was, his throat dry and parched. Looking around he tried to spot any nearby sign of water, but quickly realized he was no more likely to find it now than he had the previous day. These wastes were barren, barren as the surface of Mars with respect to water and vegetation. Just rocks and dust, that was all there was. If he didn’t find water soon, that might be the end. He had to find some.

Then his otherwise insurmountable instinct for survival was eroded, as the thought came of what would happen then? Quite simply, why bother?

Why bother with any of it? What was left? What did he have to look forward to? He had, once upon a time, looked at those who contemplated such thoughts with disdain. How could they possibly just give up on everything? He had never considered himself being in a position where he was considering just that. He always thought he would be stronger than that. He was never the type to simply give in... and give up.

It was different when everything that gave your existence momentum vanished. It was different when all that kept you going, kept you wishing, kept you dreaming stopped, and as horrible and incomprehensible as it seemed before to just let yourself fall and do nothing to stop it, to let it happen, let it overtake you... it made a dark sort of sense. He remembered the day when he learned that his cousin had shot herself in the head, the shock that came when he learned that someone he had looked up to as someone strong had ended themselves so pathetically. Denise had been a damn Air Force pilot, and yet... and yet she had taken the “weaker” path.

Nodding to himself, Peter realized despairingly that there were a lot of things that he had misjudged.

However, there was nothing immediately around him that could be of use. He considered looking around for something that could make it work, but then came the subtle realization that he didn’t need anything. Why did people always look for “external” ways of ending themselves? He had two hands, two strong hands, it might be added. Wasn’t that more than enough to just snap his own neck?

Briefly Peter considered dumbfounded why people hung to such “warm” notions as going out peacefully. If he was going to kill himself, he might as well do it in the simplest, most direct and sure manner possible. If he wanted to kill himself, there was no need to deal with pointless frivolities; he’d be dead soon enough so there was no real reason to complain about it.

Experimentally he raised his hands to his neck while redistributing his weight to his hindquarters. It was simple now; all he had to do was push, and it would be done. He started just that, pushing his neck clockwise. It wasn’t bad at first, and it seemed like this was just going to be a one-two punch.

Then came the subtle realization that he wouldn’t be around to be satisfied with the results. It was a small thought, but it reverberated through his mind and his resolve seemed to falter. He ignored it; it’s nothing he told himself. He pushed further. His neck started straining and screaming in pain, but he shook his head, trying to control his increasingly rapid breathing. He was going to do this; there was no point in letter his base survival instincts dictate to him what he was going to do.

Those “base” instincts started shrieking like banshees, however, as the pain increased he found his entire body trembling. Damnit, this is ridiculous. It’s the simplest way to go, I don’t have to pander to any stupid notions of outmoded survival. But the banshees’ shrills stopped him, trapping him in a wretched stalemate between his need to end his pathetic life and his infantile desires for security and comfort. It shouldn’t have mattered if it was uncomfortable, if he wanted to do something he should be able to do it! Denise didn’t stop!

Peter’s thoughts were stopped by the sudden recollection. His cousin Denise, his favorite member of his father’s side of the family, always joking and there to look after him whenever the two of them were together. Brave Denise who decided she wanted to become an Air Force pilot. Denise who said she was going to follow through even though she found herself married and pregnant with a son, Denise who made good on that promise.

His cousin Denise who one day on the eve of graduation from the Academy learned that her husband and infant son were both killed in an encounter with a drunk driver. Here she had been, learning to become a combat pilot who would fly over the hostile terrain of other countries, powerless to prevent a bummed out drunk from taking away her family. Peter had always wondered what it felt like to feel as helpless as she must have felt.

He still didn’t. Even with what had happened to him, he couldn’t accuse fate of anything in his own case, he thought ruefully. He was here because of a choice, one on his own part. One had been abandoned by God, the other had had been forsaken because he had sinned.

Peter gulped as his heart sagged into his chest with the realization of just how incredibly fragile it all was. All you had to do was shove one thing out of alignment, and the whole edifice that was called a person’s life could come crashing down. Everything, every hope and dream could just crumble to dust and blow away into oblivion.

His sudden weeping snapped his attention back to reality. He realized he was still holding his neck at an angle, ready to push it to the point of snapping it. Trying to choke back a torrent of tears, he right there at that moment decided that he really didn’t want to go out like this. He’d just find some easier way of doing it. He couldn’t think of any real reason for it, just that he didn’t want it to hurt. His rational mind raged in fury against this decision, demanding to know why that was any answer at all. The refutation was silent, just a quiver of fear that chilled its way through his bones. Seeing nothing better to do, he simply started walking.

Time wore on, and the symptoms of his dehydration worsened. Headaches were coming in and drilling his skull more frequently, and their intensity was steadily growing each time. More time passed by, but it passed more as if in a dream than anything else. With nothing but miles and miles of hellish jagged rock, there wasn’t much to differentiate one place from another and everything blurred together into a long, endless repetitive montage.

He walked until he couldn’t walk anymore, then collapsed and ended up falling asleep, rotted for several hours and started moving again, on and on. He wasn’t sure how long he kept this up, days, a week, but all the while his condition continued to deteriorate. He was probably famished, but the thought of food in his drying husk of a stomach made it contract sourly. It was starting to become hard to keep his balance at all times, as dizziness was setting in and every muscle seemed sluggish. The headaches were throbbing now, and he was having an increasingly hard time keeping focused. Delirium was setting in where he kept believing that his goal was just around the next rise and the clouds were watching and observing him, commenting on his sorry state.

He didn’t care. He couldn’t possibly care. Part of him screamed, demanding how he couldn’t bring himself to care, why he didn’t even want to care. He trudged on.

One moment the wind was whispering something about radioactive toast that was much too soggy, then almost fell off the edge of a huge gorge that opened up right in front of his face. Dumbfounded and confused, Peter blinked and adjusted his eyes upon the sudden apparition. He wasn’t quite sure if the thing was even real, but as he stared longer and harder it seemed that it was quite real and quite in front of him. But more than that, there was a small stream, more than a trickle but less than a flow, of water that was snaking down at the bottom. He stared at it as if it were a billboard written in Japanese, a complete and utter brain fart encapsulating his mind. Here was salvation down there right in front of him but he might as well have been looking at an interesting cloud.

Probably half an hour passed before a small cloud moved right past his view of the sun casting his immediate vicinity into shadow that he realized that it might be a good idea to drink. Of course, part of him demanded to know why he should bother; there was no answer. Slowly but haphazardly Peter slogged his way down the gorge via small outcroppings that littered the side. He could have probably flown but he didn’t have the energy; even what he was doing was leaving him teetering on the brink of collapse. It took the better part of an hour before he reached the bottom, and when he did so he lazily laid himself on the ground and rested his head right in front of the small stream, watching it flow past the edge of his snout almost disinterestedly. Lethargically he stuck his forked tongue out and scooped up a pathetically small amount of the water, only to discover it was horribly bitter. This didn’t matter as much as it would have in other circumstances, so he just rested his head there and let the water flow past his tongue, whipping up small traces of water as it trickled past.

Several hours past. Peter’s lazy sipping at least partially quenched his thirst, though in no way did it do so completely. Some measure of strength slowly returned, however, at least enough to drive away the headaches and delirium. As his body was replenished with the water he so desperately needed, a strange thing happened. He felt... better. Not just better in terms of how his body felt, but that his soul felt like it had been lifted to where it was not quite so low as to face constant danger of crashing on the rocks below.

The water continued to trickle past amid his slow, pondering musings, and by chance he twisted his elongated head “upstream” where the water was coming from. The gorge twisted around a bend; obviously he couldn’t see where the source of the water was. In these God-forsaken wastes, Peter was at a loss to explain where any of it could come from; the most he could think of was that it came from the Garden and seeped underground and came out here. Unless of course there was someplace else here that was not just rock crags and spires, which he doubted.

The other way, downstream, slithered off in a similar fashion, snaking around various twists and turns. He didn’t know why, he just started following the path. In all likelihood, given the nature of this barren hellhole, it probably wouldn’t drain out anywhere at all except a dead end like the Great Salt Lake in Utah, just collecting there and evaporating, never truly going anywhere, just a dead end with salt as far as the eye could see.

Then, a sound. It was very faint, at the edge of hearing; Peter had to strain himself to hear it. It sounded like... rushing, rushing water. Picking his head up, Peter quickened his pace. He wasn’t sure exactly why this got him excited, but it did. Eventually, probably after covering an hour or two, his curious probe bore fruit; rounding a corner in the grey-rocked gorge he turned to see a raging river, coursing its way among another gorge that his intersected; the small flow of water trickling down a series of rocks into the raging current. Edging forward, he saw that the river snaked out of sight in both directions.

The first thought that came to his mind was drowning. He could end up doing just that very easily the way this river was surging, but... he could also implement it voluntarily, here, now. He gingerly crept down the rocks which before as a human would have been enormous boulders, but now were to him barely able to support his weight. Each footstep threatened to shake them loose and send him tumbling, but he managed to keep his balance; he was going to get this over with. He approached the water’s edge.

An irrepressible quiver resonated through his body, his claws clicking and twitching against the rocks. Trying to ignore it, Peter edged his snout and touched the water. His teeth clenched like missile silo doors and he quaked, practically undergoing a seizure. This was it. This would end it. Attempting to keep ahead of his base animal instincts for survival, he thrust his neck forward and plunged his whole head under the rushing frothing surface.

Ice cold terror seized him and locked his muscles and joints into place. What the Hell do you have to fear? his rational side demanded. He had looked over his whole life, seen how it all stood and seen how there was nothing, nothing but lies and betrayal. There was nothing left to live for, why would he possibly want to live anymore? He had every reason not to keep going. An image of his sister flashed through his mind; he thrust his head deeper.

Now, all he had to do was breathe in. All he had to do was breathe in...

Except that he wasn’t doing it. Fear as cold as the water froze him in place, preventing him from opening his nasal cavities. Goddamnit! *He wasn’t going to give in to this! He was going to let go of his life here and now. Petrified, his lungs refused. *Because I said so!! Do it!! His eyes were closed so hard they wore depressions into his skin. *Do it!!! *

The force of his command was enough, and his nostrils flared open, and water started to gush through...

Panic suddenly sent his body into spasms, and he snapped his head back up to spray the intrusive water out of his lungs. His drastic movement broke his delicate balance, and he tumbled sideways and splashed his huge form into the frothing river.

Attempting to thrust his head back to the surface again, Peter spat out more water and gasped desperately for air, only to realize that the current had him. It was so strong that in a second his head was back under the water, watching as his body tumbled to and fro under the raging river. He fought to keep his head up, but the river raged and shoved him back down violently, attempting to toss him below, a fate he staved only with the most titanic effort.

Adrenaline surged as he tried to push himself up just enough that he could use those wings of his to break free, but they were merely battered and shoved down, preventing any constructive motion. Gasping in panic, he desperately lunged and tried to swim to a rocky outcropping that was speeding toward him, but the current pulled him under again and by the time he fought his way back up it was speeding just as quickly away.

As the current battered and pulled him under, part of him wondered if he was just going to die this way. Maybe he should have been accepting it peacefully. But no, he was still stuck with his goddamn infantile desires!

There was no time to dwell further as he noticed that the current was increasing faster and faster. Straining to get a view in front of him, he saw that the gorge had ended, replaced by horizon. But he was heading out into no sea. In front of him was an impossibly, astronomically huge waterfall speeding over what could only be described as the end of the earth. His desperation increased tenfold as he fought with limbs, wings and tail to fight against the current. “H-he-!” he gagged on the water that rushed into his mouth as he tried to speak. “Hel-help!” he screamed even though no one could hear. “Ples-please God, someone! Help! Help!!” he stained against the roar of the cascading waterfall. Eyes wide and hyperventilating, he cried out again as the water sent him careening over the edge. He couldn’t fly as the water was constantly battering him preventing him from making any solid movements as the ever darkening void below rushed up to meet him.