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She sunk down into the earth
It's a strange sensation, not completely unfamiliar, as Sakis legs give out under her and her vision blurs. Everything around her shoots up. For a moment the magical girl believed herself to have collapsed, already reprimanding herself for not noticing the signs before, for having ignored her sore legs, belittling the headache she had a few hours prior, exceeding her tightly set limits once again for the sake of duty. But this time she didn't end up crumbled down on the floor, but below it. Far far below it, watching herself phase through it and fall down into the void
Of course she was confused by it. The earth isn't hollow, the ground not paper thin, but as she falls more and more, her descend only communicated by the textured grey plane she once stood on distancing itself, Saki had to come to the conclusion that the emptiness beneath the earths crust is very much real and how she might be trapped in there
That's an awful conclusion to come to
She wished she could hurl out the bad feeling, a wish that might come true if vertigo of her continued descend gets to her
Because she's still falling. It's been a minute, yet nothing happened beyond that. Maybe this place goes for all eternity? Maybe she is falling through this supposed hollow chasm inside of the earth and after a long time she'll land on the underside of the Atlantic ocean. As if she has any idea! It could be that she'll land in a different universe, land on a different planet, land into a refreshing pool just deep enough to break her fall, although she did hear that water will be as dense as stone if you fall into it from a greater height... She could see herself having grown old before hitting the ground, using the time of her fall to think of great many things. She could see herself alone in a void waiting for her death
... Saki's taking this too lightly, she's letting herself drop too far. The ground she once stood on now barely visible as a subtle off-black color in the nothingness. She should get back up, lifting her hand into the air and concentrating
It's a trick Saki used quite some times in battle. A quick way to get her wand back into her hand, ready to send out a blast of starshine and get herself out of any pinch. The magical girl prefers only using her abilities in a pinch though
Maybe it's because of some limits of the coda, the fragments of feelings and hope used to power them, but whenever Saki used her wand she had to go through waves of discomfort. It's a sensation hard to describe. A numbness traveling up from her fingertips to her upper arm, to her shoulder blades, her back and her legs. Her skin feeling prickly as goosebumps form. It's a strong feeling of wrongness, of something happening that shouldn't. It's the feeling that comes when using magic in a world which had none of it before
It's something Saki had to accept in exchange for these powers. Being able to save people came at a cost, just like everything else. Not like she had that many complaints. No matter how deep that wrongness seeped into her bones, no matter how long it lingers, seeing her light illuminate the city, seeing the villains retreat, seeing her teammates breathe out in relief
It was worth it
So...
focusing on that feeling, the numbness and discomfort, she watches as something in her palm glows and-
Explodes...
Like a sad little firework
Well that was her only way out. Her only option besides waiting and wondering about the ground she's about to smash into...
Will it hurt? Will her impact be gory? An explosion of guts, broken bones piercing soft tissue? Will the surface she lands on be soft enough to keep that from happening?
Will there even be something at the end of this pit?
There were stars...
Saki didn't know why she hadn't notice them before. Like the sky above the ground she once stood on, stars sparkle. They glowed all around her. Even the pit where she was falling into had stars, making the idea of landing on anything less likely. Maybe she's in space? Space being inside of the earth didn't make sense though... falling through the ground didn't as well
Maybe she got teleported? Why was she able to breath then? Well she could, so Saki shouldn't bother thinking about it
The stars though...
They were pretty. Given her situation she would have hoped to see them glimmer as if she were in one of those places with close to no light pollution. Honami told her about it once. How the milky way would be more visible and ten times the amount of stars dot the sky. Here it's the same sky she's used to. Pretty and impressive for a bustling city, but nothing out of the ordinary. Saki didn't understand why...
That's nothing new
Will Honami wonder about what happened to her?
Does Ichika?
They were together before it happened. Ichika saw her fall through the ground...
Tsukasa probably will start worrying if he heard about her disappearance. Her teammates, Haruka and Emu also. Luka might try to find a way to get her back
How?
Does Luka know a spell that could help her?
Saki hopes so...
At least it's not cold here. She imagines falling for so long in any other environment would've been cold because of the strong breeze. Or wouldn't it be hot? How long has she been falling? Just enough to be akin to falling from the upper layer of earths atmosphere to the ground?
...and far far beneath it
It's a bit stupid that she's not experiencing friction then. As if Saki is part of a hypothetical physics experiment. And someone had a miscalculation, so she fell through the earth
Is the sky getting brighter?
The stars are dimming and somewhere light pushes itself through a little pinhole-opening inside of the earths core. After more time falling, the pinhole widens and turns into a glowing orb of light that shines towards Saki. The sky surrounding her turning into a bright orange...
It's sunrise
Sunrise?
She fell the entire night?
And now it's day in earths core. Or space. Space wouldn't have an orange sky.... the center of the earth wouldn't as well
Now everyone's definitely worried. Did Ichika tell them? They were rather far away from the others...
She always gets lured away from the main action. Haruka always chastises her over that behavior. Saki just keeps on jeopardizing their missions
Why would Ichika tell them? They are enemies
How could she forget?
Maybe this is a trap then? An illusion to keep her away from battle?
It would make more sense. Falling through the earth into a chasm where there is air to breathe and the stars shine and the sun shines and no friction exists can only be an illusion
Would they do this to her? Don't they know... or did they because they knew...
There are clouds in the sky. Far far away, always distant above and below her...
Maybe she isn't even falling. Maybe she's stuck in the middle of this chasm. If this is the center of the earth, it's a gravitational force making her continuously fall up and down, up and down, forever. If this is space, it would be another thing that didn't make sense. If her friends did this to her...
Maybe it's her own fault. Maybe she's actually collapsed on the floor and her brain is hallucinating. This is dreamlike. Dreams can seem to go on for a long time. She overexerted herself again and now she is paying the price
The sky is blue now. A radiant azure only obscured by a few clouds. It's the summer sky. Cicadas are probably screaming out there
She wants to hear them. Hear something. Anything besides the whooshing of the wind and her meandering thoughts
It's boring
It's really boring. Maybe if she slept she'll be able to skip to the good part, which will either be the end of her hallucination, her reaching the outest part of space or something breaking. Can be the illusion or her bones. Any would be good...
Saki won't be able to though. It's so loud here, she still feels dizzy from the constant falling, her body still remaining alert telling her to wait and wait and wait
Every time she closes her eyes for longer than a blink the fear intensifies. The longest she could keep them shut for, was 15 seconds, her heart racing far ahead of her body after doing so
It's annoying
The human body can get used to the most extreme scenarios, the G-forces inside of a jet, the pressure 250 meters below water, zero gravity in space
but as long as she sees her hair and ribbons billowing and can sense her body falling towards something she'll have to witness every second and watch them get wrung out of her
Why is this happening?
Why is something like this happening to her?
First the hospital, now this
What did she do to earn this?
Did she do something incredibly evil in her past life? Did that one vase she broke as a toddler curse her for all eternity? Was she born under the wrong stars?
Why is she falling? What made the universe pick her out of billions, to spite everything humanity has deemed to be normal?
Why does it keep on trying to one-up itself in the ways to screw her over?
She wants to throw up. She wants her body to finally get this over with. She wants to finally be too exhausted to be awake and soon too exhausted to be alive. There's no ground for her to hit and even if she returns, Saki'll maybe enjoy a day of normalcy before it gets torn away from her again
What even expects her at the other side?
Fighting against her friends?
Fighting against her friends, to beat herself back into their lives? Ignoring what they want, for the sake of her wish?
They don't even want her to return
Of course they don't
inhale
exhale
Saki doesn't want to disappoint the other heroes. They probably are worried sick for her... She shouldn't think these things
She should wish for things to get better and wait
A cloud that shouldn't be there covers the sun that shouldn't be there. She kept on falling
It's pretty
Saki hopes the others see the same thing