The End Of The Cloudy Cliff

            The impact produced by the collision of the magma ball with the Cloudy Cliff resulted in an explosion so loud that Pascal’s ears were left with a strong tingling, as if someone had ignited a firecracker right beside his ear. The whole area had become invaded by orange pulsation and Pascal couldn’t see a thing atop the crumbling cliff because he was blinded by the orange radiation. He closed his eyes and held his hands in front of him as a blind man would do if he lost his stick and his disloyal dog ran away, but the ground was trembling way too much. He found himself falling to his knees, with both hands on the rocky ground to prevent himself from tipping from one side or another and roll down to the fiery abyss below. He finally pulled himself back up, closed his eyes because of the painful flash, and walked around to search for the edge of the cliff like a drunken man trying to walk the line. One thing he positively knew was that the cliff was crumbling beneath him, and he needed to jump off in some way or the other before he would fall with the rest of the structure and get buried, or more likely squashed, by the jumbling rocks. He fell back on his four legs and started crawling to what he assumed would be in the direction of one of the cliff’s edges, (there had to be an edge no matter direction), but even with his eyes closed, the light was able to flash through his pupils so he saw orange everywhere nonetheless and it made him develop a nasty headache. He thought about it, but there was just no way to just jump off and start flying away without proper balance first. Not with his current skills anyway.

            As he dragged himself to the nearest edge, the cliff base started crumbling more wildly and suddenly the whole top of the cliff began tilting acutely to one side. Fortunately, Pascal was on the opposite side when it happened, but still, in a brief instant of inaction, he could end up sliding down into the inferno anyways. As he slipped down, uselessly clawing at the ground like a cat getting pulled by its tail, he noticed a large metal part through the orange brilliance from Cloudfire’s ship clasped in a crevice on the ground above him. That was his chance; the only opportunity left for him to survive. He needed to get some sort of boost back up and get hold of that broken wing part. As a last alternative, he gasped out all the air he had left in his lungs and plunged his fingers down in the stone surface, and with superhuman strength -- and crazy amount of adrenaline �" it had made four small finger holes in the rock for him to stay grabbed on to, as if a paw had dug its claws into soft ground. The whole top of the cliff was starting to fall apart into multiple pieces, and Pascal could feel the surface behind him ripping off and falling below. Encouraged by feeling the ground falling down behind him, leaving his legs dawdling in emptiness, he yanked himself up with his arm that was grasped on to the finger holes, and with his other arm he grabbed on to the wing. That did not mean he was safe; it just bought him a little more time for him to miraculously find a way out of this mess. The orange was getting stronger and stronger until Pascal could not even see the wing he was holding onto anymore. The fear caused by his inability to see the rate at which the floor crumbled down at his feet rushed him even more, and without having the time to think, he just pulled himself up the wing part until his foot reached the border of the wing. With the high-pitched scream of a little boy, he pushed his foot off the wing and projected himself off the top of the cliff, right before the wing, followed by the whole cliff’s remains, went scrambling down into the hellfire.

            The jump was so high and scary that he couldn’t help but let out a scream. He tried to fly again but the atrocious, unbearable feeling of falling from so high overwhelmed him and he could only watch as he went down into the trees of the forest below. He fell right on top of a tree, tumbling all the way down like a marble making its way down a pinball machine, but scratching and bumping himself through the branches and leaves all along the way. He finally arrived on the solid dirt ground, on his back, but his breath was cut off and he couldn’t do anything except roll in pain as he grasped for oxygen.

 When he got his breath back, he noticed that the orange flash was weaker, and he could see the whole cliff crumbling down to debris, and forming into lava. Chunks of red hot rocks were falling down from the sky, and small waves of lava were leaking from the destroyed cliff and into the forest, causing the grass, bush, trees and plants to catch on fire as soon as they got touched by the stream. In a minute, the whole forest catching on fire, and most of the ground was covered by steaming lava. Pascal was surrounded by fire, and stripes of lava were coming nearer to swallow him with the rest of the forest. Quickly forgetting his pain, he stood up and flew off as high as he could in the sky to see a map view of the scorching forest beneath him. “Tony…” He said to himself. He looked in every direction to see if his friend was anywhere in the air, having miraculously survived. The only thing he could see were splinters of fire and rocks still being spat out of the now-melted cliff. He then spotted a little shape in the sky a lot farther away. So far away, that he couldn’t even determine anything except that two antennas… arms maybe, were sticking out from it, and grey clouds were starting to surround the figure. He tried to focus on it and go a little closer, but he then got knocked out by a flying rock, and was now plunging back head-first to the ground.

 

***

 

“On second thought, I think I would have preferred a stormy day…” Tony shouted out high up in the sky, with his hands held up in the air. “I said A STORMY DAY! Like it was at the beginning! Come on!” Clouds started to form above him, and they quickly turned grey, covering the whole orange sky.” Rain, godammit!” He continued screaming on the top of his lungs. Drops of rain started falling, but that was far from enough to extinguish a whole forest fire. “More, more, MORE!” He continued while clapping his hands and dancing angrily in the air.

 

***

 

Pascal was reaching closer to the ground, which was now covered with a thin layer of lava, when he slowly regained consciousness, just enough to open his blurry eyes and look at the sky above. “God… saved us… and peed all over the planet…” He muttered, and then fell back in unconsciousness. The sky looked like a big orange waterfall, hammering down at the forest at an immense rate. The forest was getting soaked and all the lava was solidifying and turning ash grey, while what remained of any living plant was dead, withered and all black. Unbelievable amounts of steam formed over the rapids of water and any sort of tenacious flame still standing was getting washed away by the crazy flood of water. 

The sky was now blue again, and no orange was to be seen. Pascal landed from his chute in the dirty flood, following the flow. The water was now grey and brown due to all the ashes, dirt, grass and the burning residue of the forest.

 

***

 

“Whoa, okay now, to bring you back from where you come from!” Tony said as he waved his arms, following the flow of the water down below. He felt like an orchestra conductor. The flood then made its way to a nearby huge, dug up depression close to the forest. Now that he put the water back in its lake, everything was back to order… except that the forest was in a mess, covered with a black steaming rock crust filled with dead, baked animals and fish.

 

“Come on buddy, don’t drown!” He said to himself as he landed on the ground and ran for the lake. He was so exhausted that he ran like a boneless creature that was about to die. When he arrived at the lake, he was burnt out, but he couldn’t give up. He plunged in and searched for Pascal. The water was so dirty that he could barely see in it. He swam forward anyways, desperate but convinced he would manage to find him somehow. He closed his eyes and rubbed them with his hands, hoping it would let him see more clearly. Once he opened his eyes again, to his disbelief, everything underwater became more distinguishable, and the more he looked around, the more his eyes seemed like they were adjusting to the environment. He finally spots Pascal sinking down, farther ahead. But by the time he found him, he perceived that they both had been a long time in the water. He was then terror-stricken with the fear of drowning and was now agitating aimlessly, trying to reach the far top of the lake and get some air. While swimming up, he then realised: Wait a sec; I’m not drowning at all! Can I actually hold my breath that long? Can I hold my breath… forever? With that phrase in his head, he went back to get Pascal, and then quickly headed for the top, still not overly confident about his breathing limits.

When he finally reached the surface, he almost retched when he noticed how filthy the water was. He swam out while dragging Pascal by both arms, and laid him on the sand. They were both incredibly dirty and weakened, and everything around them was wet, so Tony decided to rest a little so things could dry up, including him. The amount of stress in the last maybe… ten minutes or so was just too heavy to brush off and go on. He needed a little pause to think about the radical question: What the f**k is going on? Unfortunately, he didn’t even have time to sit down that Pascal woke up and started to moan in pain.

“Pascal! You’re alright?” Tony asked, worried.

“Hey, Tony…” He said, half-conscious, “You know what?”

“What? What?”

“I can breathe under water.”