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Warm Up 15.1 | Crashlanded

A time before madness...

Ethan willed himself awake.

No melodrama here, nor exaggeration for the current situation was far from simple. He had been laying down on the snow for minutes, worried that he had succumbed to a permanent slumber. He willed himself awake. He willed himself to breathe.

Warmth rushed through his veins, senses regaining themselves. The whiteness of the light now saw the finer details of warring skies. Ships of various designs fought within the atmosphere, and the faded makes of larger ships further beyond. Explosions dotted around them, and at times the ships themselves resulted in it, scattering debris that fell down onto this world.

Ethan could smell the ashes, the charred corpses beside, and the soundwave of the aforementioned detonations followed, shuddering the snow that surrounded him. He sat up and folded his wings, the griffin needed to find something to hide them because of its mild inconvenience. Yet it had been what narrowly saved his life, preventing him from a quick demise, or the inability to wake himself.

After his wings hugged his back, he saw the peak of a mountain that impaled the very vessel he was on, and that its engines had been blown off. He remembered the voyage, the red emergency lights after the power had failed, and the screams within the encased metal that drowned on the alerts and the vibrations of cannon fire reverbing off of it.

The large craft had an angular rectangular shape, embodied the idea of efficiency and simplicity, and it reflected its insides. It looked like a fry that pronged itself on one tip of a fork, and he tried not to laugh at the thought because it was inappropriate. Especially as there were burnt bodies, others maimed, and the smell of dead animal meat going into the nostrils on his beak as it was surrounded by the frost.

Ethan glanced upward at one of the makeshift camps set up just below the bow of the ship. There was a small orange lamp, and a survivor underneath it, a cheetah, waving at him to come over. Half her face was bandaged, with a red mark on where her missing ear was. And so he went, patting himself down with exposed talons, wondering if anything of him was missing despite landing almost well; there were no internal aches, only the cold on his fur and feathers with a tattered emergency spacesuit. The helmet it came with was dislodged during his descent, and through the clouds he went.

He hadn't been aware of how close he was to the ground or a mountain even. Likewise, in this dazed state, he hadn't been aware of how close he was to the camp already, or that the cheetah had been calling to him.

"Dude, are you okay?" She said. "Dude?" Snapped her fingers after.

It certainly caught his attention, and he nodded, "Sorry."

"You really alright?" She extended her hand just before the decline, reeling him in when he accepted it. "Name's Pi." She was a mechanic, based off her uniform, with a thick blanket draped around her like a cloak. Her other arm was slung on makeshift cloth underneath it.

"Ethan, and I'm kinda alright. A bit dazed, and chilly." He went over and saw about five people laid in makeshift cots- beds from the dormitory that some were intact, while the rest had been combined unevenly with shredded ones. Several doctors and nurses attended to them, survivors from the ship's sick bay. They had recruited the assistance of some of the passengers who were in charge of carrying meager supplies, or logging on their behalf. They also blanketed those who had little to no fur, while most huddled themselves to heat lamps that often flickered, failed, and needed to be restarted. That foul stench still lingered.

"We can't spare much of the blankets right now, we're still getting people out of the 'Dove'," she referred to the ship, glancing at the breach.

Ethan saw the large opening of the bay doors, not too far off from the impalement. Inside there were activated lamps, a few container fires even, and different able-bodied animen going to and fro fetching supplies for the people down here. "I'll be fine," Ethan assured her, spreading his wings to cover himself, turning to her. "Maybe I could help. My wings are fine."

She said, "We already sent a few runners to get some help. Though, Ethan, maybe you could go around spotting other survivors for us."

"That I could do." He said, already turned around, waiting to spread his wings. "What if it's someone who needs serious medical attention? Who do I call for that?"

Pi revealed a walkie talkie latched onto her belt, "Just come to me immediately if it's someone who needs a stretcher, or if there's plenty seeking help. I'd spare ya one if we had any." She gestured around, emphasizing their makeshift habitat.

Ethan, like them, was a volunteer medical responder. He stepped aside, away from anyone as he spread his wings. He flexed them, making sure it hadn't froze or started frosting either. They felt like extended arms, stretched in the cold, with their spines covered in fur. He took off in two flaps and scoured the area for those in need.

And from the looks of things up there, a lot of people would be in need. He could see the plumes of smoke above the mountain's foggy peak, peppering the horizon as the wind carried black smoke to create an ominous cloud formation. When the wind didn't blow, he could hear the explosions before the salvo which turned out to have been the next.

Ethan clenched his fist and patrolled the area, with the dumb temptation of veering off and doing what he had intended to do. But if not for being a far more obvious target in hazardous airspace, he would forsake the very people that got him here in the first place. And he knew better than to do what the last few years a divine had subjected him into.

Never again. With all things considered, this warzone in a world that was a deity's blindspot? A fate better than the punishment of becoming 'Unknown'.