The darkness seemed to be pressing in on him, suffocating almost, and applying pressure to every part of his body. He thought he could feel pain but it was hard to focus on it and the numbness seemed to be overwhelming him. In the distance there was a faint rumble and an even fainter tinkle, similar to the sound of stone against metal. He decided, after some time given that he appeared to be having increasing trouble collecting his thoughts, was a very strange sound in this crushing dark void. He could feel the darkness clogging up his thoughts now; almost as if it was mired in tar as he couldn’t think anymore. Then there was nothing. Nothing but broken memories.
He was falling through something not exactly darkness, not exactly light. It seemed to flash in a multitude of colours, some he knew and some he honestly didn’t; they looked like something beyond the spectrum. Something he could understand but could never explain. They all seemed to rush past him at incredible speeds yet also appeared to slow to a standstill. At first he wasn’t sure if he was moving or the chaos around him, or neither. But when his body began crashing through various broken stones and fractured buildings that seemed to litter this realm he decided that it really didn’t matter, either way his location was changing.
He could think clearly now, or thought he could, but either way his thought process was being interrupted every few moments by a chunk of stone shattering on some part of him and sending him spinning off to one side. He wasn't sure why, but it really didn't matter since regardless it still seemed to hurt more when he turned to meet the impact rather than accepting it. His mind was now awash with confusion and his thoughts becoming scrambled as he tried to focus on what was happening.
Behind his eyes and all around him vague images flashed across his memory; a boy with a slender friend made of glowing green, a dancing jester of ill intent and a falling child... no, was she a falling princess? He remembered a building collapsing around them. He looked at his hands, empty now and without the shield he felt there in his thoughts. He could see them falling from the sky, voices crying out, screaming and the feeling of noble acts and the world crumbling.
He collapsed to his knees, the void holding him still for a moment; and reality becoming all the more terrifying for this sudden stillness in the endless chaos. His ears rang with an endless howl of noise, nothing he could make out but the pain it brought with it was enough to make the fibre of his being ache. The space around him began to buzz and shake as his body trembled and shivered with the first signs of pain
The blackness snapped back into focus, the numbness of his mind draining from him in a heartbeat, to be replaced with roaring agony. He growled as his memory rekindled itself, the weight bearing down on him and the darkness engulfing him resolving into the remains of several buildings piled upon his armoured form. Grimacing beneath his helm he shoved his hands down, the fingers of his gauntlets digging into the hard earth. The rumbling sound of the brickwork rolling off his body grew as they ricocheted of his shoulders and back, causing him to move to better withstand the slow avalanche of shale. The light of the surroundings came into focus for a moment as he moved aside a crumbled down wall with his shoulder and almost lost sight of it against as several bits of rumble almost buried him again.
After several long moments he managed to wrench himself free and scramble out of the almost cairn-esque pile of stones, at the thought of that image he could almost feel a faint tremble through his limbs. As he crested the stones unsteadily he lost his footing and crashed down to the base of the hill his landing appeared to have dented. He sighed to himself and rested for a while in the hope that his limbs would stop aching and causing him to shake. At last he was able to examine his surroundings which appeared to be a slightly mountainous region, cold and slightly barren but also covered in small areas of woodland with various highland streams. He moved over towards some of the nearby kindling by a fallen tree, old and almost white wood but still kindling, and dragged it back towards the roughly hewn trench that his collapse had left and began to light a small fire with which to add a little warmth to the moon-lit mountain.