***
{Inside The Projection}
“Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven… Six…”
A countdown echoed in his mind, one that he grew too familiar with.
“Five… Four… Three… Two—”
Like before, Malik didn’t finish and sucked in a sharp breath, biting down hard, refusing to make a sound.
But unlike last time, he had succeeded.
He didn’t offer a scream to the first layer’s warm welcome, not even a whimper.
Malik took it all, every ounce of pain and pressure—his eyes blown wide, staring at absolutely nothing.
Then, just like that, he flipped midair and faced the endless green below, repeating the cycle.
And right on cue, there he was—Sinbad, flailing around.
In what felt like a blink, the kid was back in his arms, deadweight as usual.
‘Third time’s the charm, right?’
He would’ve liked that to be the truth, but he knew—
‘No… focus!’
Shaking his head, he ignored his hammering heart and his ragged breath, trying to think, calculate, and come up with a way to survive.
The river was a no-go; even the shallower parts of it had monsters that could devour them with ease.
Landing on the ground was the only way out of this mess, his only option.
But the real question was… how?
Just how could he go about pulling it off?
Well, there was only one way to figure that out—trial and error.
Dying. A whole lot of dying.
Right, his life was officially a tool now.
It had lost its essence, becoming a means to an end.
Surprisingly enough, that thought didn’t bother him as much as it probably should’ve.
Perhaps it was because he was using it for good, to save someone other than himself.
Or perhaps his brain just didn’t have the time to fully unpack the horror of what that actually meant.
If Malik was asked, he’d surely claim both.
Because… all the heavy implications? Yeah, that was flying way over his head right now.
None of it mattered to him.
Why bother sweating the details when the only thing that was crystal clear was this:
His deaths? Oh, they were going to be ugly. Real ugly.
Now, he had to figure out something—anything—to soften the landing or at least slow him down when he got close to the ground.
His first ‘genius’ idea? Spot an Aether pocket just above the surface, use it to shoot himself up a bit, and then drop down.
Not exactly graceful and quite a bit harsher than he would’ve liked, but hey, desperate times, right?
So, he went for it.
Or, well… tried to.
Turns out, there weren’t any Aether pockets close to the ground.
“Fuck me…”
SPLAT!
Malik died.
Blink.
The fourth attempt actually started off kind of promising.
Malik found a pocket near the ground.
Progress?
No, unfortunately…
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
His scream tore through the air as the pocket blasted him out, his arms barely holding onto the kids for dear life.
The impact felt like getting hit with a truckload of TNT all going off at once.
His teeth rattled so hard it was a mystery how he didn’t bite clean through his tongue.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuu—!”
He was sent spinning—wildly, uncontrollably—rocketing high into the air.
Way too high for whatever half-baked plan he’d cooked up to even consider working.
Rather, he quickly realized that there was no chance he’d survive the landing.
His vision blurred, the edges darkening like someone dimmed the lights.
‘Fuck…’
Everything went black for half a second.
‘…Not again.’
Malik gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stay conscious, to fight through the dizziness.
He had to stop spinning, had to get control, had to—
Yet that was impossible.
The force was so strong that it sent him toward the ground like a magnet.
He couldn’t correct it. He couldn’t—
SPLAT!
Blink.
Malik was falling. Again.
This time, he had a better idea of where to go, and it certainly wasn’t going to be the same path as the last one.
‘No more surprises.’
He tightened his grip on Huda and Sinbad, eyes scanning frantically for any other Aether pocket below.
One after the other, he flew, keeping himself above ground much longer than before, trying to map out the best path even though his body felt like it was being torn apart with every transition.
But that didn’t last for long.
One pocket, even bigger than the one that last killed him, had swallowed him whole and spat him out directly into the ground, ending his life before the pain could even hit.
Splat!
Blink.
Attempt number six lasted longer than any before it.
Malik managed to keep himself just a bit higher in the air to avoid any surprise “you’re-dead” pockets waiting to end his life.
But it turns out… that was a huge mistake. Literally in a sense.
Being in the sky for that long had attracted its owner… its Sultan.
A collosi bird with claws the size of elephants and a beak that looked like it could snap a tree in half like a toothpick.
‘What the actual fuck?!’
Every flap of its enormous brown-feathered wings sent crushing gusts of wind that blasted him back like he was a paper airplane.
His momentum was gone, alongside his hope for surviving that attempt.
He was sent spiraling out of control, plummeting toward the ground with nothing to slow him down.
When he hit the dirt, it wasn’t just a splat; it was like a thousand tons of rock decided to pile-drive him into the earth.
Blink.
“Not again, not again, not again.”
Malik repeated two words again and again like a mantra.
His teeth ground together, desperate, absolutely desperate, to make this attempt count.
Ignoring his building plan, he turned to the river below.
The surface shimmered, calling for him, tempting him almost.
And damn it, he was tempted.
Every death had left scars he couldn’t even begin to process.
Even the ‘painless’ ones had chipped away at something deep inside.
He couldn’t take it anymore. He needed this to end—one way or another.
The next Aether pocket yanked him sideways, throwing him with that same brutal force.
But this time, instead of letting it have its way, Malik fought back.
The pull dragged him downward instead of forward, and for a second, he panicked.
His body twisted violently midair, his muscles screaming in protest as he tried to angle them just right.
‘C’MON! C’MON!’
He had them lined up—he had them—
SPLASH!