Falling constantly into an abyss of black unrecognizable by the human eye; embodying the fear of finding oneself fall to his death prematurely because something is in the way; knowing that no one above in the surface will remember him for good reasons, as he sacrificed his father's legacy with senseless murder sprees and deranged acts of rebellion, against a system that was made to help the weak survive: These are the reasons Alister wishes, knowing how he truly feels now, that he could go back.
He wishes that he could try to see his father's perspective. If he was truly a broken man, then so is the one that birthed him. It would surely not bring him closer to him, especially if he's dead. However, Alister believes that he should have treated his father's disappearance as an opportunity to take a step backwards and understand how it escaladed.
Why do guards, despite seeing him as a prime target and enemy number one of Vancarther, were never ordered to execute him? Why did Nathaniel's grandfather of all people let him hide in the comfort of a decently large home? Why did so many similar doors, familiar opportunities then what his father encountered, were opened to him, regardless of his cruelty?
Instead of following his gut and trying to seek out such understanding, he ran away, cluttered by a mind designed to berate the ingrateful leader, mock & pity the faults of his work, and annihilate the legacy of a man who forgot about him...
In essence, however, Alister's last two decades we're him ruining his own legacy.
All of his father's hard work, precedented by his grandfather and grandmother's hard work. All vaporized. Dad gone missing and son lost in a sea of gore.
The rise & fall of the Crow family.
"ALISTER! CAN YOU HEAR ME!? IT'S ME, RILEY! I WOULD REALLY LIKE IT YOU SWIFTLY SAVED MY LIFE LIKE LAST TIME, PLEASE!" The doctor is screaming in absolute terror, flaunting his arms and legs about like noodles. Obviously, the hunter can't see the scientist's plea because of the dark, but he sure hears his annoying yelling, indicating is not too far from him.
"Jesus christ, doc! Alright, keep making sounds with that big mouth of yours, so I can at the very least hear you!" Retorts Alister!
Alister activates his flashlight and gets ecstatic to see he's nearby a wall, which is perfect. He lands directly on it, relentlessly slowing his speed down thanks to his katana and at the right time, let's go and starts running.
As he runs, his speed increases slowly but surely. Every single step gets progressively stronger, leaving a bigger mark each time. Thunder erects from the pores of his armor as the sprint continues. Alister breathes in and out at every chance he gets, slowly getting into this bizarre state of flow like the first time.
As he focuses on Riley's voice specifically, Alister stops hearing his footsteps and his breathing. He can tell he's at a range to catch the doctor now, so he places as much pressure on both feet, stomping the wall and letting a big crater on it as he jumps in a straight line.
He only sees the doctor for a split second and yet, he's still capable of catching the poor bastard mid-flight.
As if the flow of time had ben abruptly paused, everything seemed slow to him. They land abruptly on the side of the Bottomless Pit, Alister piercing the wall with katana in hand and stopping his trajectory before falling on another long platform. After performing a big landing, the assassin drops Riley on the floor.
Riley's throat hurts from all the noise he's been making to keep himself heard.
"I-I might be in need of water. More water would be nice."
"Yeah… you bet. One last meal wouldn't have hurt too."
"I can agree with you for once..." Suddenly, the current situation hits the doctor like a ton of bricks. His eyes grow wide open, and he starts smashing the ground.
"AH, PUTAIN DE MERDE!"
"Hey hey hey! Relax Riley, the hell's wrong with you!?"
"Did Urth fall with us!?"
"No, the damned frog saved us by blowing strong winds at us, before that weird claw thing captured-!"
Alister doesn't finish his sentence. A massive headache spawns like whiplash. His eyes begin to burn in intense heat. In response to the sudden and disastrous pain, the assassin screams at the top of his lungs, alerting the doctor even more.
"A-Alister! What is happening!?"
"ARGH! HOW SHOULD I FUCKING-NNAGH, FUCK! MY FUCKING EYES!"
His whole body is twitching for a short while, the pain not stopping anytime soon. The doctor gets out of his pockets a pack of pills that are of a distinct purple color with white and grey sparkle patterns.
"Never thought I'd consider giving these to you but keep your mouth open! It's going to sting for a little bit."
"IT'S ALREADY STINGING, ASSHOLE! JUST PUT IT IN!" Begs the assassin.
The scientist shoves the pill into the hunter's mouth. The taste is vile to an amped degree, but Riley forces Alister's mouth shut.
"Do not spit it! Just swallow!"
Between feeling his eyes are about to melt and his pallet wrecked by whatever concoction the scientist dipped into him, the assassin simply breathes in and out before swallowing the pill, on the verge of falling unconscious. He keeps his hands on his eyes for the time being, as the doctor waits by his side for any unwanted symptoms. Alister's mouth still reeks of the disgusting medicine.
"Seriously, the fuck. What did you just put in my mouth, huh!?"
"A pill I've concocted to help shut down extreme pain. Turns out I was able to extract parts of a rat's brain and mix it with a plant called-."
"No, you know what, forget it! Forget that I asked!"
Riley chuckles a bit before getting into serious matters. If it wasn't for Alister's flashlight still working, he wouldn't be able to see where they are. While the hunter recharges his batteries, the doctor takes says flashlight and explore the platform. The scientist is deprived of his watch. It broke during the fall.
They are at checkpoint number 5 754. They have dropped to over four thousand checkpoints in the span of a fall, and somehow survived.
Somehow...
He goes back to the assassin, whose vision is still a bit blurred. For a few moments, Alister is able to see so far up in the Bottomless Pit, it scares him when the vision began to slowly go black once more.
"Great. Just great. I can go as fast as lightening, but I'm risking going blind in the process. Fantastic."
"Alister, I am asking you because of thoughts going through my head, were you almost close to hit your head on anything while falling?"
"...Seriously, I was lost in my thoughts. I didn't."
Riley then paces back and forth before resuming the conversation on a more worried tone.
"This place must be like a game! Something has been rigged from the start! This is absurd!"
"What? Explain."
"The both of us fell for miles!" Shouts the scientist, upset. "We skipped over four thousand checkpoints! we're below the 6000s right now! And NOTHING! Not a debris, not a platform, not a single creature! NOTHING hit us out of the blue or snapped our bodies like a pencil. That is objectively impossible. You said it yourself, you were able to daze off in midair and nothing happened!"
"Yeah… you are correct. That doesn't make any sense." Alister is baffled. He gets up to inspect the checkpoint for himself. This scenario feels like an elaborated joke to the both of them.
"So many people jumped here, and everyone failed. And just because we have shiny powers we survive?" Adds Alister. "It's as if the second we awakened them this whole place became cryptic."
"And deadly. The child is dead by now... That lunatic saved our lives…" Concludes the scientist, a somber look in his eyes.
"Fuck is wrong with you? I bet your whole career the kid isn't dead!" Alister isn't pleased with the pessimistic conversation Riley portrays of the boy.
There is an awkward break in the conversation.
"Well, dead or not, we have to move forward Alister." States the scientist.
"Not just move. We gotta make sure his sacrifice isn't in vain. I've failed my father, but I won't fail him now. Since my vision is still shit, you'll have to lead the way again doc."
"Works for me."
The only two members of the expedition alive, as far as they are concerned, safe in the hands of the Bottomless Pit, walking towards what is hopefully the end.