mars is a wasteland

*Halloran* · (This post was last modified: 08-18-2016, 02:25 PM by Halloran.)

HELL IS EMPTY, ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE The sun painted the eastern sky in a deep, pale light. It bled into the indigo dome, obliterating the stars from sight. The night's chilly, desert air seemed to hit a vacuum as it left little by precious little. More light, more heat. But none of that seemed bothered the figure sitting amongst an outcropping of redrock boulders. The perch was half buried, the sand brushing along the flatter areas of stone as a light breeze picked the bits and ushered them into movement. His tail swept to and fro in a lazy, half-conscious manner; fanning the sand from behind him in a soothing movement. His entire stature screamed poise; conditioned and pounded in his daily regiment from the get go. But his eyes, stormy and serious, remained impassive as an ocean's murky depths. It seemed he'd been pondering the distance, that the thought of a could-be future neither enticed him, nor deterred him; that perhaps it would have been better to die. He still felt hunted, watched, paranoid. But all of those emotions, no matter how troublesome or alarming, were typical in his day to day routine. When life had decided it would turn itself upside down, when it imploded in a nightmare of cries, terror, and grief, Halloran had become...this thing he no longer recognized.

You left, like you said you would.
All they had to do was ask, afterall.
It had been simple.
Easy.
A relief.
And, yet, regret laced every cell of his heart.

Removed and plagued by a fog he can't seem to rid from his mind, he forgets how long he's been sitting here in this littered landscape. That slight breeze, feeling more like a phantom tug at the fur around the base of his ears, becomes irritating; tickling the fine hairs and making them twitch as he watches the soon to be sweltering desert and all its wallowing waste. He'd sat there, drawn up, shoulders hunched a little in order to fend off the exhaustion that begged him to slouch, bleeding from various wounds he'd acquired in the past few days; a band of rogues not far from this larger territory. A bite on the left side of his neck, a tear in his left shoulder, the ear a little torn on that side as well, and now this lovely specimen screaming pain from his right paw. So out of sorts, was he, that he hadn't even noticed the twinge as he walked until it had become unbearable to travel any further. For a place that was to begin this new chapter in his life, it really was quite awful. Though, he supposes, eyeing the glass embedded in his paw with disinterest, how the blood welled around the shard, that there was a certain beauty to dying here. For that was what he was surely doing: dying. He knew too much of survival and the unkindness of life to think he was doing anything else. There was a certain delirium, a lost account of the time, the place...how the hell I got here.

The melancholy he had nursed since departing from the only way of life he'd ever known, for regrets he couldn't rid himself of, doesn't pin him down and hold him captive. Looking at him, one can sense of piece or two of him is missing; that there is something off about the focus of his gaze. He wonders, given the apparent scents around the place, his nose twitching, brain just barely processing on instinct, if anyone frequents this miserable stretch of land. The summer was going to be a hot one, and not for the first time, Halloran, desperate to see the faces he left behind, steels himself in looking back. It'll do him no good. No good at all. He turns his head down, bending and bringing his bleeding paw up, to gnaw at the glass embedded there; to get it out before he's too tired to do so.

His left leg wobbles a little, the muscles fatigued from travel and wear; his bleeding shoulder protesting as he forces it to take his weight in order to get the glass out. A fine mess you've gotten yourself into. Finding a place to rest wasn't a bad idea either, but the notion rattled around in his head; aimless and indifferent. He deserved his wounds, the state he was in because of his carelessness, his lonesomeness...his failures...he deserved whatever was dealt to him for what he's done. The glass gives a little, sliding through his skin, and a wince pinches the corners of his eyes, makes him drag in a rough breath as he spits out what blood has accumulated on his tongue. As he sits there, the sun rising higher, the growing heat warming the land, he continues to try and pick the glass out of his paw, and wonders if he'll just have to limp his way out of this place towards the horizon...

"speak"

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