The ground crumbled beneath him.
He did not know how.
One moment, he was walking—dragging his small body.
The next, the earth had simply given way.
The ice cracked like shattered glass, and before he could react, he was falling.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
His tiny limbs flailed, reaching for something—anything—but there was nothing.
Only the endless drop.
And then—
Impact.
His body hit something hard.
A jagged rock.
Then another.
Then another.
Each one broke him.
His legs. His ribs. His spine.
The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt before.
It did not come all at once.
It came in waves, in bursts—shattering him piece by piece as he tumbled deeper, deeper, deeper.
Until, finally—
He stopped.
.
For a long time, there was nothing.
No movement. No sound.
Just pain.
His body was twisted, his bones shattered, his flesh torn open in ways it never had been before.
If he were anything else, he would have died instantly.
But he was not anything else.
