Close your eyes...

What kind of day was it when a girl couldn't even trust her own inner-voice? A bad day, that's what. The kind of day where the laws of physics decided to unexpectedly change, the kind of day where the earth literally opened up under your feet and swallowed you whole. A low rumble and sudden, violet tremor had been the only warning and, before she knew what was going on, the ground splintered under her paws with a crack fire sound and she was falling. The light faded quickly in a haze of swirling dust and black depths. Up was down was left was right. There were small reprieves, claws catching on jagged surfaces. She would get a moment of balance, find her paws, and then that, too, would fall out from under her. The whole ordeal had been quick, but seemed to last forever until she finally fell hard once more and everything went still.

Suomi stood stock still, weary as she stared blindly into the all-consuming darkness. Her chest was heaving almost painfully, dust and dirt swooshing in through her nostrils until she erupted into a coughing fit. With one last, solid hack, her throat was left dry, but clear of debris, and she forced herself to breath shallowly as she felt the dust around her begin to clear.

Looking around proved to be an exercise in futility, as it was darker than a starless sky. It was just no use. She couldn't see anything, not even a small glimmer of light. Close your eyes, stupid. This time, she listened to herself... begrudgingly. Funny... Panic, it was such a strange thing. You fall into a black hole, no idea what was happening, and you panic because you can't see. So, you close your eyes. Suddenly, the fact that you can't see... it doesn't seem to matter any more. Because your eyes are closed, you're not supposed to see now. Everything's alright; it's okay.

Logic...

Maybe it wasn't perfect logic, but it seemed to suit the moment. Thank you, inner me. No problem, stupid me. She could be childish at times, even with herself, and others downright bitchy. At least some part of her was rational, though, even after all that crazy. With her eyes close, Sue simply listened, trusting her ears when her eyes were rendered useless. She'd never needed to do this before. Of course, she had done it, as a training exercise, but she had never needed to. Not before now. So... to put it truly to the test...

Stillness. At first their was nothing, like the whole damn world was holding its breath. But, to wait, she could just hear a faint whistle in the distance, the sound of wind splitting off a sharp edge. Here a small clatter, there a sharp clack. The world hadn't dissolved... It was just dark, hidden.

Suomi gave her coat a brisk shake, feeling the dirt sift through her fur as she loosened it into the air. The was a hiss as the debris fell to the hard ground at her feet, then another stillness, and she took a moment to feel. Just feel. And it didn't feel good. Those ribs, the ones she'd cracked a few months ago, they just might be again. She felt bruised and stiff, rather beaten by her rough passage into the abyss, but at least she wasn't dead and nothing seemed to be too broken to function. Small miracles, at the very least.

The girl took a few short steps toward the distant whistling, figuring that where there was wind, there would be a way out. With the air around her so still, she obviously had quite a ways to go before she could even think of the word "out". Until then, careful. Be cautious. Be safe. Pah! Safe... Suomi, in bitter darkness, surrounded by God knows what... "Safe" was sort of laughable at this point. But, if she could survive a plummet into the bowels of the earth, a blind walk toward some distant goal didn't seem too bad.

Somewhere off in the nothingness ahead, something clacked and clattered, falling and tumbling and falling again. The sound stopped and so did Suomi’s paws, and she just listened for a moment. Very feint, the was a final tap and shudder as object came to a halt... somewhere far below, somewhere in another deep, dark hole. Somewhere she didn’t want to end up herself. She needed to steer clear of that hole. Problem was, there was no telling how wide it was or which way it ran. “Unsettling” was a little bit of an understatement if she had to describe that bit of information, but she resumed her walk anyway. Sitting still, just standing there in the darkness, wasn’t going to get her anything or anywhere. She had no clue where she was and, honestly, she had her doubts about whether or not someone might come exploring some brand new hole into the center of the earth. No, she was on her own. If she wanted to get out, she was going to have to find out. All she could do was step lightly, make sure her paws had a place to land before settling any weight on them.

She did just that, her gait loose, but short, as she followed the quiet noise of the distant wind like some unseen beacon of hope. Eventually, she came nose to surface with some sort of barrier, a rough rock wall, and pressed her side to it for guidance as she continued onward. The sharp cry of the wind slowly grew more distinct with every few steps, but it, she suddenly realized, it wasn’t the only sound she was hearing anymore. Suomi paused for a moment, straining her ears against the strange gurgling that came from behind, jumping a bit when ice-cold water came rushing around her paws. Well... that could be... horrible. It was freezing, as it should be she supposed. After all, it was winter. But it was thick, wrought with stones and dirt, no doubt a dirty brown if she could see it. But what bothered her most was the fact that water like this... Sometimes it moved things larger than stones. Last thing she needed was the be hit from behind by some boulder or log or whatever else had found its way down here.

Sue picked up her pace, weighing the odds of being smacked by floating debris and/or carelessly falling into a hole, and was just about praying she could find some stream of wind or break of light on her closed lids to lead her out. She wasn’t really the praying type, but this was turning out to be a less and less favorable circumstance by the minute.

Just when she was beginning to feel a panic creeping back into her chest, a soft tickle of her whiskers and chill of her nose broke the staleness of the air. She was getting... closer. Suomi opened her eyes to the darkness, not much better than before, but there was a hint of wet glimmer here and there that told her somewhere ahead was light. Somewhere, there was a source to bounce off all these glassy surfaces, and that was hope. Follow the wind, toward the source of light, out. Freedom. She could have it. She would have it.

The ground beneath her paws was a dull, shimmering road of dancing water and, with that, she could confidently surmise that the path ahead was reasonably free of holes to have such an unbroken flow. She took off at a lope, adjusting with every paw-to-watery surface contact for the unfamiliar terrain. She could care less about the noise she was making as the thick water splashed and sloshed around her paws, kicking up to drench her underside. She was only thinking, out. I’m gonna get out. Her surrounding were slowly illuminating, the vague shape of the newly birthed cavern becoming more distinguishable as she chased the light and the wind. The air was screaming up ahead, somewhere unseen, and she was so close!

And so careless.

She had outrun the water, her pads all but silent as she sprinted now on dry ground with just the sound of droplets chasing her as the water shed from her underside. But that didn’t last long. With her eyes fixed on the light bending around the rock wall to her right, she hadn’t seen it - the large form moving cautiously through the darkness. She hit it and she hit it hard, bouncing off the furry beast and tumbling off a bit ungracefully. With her last painful roll, Suomi managed to pop back up to her paws, her fur on-end with the last of her nerves finally severed. She had lost herself in the fall, lost her direction, with only a vague sense of where the creature was after rebounding from its body. Wine-red eyes narrowed ahead to the spot where the beast should be, their hot, golden fleck glittering in what little light could be found in this god-forsaken hell hole, and she took a tentative step back, away.

Today was the kind of day she wished she never had. The kind of day where everything had begun to look like a death omen, danger. Today was a bad day.