Name: To Be Shadowborn (Solo Leveling/Fairy Tail SI)
Author: Dingamuss
Website: Spacebattles
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Death. Only to be stolen from the grave.
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Words: 132K
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Dying was... a strange sensation.
The feeling of a numbness soul-deep that it blocked out every other sensation. Touch was all but gone. His sight was filled with nothing but pitch-black darkness. His smell was the same - nonexistent. And the only thing he could hear was the faint sound of his own heartbeat falling rapidly. The constant thump-thump which sometimes paused halfway in its next beat. Sometimes his chest would rise and fall, his lips trying to gasp for another breath of sweet, bitter air.
He was dying. It was the only thing he could feel at the moment. His bones were utterly crushed, organs turned to mush, his muscles torn and shredded. The dull throb of... what he assumed to be 'pain' itched and scratched at his body, gnawing at some part of his mind he's long forgotten... or chose to forget. Perhaps it was unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
Coughing out another mouthful of blood, he stared at the three corpses of the large, ape-like things which lay dead on the ground. Upon their necks, were a series of vicious stab wounds, caused by him. To be frank, he didn't know what these creatures were, but all he knew was that they wanted him dead, so he killed them in kind despite their advantages. And it was thanks to his custom-made antler-gripped bowie knife did he even stand a remote chance to kill one, let alone all three of them.
However, the fight was doomed from the start. Even with his insane bravery and knife, the three ape-like things still found a way to pummel the ever-loving shit out of him. Resulting in him being in his current state.
A small, bloody grin found purchase upon his features. He didn't know if he even did grin, but it felt like it. At least, he hoped.
Part of him was relieved he was able to even kill those damned things. And though they did ultimately beat the shit out of him to the point he was nearly on Death's door, he was just happy knowing that those things died first. Were it not for the fact that he didn't have his gun on him during the time, then they would've been dead a whole lot quicker, and him not lying in a pool of his own blood.
Yet... why did it feel like something was grasping at his heart?
He couldn't quite place the sensation. Was it something he should try to shake away? Was it something he should just accept? Or was it just something that naturally came with dying? Whatever it was... it felt dark. Even the corners of his vision were beginning to twist and churn.
Dying was fuckin' weird.
Yet, more strange than even that, was something his blurry eyes caught at the very edge of his vision. It was a pair of figures, though he didn't know who. He could just barely make out the shape and color through his red-tinged vision. But at the same time, he noticed something else in one other part of his vision - wispy black smoke emanating from the corpses of the dead ape-things.
It wasn't smoke, though, but shadows. Perhaps another thing his dying mind was starting to hallucinate, much like the two figures rushing towards him.
They seemed to be... shouting at him? Why were they?
"Hurry, Wen-!" The white... cat ushered hastily. "We have to get him ba-!"
"He's hurt bad, Ca-!" The blue-haired girl replied, a soft green glow emanating from her hands. "Oh, gosh! Oh, gosh! If we move him, he's not going to-!"
A talking cat and a girl with glowing hands? Now he was seeing things.
Again, dying was weird.
However, the moment the girl put her glowing hands upon his chest did he feel something inside him begin to churn - something he could actually feel. It felt like he was burning, white-hot pain itching throughout his veins as he recoiled and spasmed.
The thing grasping at his heart gripped him tighter, refusing to let go. It felt as if it was using the girl's... power to form something else. His heart was beating hard in his chest, but for some reason... he could hear the sound of a second, much weaker, beat along with the rhythm. It felt comforting, as if new blood was pouring into his veins, sealing up his wounds and bones.
It was slow, agonizing, but whatever it and this girl was doing seemed to be doing something to him. Still, he was too tired to think, every ounce of his energy being drained just by thinking. Being in pain was exhausting, too, and a part of him felt like returning to that knife's edge he was at just moments ago.
And thus, he finally went limp, his eyes shutting as he simply allowed the darkness to fill his vision even as the girl pleaded with him. She shook him, tears dripping from her eyes as she used whatever sort of glow she had to try and fix him.