//------------------------------// // Kinetic // Story: How to Disappear Completely // by shortskirtsandexplosions //------------------------------// Fear was something Flash Sentry wasn't used to. He realized this too late—of course—while in the middle of a deathly four thousand foot free-fall over the Equestrian mountains. In between the adrenalized blinks of a twirling horizon, the teenager realized that all he had grown used to over the past few months was dread. Something about this sudden terror... this heart-pulsating concern for his body as opposed to his soul—he instantly recognized a truly addictive flavor. There was no time to savor it, though. Flash's mind had been awash with several conflicting thoughts as of late... his heart sloshing with the currents of a million obtuse emotions. But after having recently tasted of so much sweetness, kindness, and hope—the same despair that brought him to that sky had dwindled into a flimsy veil at best. There was something worth protecting that night... something worth holding close and keeping alive... and at the damning present it was stuck in a skull-crushing plummet towards oblivion. He held his breath, what was left of it. Feeling the fluids shift in his goofily large ears, Flash narrowed his focus on the source of gravity—then pivoted his lopsided horse body to directly face it. Soon he was staring down at his assailant; the earth stared back, armed with a million jagged teeth. Flash was falling over the very spine of a serrated mountain range. Within seconds, his body would strike the bone-piercing summit and shatter into a million sighing pieces. He did his best to remain calm. His mouth muscles clenched—a very intense thing with the jawbone he had inherited. His body steeled itself, allowing the friction in the air to melt what cocooned it on the outside. Muscles relaxed—only to tremble. Two wings shot out. One by one, the fresh chunks of ice flew off—spreading the quills and fibers and freeing them to the whistling winds. All was nothing but rock in Flash's vision. The moonlight disappeared in his peripheral, but he could still see his shadow. It was growing clearer by the millisecond. Vinyl's track did a drumroll in his ears, and the accompanying melody momentarily resembled a muffin-loving mare's giggle. It was just the cheer that he needed. He flicked his wings towards the edges of the world and felt them again. A twitch later, and he was pulling the muscles towards the center of his chest... ripping at the air and pivoting his body up and away from the eviscerating mountain peaks. He grazed over the cliffsides within a knife's edge. The air smelled rusty—like knicked skin from an electric razor. There was a burst of warmth—of blood shifting violently into his forward body as he came up from the monumental plunge, and soon he was barreling through the thermal blast and emerging on the other side in a translucent clap of vapors. The air rang with a salvo of sound. It took Flash several seconds to realize that it wasn't Vinyl's music; he was screaming. Even after the fact... with the near-death fall centuries behind him... he bellowed out the full oceanic contents of his lungs... until he could feel nothing but the pulse in his skull... a fast and frenetic thing that danced with the evolving trance track and drained the color of his eyes, only to return it all with a blast of neural chaos. When he recovered, he found himself hovering in the space between mountains, surrounded by humble countryside bowing to his voluminous feat. He panted and shivered, relishing in the vast desolate vacuole he had forged in the middle of his chest with animalistic sound. And then he screamed again. The mountains echoed with his thoughtless fury, a chorus he was all to familiar with but had been far too shy to manifest against his bedroom walls, the wheel well of the school bus, or the busted frames of his locker. The strained exclamation was colored with every angry, murderous, melancholic, and confused thought he had soaked in for months... and when it was over... He was laughing. Chuckling. Giggling. He felt empty... but in a good way. A glass pitcher just waiting to be filled. Flash felt hungry, thirsty, horny, twitchy and exhausted all at once. He wanted to eat the world up and spit it back out and do it all over again. And still... no matter how much is eyes ached... no matter how hard and cold the moment tugged at his grinning features... He could not release more than he already had. It wasn't a failure. At least... that much he was committed to. Vinyl's track coasted down to a cool glide, and so did he... finding a cliff-face somewhere to sit and allow the vibrations to end. Although... the thick delight in his beating chest was far from pacified.