Ah. Here again.
In a place he could only recognize in dreams, Grave knew this place. He had thought, once, that this is what death was like - a barren expanse of nothing, grey, with the final trek being to the obelisk he now stood before. Now, he knew that the strange thing was a font of power, something beyond his comprehension - but it was not death. No, this wasteland was where he had walked alongside Eve, and briefly had tried to shield her from what power the obelisk wrought. It was strange to be there again, even stranger to be alone. He was so used to her popping up in his dreams now that it was almost eerie without her annoying presence.
How did it go? Ah, yes -- a touch to the obelisk and he should awaken. He walked around it, gazing up at the nothing-sky that the obelisk pierced and, with a small sigh, leaned his shoulder up against it.
The most tremendous emotion he'd ever experienced roared through him, making him gasp audibly before he began to fall. He couldn't even experience a thought process on the fact he was falling, so riddled with a warmth in his chest and a strange tickling sense of joy in his stomach as he was. It wasn't until his head jerked up, feeling the sway of foliage and dampness on his curled legs that he thought he had awakened.
The strange feeling lingered, but lacking intensity, making him almost - almost - wistfully wish to feel it again. Slowly, heaving a sigh of his old bones, he stood up and unfurled his tail. A chittering reached his ears, and turning, he expected to see one of his happy little helper familiars - and instead, came face to face with the obelisk.
He was immediately winded. Was this really happening? Am I awake? he wondered in alarm, blue eyes wide and fixated on the thing that should not be. The world tilted and spun in his peripheral, but he quickly found he couldn't tear his gaze away. It was as though the obelisk had a purchase on his eyeballs, and unwilling, he helplessly stared at the thing that began to glow through odd runes and a sick sense of weight. He could feel its presence bearing down on him and, as though plucked from the recess of his mind, it felt like the winds of death were pushing against his fur, tearing him away to push rot and death into his chest. The sensation bloomed, unfiltered, a sickness in his veins that made him literally feel ill.
Grave felt like he couldn't move, let alone to see if he was truly being torn apart, but the disquiet in him grew, the belief beginning to be suspended. This couldn't be happening! He knew damn well an obelisk couldn't just -- just follow him, springing from his mind into reality! And this feeling of decay, of disintegration, it was against all he was! He could not rot to death if he was not dead, and he specialized in the dead, he would know! And for one, brief moment, he thought of Eve: he hadn't even noticed if she was there in this dream with him. Would she be stuck in this?
No. He was all for discovery and delving into the what-if's of death himself, but she was just -- just a kid -- and how could she learn from him if he was rot into mulch where he stood --?
That seemed to snap him out of it, which he found both as a relief and sort of dismal surprise. He did a half circle to turn away from the obelisk, eyes squeezed shut against the sick feeling of the world twisting and spinning. Not looking back, he stepped backwards until he could feel the sickly cold obelisk against his flank. Once there, he laid down, exhausted and staring out and away from it.
If anyone else got caught in the stone's hold, he'd have work to do, after all.