1.1.4: 2016 C.E. - Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, U.S.A. - Tom's Awakening

After entering the Skywalk Visitor Center, the Dynamic Duo almost entirely ignored the overpriced three-star restaurant contained within - only pausing to joke about the quality they remembered from the first (and last) time they tried their fare - and out to the Skywalk proper.

The transparent walkway looped out and over the abyssal drop-off offered by the Grand Canyon, the ground seeming to fall dizzyingly from the realm of reality to the distant realm of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon backdrop.

"Race you to the middle!" shouted Felix, already running out one of the two entrances to the U-shaped structure. Tom just shook his head and followed at a measured pace, partially to avoid trouble, but mostly to make himself look like the mature one to passers-by; an action that he knew would bruise Felix's burgeoning masculine pride - were he to realize the intent behind it.

Fortunately for Tom - and unfortunately for Felix - the combination of Tom's trudging, the vicious shit-eating grin welded to his visage, and the deep understanding that they shared of each other ensured that Tom's strike found its mark. Realizing Tom's treachery, Felix attempted to play off his 'childish outburst'; the bashful attempt at which lead both of the two friends to pause for a moment and lock eyes.

They stood there for only a moment, a standoff between two brothers in all but heritage. The only thing that could have made them burst out laughing sooner would have been a tumbleweed somehow making its way onto the platform, but burst out laughing they did. The ridiculousness of the jab and the accuracy with which it was fired left the two in stitches, guffawing loudly and struggling to stand.

Their laughing was loud enough to drown out a subtle increase in the noise floor that accompanied shifting gravel echoing off the walls of the chasm below. Before they finished their laughing fits, the shifting of rubble had subsided.

Mrs. Hum caught up with them moments later. Tom and Felix described the situation that had unfolded as other people milled on and off of the floating crystal river they now found themselves on. They admired the view and continued throwing playful jabs around for several minutes, the ebb and flow of bodies on the bridge became heavier as the facility's peak hours approached.

Another joke, followed by another round of laughter from the three. A sudden lurch succinctly concluded the revelries, as if every person present had just been simultaneously and individually slapped across the face.

A moment of stillness. Another round of shaking began, shaking everyone into a stampede for the two exits. The center of the Skywalk began to sag perilously as the surrounding metal grumbled unhappily at the combination of rapidly shifting weight and the earthquake that promised a closer view of the chasm below to its visitors.

Tom, his mother, and Felix all started shoving the now horribly congested group blocking their path. As crowd-crush began to take its toll on those unfortunate enough to be trapped near the exits, those in the back exacerbated the problem in their attempts to get off the observatory-turned-ramp.

The crowd continued its painfully lethargic egress as the Skywalk pressed on in its quest to become an engineering ethics lesson. What felt like hours passed, though it couldn't have been more than 30 seconds.

The rumbling stopped after just a few seconds, but the damage was done. The Skywalk was damaged beyond saving.

Tom was the first of the three to escape the perilous pathway. He was also the last. Once he was off the Skywalk, its grumpy growls were replaced by the cruel sound of metal fatigue. The sounds of his mother's and brother's deaths.

On impulse, Tom turned and dropped to his stomach, arms outstretched. His left arm found only air, but his right was explosively wrenched down, levering his head and shoulders tortuously across the edge of the structure's foundation. With his mind now fully in the moment, he discovered that his mother had linked hands with himself and Felix.

Tom would not let go come hell or high water, and Bel and Felix were not terribly heavy, but his shoulder had been dislocated. As the connective tissues stretched painfully, onlookers took notice of Tom's dicey duel with death, determining that aid was vital to his family's survival.

Felix looked up, panic-stricken at his failing support. Tom's eyes shifted to his mother, a similar expression writhing beneath the attempted placid and understanding face, evidenced by various spasmodic twitching from her features and the salient saline seeping softly 'cross her canted countenance.

"They're going to die," Tom thought detachedly. "My mom and best friend are going to fall, and there's nothing I can do about it." He wished he could just wrap his whole body around them and yank them to safety.

Something clicked in his head and he knew that that was exactly what he had to do. Something changed in Tom, or perhaps awakened. With as little effort as one would have wiggling one's toes, flexing a bicep, or curling a finger, DiTh began his work.

His hands separated into several fleshy masses - each rigidly held at a relative position to one another. They wrapped around his mother's arm, securing the once slipping grip in a tungsten shackle of willpower. DiTh's other arm fully separated from his body, again strictly adhering to the relationships he envisioned. Aligning it by eye, he navigated the arm to his brother, leaving trailing bits of skin, muscle, and bone floating lazily in the wake of his hand as it maneuvered to perform an encore of the sure grip he had on Mrs. Hum.

His limbs felt the same detached and transformed; standard proprioception and all that it entails. He could still feel what angles all of his joints were in, where tension was on his skin, and he could feel the warmth of his mother's hand in his; all the sensations that most people use to do things like touch a finger to their nose with their eyes closed were still available to him, but that kind of information only describes the position of one's body parts if one's joints and bones are constant offsets from each other. This (when paired with an admittedly somewhat clumsy person) seemed to mean that DiTh needed to have direct line of sight with his detached parts to control them with any precision. This did not matter much in the moment, but some small part of DiTh noted it while he continued his arrangements.

Realizing that he was now too front-heavy to attempt a rescue without falling forward with the others, DiTh made the snap decision to create a larger support triangle before anything else.

His newfound ability was second nature, despite the suddenness with which it surfaced. He separated his legs midway down the calves; the left slithering out behind him, leaving his pant leg to collapse in its absence. The right leg bifurcated just below the knee and the two halves slithered up along his sides to provide the final two points of his broadened support triangle.

With a flexion of his will, his torso rose into the air; suspended relative to his mutilated legs. His two supports near the ledge and one far behind to shift his, Bel's, and Felix's shared center of mass to a point safely behind the precipice. He could now safely attempt a rescue.

It was at this moment that DiTh realized that he had moved too slowly. The tug on his arm from Belinda was suddenly lighter. Felix was falling. DiTh needed a better view over the edge to catch Felix. He needed it fast.

As DiTh's torso rose, the good Samaritans that had been trying to find a way to help had jumped back in horror at the rapidly auto-dismembering teen in front of them. Once DiTh had reared up to his full desired height, his head was nearly ten feet from the ground and was slightly beyond the ledge. The arm that held his mother froze, his attention diverted by Felix's fall. As he launched his free hand down, his arm was reduced to splotchy trails of fleshy masses, each moving as if embedded in an invisible spindly tentacle; its only purpose in existence the protection of his loved ones.

Felix hit the wall of the canyon. The limp body of DiTh's friend tumbled agonizingly quickly into the river below and vanished. DiTh plunged forward, determined to get a grip on his friend. Tears began welling up in his eyes as his hand groped frantically in the cold water below. It found nothing but rock bottom.

The remnant of DiTh's family drifted over the precipice and onto solid earth.

The ebbing adrenaline high left DiTh in partial shock and fear, numbing the pain of his sudden loss. His thoughts were swimming with increasing panic. "Felix! I have to go after him! He could be miles away by now... Could he have even survived that? It doesn't matter, I have to go!" DiTh moved to lower himself into the hungry maw of the earth before him but paused when he saw the look on his mother's face. She was staring at him with more concern on her face than he had ever seen her express. DiTh looked down at his dismembered body, his panic reaching a new height realizing the full extent of what he had done to himself. "What... What did I just do? How did I do that? It doesn't hurt, but how can I stay like this? Will I ever get back together again? Do I need a doctor for that? Will all my parts die if they don't reattach?!"

But his panic lessened to near the original level when he began thinking about pulling everything together, as again his body obeyed his will. The amorphous globules of flesh condensed and coagulated until more recognizable structures emerged, merged, and merged again. Hands and feet, a forearm, calves, arms and legs, DiTh.

He checked over himself, entirely whole. Looking up at Belinda, he found a gravely worried and fascinated expression continuing to stare at his hands. Returning his gaze to his body, he found two dexterous phalanges that had not rejoined. The saddle joint of his thumbs were disconnected, leaving a dismembered thumb floating next to each hand.