Platforming

Josh landed hard on the outcropping of stone, collapsing to his knees and his hands smacking into the rock, splitting skin and sending shockwaves through his bones. His wrists were screaming in agony more than anything else, but he didn't have time to think about it. The shaking wasn't stopping. It wasn't just in his bones.

He looked up at the mountainside above him, which the rock was an outcropping of, to see it shifting. The path he had been traversing was broken. To advance, he had had to jump. But his rough landing had doomed him. The rocks were beginning to shift and fall beneath him, and if he didn't start moving, they were going to send him to his death. The pain in his arms and legs would be irrelevant then - as would everything else he had ever done. He fought through the pain to stand up, the shaking of the rock only making it even more difficult. He wasn't the only rock sliding, though. If he moved quickly, and properly timed...

There was no time to think about it. The path would only exist for the briefest of moments. Only room for one step before making the leap, Josh put all of the strength he had into it. For a split second, he was suspended in air, aiming for a moving target with only one chance for success. Then his foot was making contact. Too hard. He had miscalculated the speed at which the second boulder was dropping, and hit it wrong, at the wrong angle. He could feel his ankle cracking and breaking, any support it would have provided him vanishing in a moment. Then his second foot landed, and he immediately transferred all of the strength he had from that foot into pushing off again. No time for calculations. No time for hesitation. He was flying again.

It was four rocks to reach the opposite side where there was still solid ground. He was half way. He landed again, once more on his broken ankle, feeling it break further. He screamed in agony, but he couldn't stop. One more step into a leaping push. That fourth rock was lower though. He gained speed on the way down, landing harder than the previous two on the shattered ankle. If his foot would ever function again it would be a miracle. It no longer supported him, and he crumpled into the final stone, just barely holding himself onto it by gripping wildly with his hands. But they had begun to bleed, which was interfering with his grip.

He looked toward the solid ground. Just one more jump. If he could make it to his feet...

His weight caused the stone he landed on to shift faster, though, and he was losing altitude. There was no time for this. He dug the tips of his fingers into the stone and pulled his good leg forward, planting it as solidly as he could on the stone. He pushed hard, first to get him to his feet. The rock shifted more beneath him. Then he pushed again, and he flew forward. But not as far or as fast as he wanted.

His gut hit the edge of the ground hard. His hands grasped wildly for anything that could stop him, nails digging into the dirt and gravel, trying to kick himself up with his good foot. He slipped, but just as he did his fingers wrapped around the root of a tree. With all of his strength he pulled on it, lifting himself up and over the edge. He lay there, as behind him he heard the sounds of the stones he had traversed collapsing away down the hillside behind him.

"I think I'm just gonna rest here," he muttered to no one in particular. "Maybe for a day or two."