Ocean's Breath Plateau samsara

he didn't know whether seconds or years had passed from when he had first closed his eyes to now, lifting his head off the wet sand. he groaned and stretched, and instantly regretted it; the wounds, which had undergone some healing while he had slept, reopened, and the salt stung like hell. with a yelp, he fell still again, trying not to move. everything was agony.

was this what resurrection felt like?

he lay there for hours before slowly beginning to drag himself inland, each inch he traveled a new, unique kind of pain. he didn't know one could hurt this much. god help him if a bear wandered this way--no, at this point, he'd welcome that, especially if he died quickly. anything was better than this. this was hell, and he cursed hari with every breath for resigning him to this fate.

but he had made his peace with his god by the time he reached the grass, and when he entered the small glade, the pain was mostly gone--either he was used to it, now, or he was so exhausted that it didn't matter anymore. he collapsed beneath a tree, gasping, shuddering from the effort. his eyes were crusted half-shut from salt, his pelt matted and torn. a trail of slowly oozing blood marked his path, and he bled now, wondering if hari had been wrong, if he was really meant to bleed out here--

govinda.

the name came to him suddenly, and he realized that in his dream--vision?--reality?--that hari had called him so. aditya had died, there beneath the surface of the ocean, and from the sea, govinda had been born. it would take some getting used to, he knew. but aditya had done terrible things, and govinda was keen to leave him behind. whatever it took.

the man fell into a restless kind of half-slumber, shivering, moaning garbled names. everything was pain, and he didn't know how to ease it.