Olimar was laid out on the dirt, staring up at the blue sky with bleary eyes. Stars above, he wished he was in pain.
Even the slightest twinge from his usually-achy joints would've been a comfort, but there he lay, not feeling much of anything when he knew his lungs should've still been burning.
It wasn't much longer before he realized he wasn't breathing at all, and yet, nothing. He still felt fine- better than he had in years, even. Something was deeply wrong, but he was far too drained to be appropriately worried. All that his overwhelmed brain could muster was the dull hum of "Well, that can't be good." Some unplaceable part of him twitched, and suddenly, the air around him was filled with buzzes of "Awake! Awake! Leader is awake!"
It didn't matter how heavy his limbs felt, Olimar scrambled to his feet, head spinning. Despite the jolt of adrenaline, he couldn't hear his heart racing. More importantly, there was merely a group of Pikmin swarming around him, cheerfully babbling as the chanting echoed in his brain. "Awake! Alive! Awake! It worked! Awake! Leader is back!"
His ears twitched. What worked? The Pikmin fell silent, staring at him. A few cocked their heads to the side. It registered as a "Can't you tell?" to him, though he wasn't sure why. He shook his head. It's wasn't as though he should've expected an answer from the creatures. Instead, he took a look around. He wasn't familiar with this area, but it was grassy and seemed pleasant enough. There was an Onion landed in the clearing, and... Moss. He felt himself tense.
Olimar stepped around the Pikmin, towards her. She was fast asleep despite the commotion, snout twitching.
"Hey girl," he croaked out. His throat fell awful now that he was talking, but he continued. "Glad you're alright after-" He coughed, stirring her from her sleep. Moss let out a startled ruff, before realizing who was in front of her. Her leafy tail wagged furiously, and she licked Olimar's face.
...She licked his face. He backed away, groping at his cheeks, his forehead, wherever, as if hoping his hands would suddenly be stopped by the familiar glass of his helmet. Tens of beady little eyes bore into him, not calming his nerves any, until finally his hands tried at the top of his head. He yelped.
He could feel something that definitely wasn't supposed to be there. He first traced the unfamiliar growth with his fingertips, sending shivers down his spine, before simply grabbing it. It was too long to simply trace, and soon enough it was clear it was flexible, so he pulled it down in front of his face.
... A stem. It was a stem. A red stem, with a single leaf at the end. A Pikmin stem. And it was part of him. The strange words started again, now indistinct, as the Pikmin glanced amongst each other. Olimar pulled at the stem. He pulled and pulled and pulled. Harder and harder. He could feel tears building up in his eyes from the pain he'd been craving moments ago but he just kept pulling and pulling and
"STOP!!!" The buzzing turned into an ear-splitting squeal. Or maybe that was just the Pikmin's frantic protests, as a number of them held his hands with their roots, pushing back. "The leaves help Leader! Safe from the soil! Leader can't leave again!"
He let go of his stem, slumping down onto the ground. "Can't leave again...?" he echoed. He grabbed at the sides of his head.
"Leader's onion fell from the sky. Leader fell too. It almost left us by drowning on land. But now it's back! Leader won't go back to the soil with its leaves!" A Blue Pikmin tried to smile at him as the words rang through his head, drowning out the Pikmin's chirps. Olimar felt like he was going to throw up. It was quite clear now that the strange 'buzzing' voices were the Pikmin- even if he still heard their babble as it was, his stem seemed to translate for him, as it was... And it was equally clear what they had done to him. Of course he wasn't breathing- not as he would recognize it, at least- he was a plant-riddled corpse, unconsciously taking in the toxic air through his new stomata. A corpse that could never leave this planet. A corpse that his family would never see again. One they'd never get closure on.
With the state he was in, he almost hoped that SOS had fallen on deaf ears.
