There he was lying on the ground, surrounded by a pool of his own blood. His breathing was labored, heavy, his ribs were cracked. His right leg was fractured, his shoulder dislocated. Slashes span across the inches of his body, on his stomach, legs, and arms, and he looked as if he had gone through a meat shredder. Despite being injured so severely he managed to stand, unbearable pain wracking his body. He leaned heavily onto a nearby dilapidated wall in the shadowy alley and, painfully slow, he made his way into the dimly lit street. Few people crawled the streets that late at night but he spotted a blurry figure leaning against burned out street lamp. He instinctively reached out with his better of the two arms to make contact. Once his hand brushed the shoulder of the figure, he was about to ask for help when they spun around and kicked him while screaming
"You piece of trash! Get the fuck off me!" and the figure trampled back into the dark alley.
He fell to the ground hard from the impact. Knowing he would not be able to get back up again, he laid there, tears welling in his non-swollen eye. He sobbed for what seemed like an eternity on the dank pavement. He wanted for death to take away the pain and bring him relief. His head was pounding and his vision was becoming more blurry by the second. He heard the sound of footsteps coming toward him, then a pair of feet stopped right in front of him. The person squatted down to eye level. Before him he saw a beautiful angel, her eyes were swimming with concern and the color mirrored the navy sky above. Though stricken with concern, her face held a soft expression, one of pure beauty. She reached toward him with a white handkerchief and gently started to wipe the blood from his cheek. Tears formed in her eyes and she began to cry.
"You poor man," she whispered, "Don't worry. I'm here, I'll take care of you."
At those words he closed his eyes and lost all sense of time and being. He began to have feverish dreams; terrible nightmares. He felt tremendous pain at times and at others an uncomfortable numbing. Occasionally he would see the angel, her face hovering above him touching his face and soothing his fears. Strange images danced in front of his eyes in a haze. Suddenly, he was brought out of this daze. The first thing he saw when he woke, were flowers: vibrant red roses that were next to his bed. Slowly he sat up to assess his surroundings and was surprised to find that his arm had been reset, a bandage was wrapped around his ribs, and his leg was in a splint. The slashes had begun to heal, but still looked angry and raw. he was not in a huge amount of pain and he could breathe rather well. As soon as he finished analyzing his situation, the angel strolled into the room, holding a tray of delicious looking food. She gasped, set the tray down quickly on the bedside table, and rushed to his side.
"Thank goodness you finally woke up! I was afraid you would never open your eyes again!" she said as she held his hand in hers.
"Thank you for saving me" he said, giving her hands a gentle squeeze.
"No problem." She said with a beautiful smile on her face "Oh, by the way, I am Meryl; Meryl Strife"
"Nice to meet you." He coughed "I am Vash the 60 billion double dollar man."