AN: this is my second story, which takes place after the movie. It isn't at all related to my first one, just so you know. This story is going to mainly be in first person, because I like to experiment with writing. This is kind of like a prologue. Thanks for reading! This is, obviously, copyright Disney and stuff.

The competitive race for the night was about to begin, and the people in the stands mulled about, waiting for the race to begin. The president of the game 'Sugar Rush' was lined up with her kart, preparing for the race with the others in the pole position that showed what place everyone was to start at. She had insisted that her friends attend, so Ralph and Calhoun waited impatiently in the stands for the race to start, fidgeting and looking up at the race monitor for the countdown. Felix waited as well, though he was less impatient and happier, as usual. Tonight's race was being held in Jawbreaker junction, one of the more dangerous tracks in the candy game. It was considered so because of the jawbreakers that littered the track and surrounding area, as, no surprise, they're very hard. The sky was clear, and the bright candy sun's rays reflected off the power ups. The racers had finished preparing their karts, and soon the countdown had begun on the screen monitor, the announcer's voice calling out the numbers. "three, two, one, GO!" the karts sped off in a flash, leaving dust in their wake.

Vanellope began in fifth place, but quickly gained on Taffyda, Snowanna, and Minty, passing them up after a brief moment. In second place, she was drafting Rancis, staying closely behind him and using the vacuum created by his car to gain speed. They were approaching a power up, which Rancis received. "sweet seekers!" the announcer let everyone know what he got. Vanellope groaned inwardly, knowing full well that she could probably not dodge it. She had agreed long ago not to glitch during the competitive races, and sweet seekers were essentially candy homing missiles. Then a thought came. Maybe, if she could get around that corner fast enough, she could escape them.

The plan formed in her head, and she kicked the kart into full throttle, going as fast as she could towards the corner, where she intended to drift, not slowing down for the corner, and turn steeply, so that the kart passed the corner sideways and kept going at high enough speed to cause the seekers to crash into the wall and not her kart.

The sharp turn was incoming, and just as Vanellope was beginning her drift, all three of the seekers slammed into her kart's side. Typically, this would be no big deal, but the angle of the turn, paired with how fast she was going, made it otherwise.

The crowd let out a collective gasp as her kart veered off the track, and Vanellope looked scared out of her wits, which was difficult to do.

Given the situation, however, it wasn't uncalled for. Speeding towards a gigantic jawbreaker without any means of stopping isn't exactly 'safe', or on the top of anyone's to do list.

Vanellope could not control the kart because it was undergoing a crash sequence, and for it to finish…would mean crashing into something.

Vanellope finally let out a small squeak of a scream when the kart went over a bump and launched her out of it, the front end nosediving into the ground and the back shooting up. The kart flipped onto it's top shortly after Vanellope went airborne. Bracing for impact, she shut her eyes and stiffened with fear.

And at a speed she would have admired if it weren't for the situation, flew straight into the jawbreaker, headfirst.

A loud, sickening CRACK was heard, and for one horrible, gut-wrenching moment, the eerily silent crowd thought it was the noise of a skull cracking.

It wasn't.

The jawbreaker began to crack, and crumbled away to the ground, where Vanellope had fallen after the impact. Before anyone could assess what had just happened, the leaderboard monitor switched back to the empty karts, viewing a race that had stopped dead in it's tracks. A new race had begun-the race to help the president.

Although people had arrived quickly, nobody dared go near where Vanellope was. This decision was a wise one, if Ralph had seen anyone within ten feet of her before he was positive she was ok, they would soon have many more injuries than her. Even Calhoun backed off, letting the giant man approach the site alone.

He gently picked up Vanellope, who had minor injuries besides a big one on her head. He held her out to Felix, who fumbled for his hammer and quickly fixed all the outer injuries. Muttering a gruff 'thanks', Ralph began to stomp off towards the castle, an unconscious Vanellope held snugly in his arms, gently but firm enough to not let her drop or be removed from the spot without his cooperation. He knew that Felix's hammer fixed outer injuries, but it could not fix internal ones, like her concussion. He assumed that they had ice packs or something at the castle, and he wasn't wrong.

Soon she was in bed, with a snow-cone ice pack on her head where the injury had been. There had been a few concussions like this before, it was nothing out of the ordinary. What was out of the ordinary was the fact that she simply wouldn't wake up.

Two days had passed, but she hadn't even opened an eye. She remained unconscious, and it was beginning to worry people more than it had been.

Ralph had not left the room where she lay, and sat stone-still, watching over her warily, and tiredly. He was the exact opposite of Vanellope, he had not slept since she had crashed. Occasionally people tending to Vanellope tried to strike up a conversation with him, but he was either unresponsive or only let out a grunt of acknowledgement to them.

It was the first week of school for the players, and due to a request from parents, Litwak had closed the arcade so that kids would start the school year right and not skip the first few days in favor of being at the arcade. The old man had been wanting a short break anyways, so he had agreed, thus giving the games a week off.

Ralph was spending it at Sugar Rush anyways, so it really wasn't endangering his game in any way to stay and keep watch over Vanellope in hopes she would wake up. If she remained unconscious for past the break, however, that would change.

He was making it clear that he wouldn't move from where he was until she woke up, and nothing short of a full-scale cy-bug attack would make him. Even then, he'd likely just grab Vanellope and move her somewhere safer to continue his watch.

So the two remained in the room, the only thing proving them to be alive the steady rise and fall that represents breathing.

AN: a car crash is pretty self-explanatory. I tried to go out of my way to make the driving scene realistic, I even looked up NASCAR terms to be sure I wasn't saying something that made no sense. I think it turned out semi-decent, right? Maybe? Tell me what you think about the story, and if you can guess where I'm going with this then kudos.