A/N: This fanfiction will be comprised of 100 separate chapters, some long, some short. They are told, for the most part, from Miles' POV. Possible warnings to come, with each chapter to be tagged individually. This chapter's tags:

Violence, blood, possible major character death.


"Breathe! Breathe, goddamnit!"

He coughs hard, his whole body shattering in the one motion, and there is blood pooling behind his molars and drooling down his chin. One cough becomes another until he is hacking and wheezing frantically, and there is the panic, coursing through his veins, searing hot and he can't, he can't do this, there's a fire in his chest, he's on fire, he's bleeding, there's a hole in his chest, too much blood, he's swooning-

"Stay with me, pal! C'mon, that's it-look at me! Stay awake!"

Motion. Endless motion all about him, leaving him in a torrid whirlwind of color and light, stained intermittantly with large splotches of inky blackness. There is a light, bright and white, in his eyes, and he wonders if this is the end even as they slap the plastic respirator around his nose and mouth. Cold air floods his lungs but he is not taking it in, is not filtering it; it sits and swells his lungs until they begin the chest compressions again, and he is breathing.

"Tha-that's good, pal, er, Mister Edgeworth, just like that! Don't take your eyes off me-up here, up here! Just look at me, look at the light-"

"Where is he?!"

"M-Mister Wright-"

"Miles?! Miles, where- MILES! Miles, no!"

(Oh good. Phoenix is here.) He thinks he is smiling; he does not realize he is merely twitching, head lolling this way and that, spine jerking sharply as he coughs and sprays blood on the inside of the respiratory mask. The large man flinches and immediately his attention is back on the prone prosecutor, thick hand clenching at the gurney. His other arm, still wielding the flashlight for Miles' eyes to follow, is simultaneously attempting to fend off the panicking defense attorney.

"J-Just hang on a sec, pal! Mister Edgeworth-"

"Miles, baby, I'm here! I'm... Oh god...!"

He feels the blood dripping down the concave wall of the mask to trickle onto his cheek and cannot help but to think (Is this really it? Is this what my life trickles down to...? Blood and tears shed...over what?) His face scrunches up in the most exquisite display of agony before he tries to scream, truly scream, the searing hot pain in his chest unbearable.

But he can't.

His face frozen, he writhes and thrashes before going still, darkness descending upon him as unconsciousness wrests control of his cognition from him, and he can't help but wonder,

(How did it all come to this...?)