Continuum

by Ruby Casablanca

My parents always told me to be careful whenever I went out into the woods, that there were dangers all around me just waiting to attack. Little did I know that the dangers would be my allies later in life. Little did I know that my family would be the ones to attack. Rated T for violence and character death.

A/N: So, this was a lot longer than I expected it to be...when I had the idea, it was pretty short, but I guess I got carried away in the details...This is basically my opinion of what has happened after the episode "Restraint", and sort of a worst case scenario ending.

Anyway, I have not seen the last episode of the show, so if this doesn't really match what was going on, then I apologize. I have crappy DirecTV who has canceled MTV and slow as crap internet, so I am unfortuneately not up to date :( The withdrawl is painful...

But, despite that, I hope you guys enjoy my story! Reviews of any kind are greatly welcomed :)

Continuum

My parents always told me to be careful whenever I went out into the woods, that there were dangers all around me just waiting to attack. Little did I know that the dangers would be my allies later in life.

Little did I know that my family would be the ones to attack.

It all began with a battle of sorts, more like one side trying desperately to get the other to see the truth. Lydia, as deranged and powerful as she had become, had resurrected Peter, causing a three way brawl between the alphas. Scott nearly died in that fight and I had to lie to his mother about why he was rushed to the hospital in a coma, every bone in his body shattered. To make matters worse, Jackson made an appearance that night as his scaly other. He came into the hospital late at night while I was by Scott's bedside, slipping in through the cracks just like the lizard he was, claws bared to end his life. I had to kill him with an arrow to the head, my bow never too far from my person, but as he fell, he ripped it out of his skull, transforming into a human once more. He awoke in a puddle of his own blood, but still refused to believe he was the Kanima.

I found out it was my grandfather controlling him later, perhaps a little too late.

He showed up in Scott's room, thrown off guard when he discovered Scott was still in bed, completely unharmed. He innocently inquired about his health before leaving, but I knew, by the disgruntled, angry look in his eyes that he was expecting something else to have happened. After that look, everything else fell into place; I knew, yet I didn't tell anyone. I didn't know who to trust.

Later that day, Derek's pack attacked one of Peter's new mutants, openly declaring war on him. Of course, without Scott to cause trouble, Peter had grown a large pack of his own, complete with a dozen classmates I knew from school and Lydia, his own personal enchantress. I didn't know what power he had instilled her with, but she was more powerful than any of them combined, yet the most deranged, visibly trapped in her own mind.

I was miserably alone, desperately missing Scott, and by the third week of the war, the body count was so high that the town thought a serial murderer was on the loose. I was just about to give in and tell my parents the truth about the Kanima when one night, by some miracle, Scott woke up from his coma. I was practically shouting for joy when I saw him, kissing him as if there were no tomorrow, all my fears subsiding as I held him close to me once again. We were both so happy in those few moments but of course, all good things were fated to end.

As soon as Scott asked about what had gone on while he was out, I immediately fell back into my despair as I recounted the hellish turn of events. I told him everything: about the wars, the deaths, and my grandfather, about Peter, Jackson's disappearance, and Lydia's transformation. All of it seemed to horrify him far more than I expected. Honestly, I felt terrible for him. He had to wake up to this nightmare.

After Scott was stable enough to leave the hospital, we both agreed that our main focus should be Jackson and his Kanima alter who had gone haywire, killing everything it saw now that its reins were so loose. The pointless wars between the packs would have to wait; an alliance would be needed if we were to stop the hunters, my grandfather mostly, and save Jackson.

However, when I went home for the first time in days, I was practically picked up and tossed down the stairs, into our basement cellar as soon as I stepped foot into the house. I felt my body slam into the cold, hard stone, my skin bruising under my leather jacket, yet I picked myself up and tried to escape with no avail. It was impossibly dark, and I had no flashlight to light my way; I was completely blind. Two large hands came from behind and gripped my upper arms, pinning me down to a rusty metal chair with ease while two more hands stripped me of my backpack and phone, as if I was the enemy.

"I'm sorry Allison, but you leave us no choice." my mother's voice said harshly as her quick hands bound me into my prison, tying me to the chair.

"We tried our best to train you, to get you away from your friends, from that...werewolf...but it seems as if you've gone too far down the wrong path to see the error of your ways." my father added, his silhouette brooding behind me.

"We'll deal with your disobedience in the morning, but now we have work to do." my mother got up from behind me, brushing off her perfectly clean hands before grabbing a large gun from the adjacent wall. "There's a war that needs ending, and we will win, one way or the other."

"By the morning this will all be over."

And with that, they locked the doors behind me, trapping me as if I were their prisoner.

Well, something must've really been wrong for them to not check my shoes for weapons. I pulled out my emergency knife hidden under the sole of my boot with my feet, cutting my way through the thick ropes, until I was free from my bonds, tossing it up to free my hands as well. I was sure that they expected me to break my way out of the chair, but they had done a fine job of making sure I would never find a way out of the cellar. The place was underground with no hatch up or any ground-level windows near the very top. No light came through, and all the secret tunnels that led out of the basement were connected to the hall outside.

So, the only solution left was to blast a new way out. Taking a particularly gruesome looking weapon, I was able to shoot the door down, the heavy wooden slab falling off its hinges and onto a few hunters, crushing them with its impressive weight. I managed to navigate my way through the catacombs with ease, ending up right on the edge of town bordering the woods, emerging from an old hunting shed covered in ivy.

There was already a fight in progress, blood splaying across the fallen leaves before I reached a hundred feet near the unmarked site. I sort of stumbled into it as I was sprinting to Scott's aid, but as I realized what I had run into, I prayed no one saw me. Slowly, I crept backwards towards the outskirts of the battle, letting myself disappear into the night. Breathing raggedly, trying to calm myself, I loaded my bow, stringing an arrow and picking my target, a young werewolf, most likely one of Peter's many creations. We had long since lost track of his many mutations, just knowing that they needed to be stopped as quickly as possible.

I let the arrow fly just as it leaped to fall upon its prey, the arrow piercing its skull, a clean kill, the body falling to the ground lifeless. I watched the hunter flee, his fear evident, and I loosed another arrow, and another, just letting them fly to find their targets, hunter and wolf alike. If a wolf went too close to my father, then I struck him down; if a hunter got too close to Scott, he went down like a stone. It was an equal balance, my arrows serving silent, deadly justice. No one knew from where my arrows came, yet they knew to fear them when they struck. My hands were those of a girl playing God, deciding who lived and who died from her tiny niche behind the trees.

After I felt as if I had used up all my arrows, my grandfather decided to reveal his true nature as the Kanima's master, summoning his beast to supposedly end the battle. I heard some gasp, some shriek, and others applaud as Jackson writhed in pain, transforming in front of everyone. I had no idea how he got there, but we all watched in horror as my grandfather gave his pet orders to kill us all. Some of the werewolves scrambled, but they were the first to go, the ones hideously slashed and broken up into bits, the blood splattering everywhere. My grandfather laughed at this. My parents could only stare, their faces ghostly white and blank.

I remained frozen behind my tree, praying that no one could find me, especially now that I was unarmed. I had lost my knife in the cellar and it was too dangerous to go out and pick up any weapons off the ground. I was literally trapped, stuck watching Scott, Stiles, and the others get thrown around by Jackson's massive form. I could hear the bones break and smell the blood spilt as his claws lashed out at everyone, and it took all of my will power not to scream and do something stupid. The last thing I needed was to be dead, so I turned away, pressing myself into the rough tree bark, crying silently into my hand.

Of course, just as I thought no more blood could be spilt, Jackson decided to enact his own revenge, going straight after Lydia, who didn't seem to mind his presence, yet actually seemed to awaken to it. She got up gracefully from the porch steps of the Hale house where she had been perched to face Jackson, who was speeding towards her, razor sharp claws at the ready. He had murder in his eyes, and as he closed in on her, raised his hand to strike. We all looked away, and I bit back the urge to scream as I prepared to watch my best friend be murdered, when all the sudden, he stopped, his hand hovering mid-strike right above Lydia's strawberry curls.

For some reason, she had captivated him, his yellow slitted eyes, ones filled with hatred, calmed and glued on hers. She reached out to touch his scaly skin, and he did not shy away as she placed her hand on his supposed cheek, his arm lowering to his side, his entire being visibly relaxing. At her touch, he shuddered, and the ground seemed to rumble around us, shaking the house and the woods beneath our feet. A giant wind howled, whipping through our ears and knocking us all to the ground, surrounding the porch where the two were standing. When the wind cleared, I came out from behind the trees where I had sought shelter, not caring if I was seen because it was evident that safety was no longer important. What was important was what had just happened.

A human was lying naked at Lydia's feet, curled up in a ball, as if it were sleeping. Slowly, the person stirred, stood, and when he opened his eyes, his pupils contracted to the right, human size and a clear shade of blue. However, with his newfound humanity was a new intelligence, a new knowledge in his mind, and then I knew that Jackson knew the truth of what he had become, and he was horrified by it. He stared at Lydia, both fearful and apologetic, before collapsing to his knees, his hands covering his face from everyone. Lydia knelt down with him, stroking his hair as if he were a child, comforting him out of his nightmares.

We were all so confused, but when my grandfather went to go control Jackson again, he couldn't. Nothing happened. The link had been severed, and somehow Lydia had found a way to cure Jackson. The Kanima no longer existed. My grandfather, filled with a passionate rage, then went over and began to fight Peter, determined on settling the score. I knew he would only be satisfied when Peter was dead as retribution for Kate's gruesome murder.

They began a vicious round of hand to hand combat, or more like sword to claw, but every time my grandfather got a hit on Peter, his body would heal almost instantaneously. The fight was just a cycle of cuts and bruises, my grandfather becoming weaker and angrier by the second, as Peter just kept on coming back. He boasted, quite stupidly, that Lydia was his ultimate power, and with her he was unstoppable, that my grandfather stood no chance against him.

Lydia didn't seem to like that, in fact she seemed to despise that, and with a great breath shrieked,

"I don't want your power anymore!"

The wind came back with a vengeance, this time taking Peter's skin and bones with it. Lydia rose up from where she sat, her eyes narrowing into hateful slits as Peter screamed, his skin literally peeling off his body, disintegrating in the wailing winds.

"Traitor! I created you to serve me! Without me, you are nothing!" he screamed through the pain, though now he looked more like a zombie, half his bones poking through eaten flesh. "You will let me go! You will let me go!"

"Go back to hell." she spat, clenching her raised fist in Peter's direction, reducing him to a pile of gray ash before passing out. Jackson caught her, carefully laying her down, strangely showing her care, no doubt as recompense for his beastly other.

Looking back on it now, it was a stupid move to leave the safety of my trees. My parents were far off assisting some poor soul haul off the dead, increasing the body count, and Derek and his pack had fled earlier, right after Peter dissolved. I thought I was safe; the war was over, all enemies were dead, and I thought I was safe.

I blindly stumbled my way to Scott, the moonlight my only guide to finding him, and when I finally did, he wrapped me up in the biggest, most desperate hug I had ever experienced. I could hear his heart hammering out of his chest, and I was sure that mine was too. After all I had seen him go through, I never wanted to let him go again.

"I thought, when you didn't answer I - I mean I thought you had, that you were...dead."

He got out the last word as if it were poison, something he never wanted to think of, and I immediately embraced him again.

"I'm fine Scott, really. I was just...tied up at the moment, but I got here as soon as I could."

"Yeah..." He nodded shakily, looking upon me as if I were some miracle that had just happened. It occurred to me then that he was far more worried than I had expected, which now, didn't seem so strange: A human hunter wandering into a werewolf war. I could see why he would be concerned.

"Scott, I'm right here. I'm not going to go anywhere." I assured him, though he did not look convinced.

"Good, because I am never going to let you again." He placed a kiss on my forehead, keeping me closely tucked into his chest, his breath moving rapidly. I could tell he was injured, blood coming from some wound in his chest, but I knew he would never say anything about it as long as I was here.

"Where were you anyway?" he asked finally, curiosity getting the best of him.

"I was hiding behind the trees, shooting arrows, stopping the bad guys, just like every other day." I told him, adding some humor to lighten the grim mood, which appeared to work, a small laugh escaping his lips.

"So that was you? All those arrows flying everywhere?"

"Mmhmm," I smiled, leaning closer into him to whisper. "I do have some skills, you know?"

"Oh, really?" he laughed again, teasing me. "Though, next time, when aiming, try not to hit my head."

"Hey!" I laughed and scolded at the same time. "I was saving your sorry ass from Erica! She was just about to rip your head off."

"I know, I know..." his smile faded away, replaced by something more serious. "Allison, thank you, for saving my life. I know that you risked so much to come here, but it really does mean a lot to me. I don't know what I would've done without you."

I smiled on the verge of tears, the emotional stress of the day too hard to hide now. "Scott, there's no other place I would rather be than here, by your side, whether it be sitting or fighting. I meant what I said earlier, about forever, and this doesn't change a thing. I just want to keep you alive."

We were both smiling by that point, so happy just to be together, alive, that we forgot for a moment who we were. We kissed as if there were no tomorrow, not caring who was watching, making every second, every emotion last. I melted into his warm embrace as the kiss deepened, and just as I was about to lose myself in him, we heard a rustling noise from behind us.

We broke apart, our faces red yet happy, and then Scott's went white as he saw Derek lurking about in the shadows, a ring of hunters standing with their backs turned away nearly ten feet past him. Thank God they didn't see the kiss, but Derek seemed to need Scott for more pressing matters than our forbidden romance. He just stood there, staring intently at us, and then all the sudden disappeared into the woods without so much as a sound.

"Why's Derek still here? Shouldn't he be gone by now, especially with all the hunters around...?" I asked breezily, a hint of a laugh coloring my voice at his strangeness

"I don't know..."

He sounded serious, if not angry, and I had a feeling Scott knew exactly why Derek was still here. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.

"What is it?"

"It's nothing..." Scott shrugged away from me, his expression still cross.

"Yes, it is something. Go and...go figure out what he wants." I couldn't believe the words were coming out of my mouth.

Scott looked just as shocked as I did at my statement. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, go ahead. I'll be fine here, with my parents. Promise." I gave a small smile and nodded, more to assure myself than him that I trusted him to go into the woods with Derek and not come out injured.

As if he could sense my unease, he held my face in his warm, rough palms, bringing my forehead to his. "I'll be right over there, only a few yards away if anything happens. Just call me if you need anything."

"I will." I said, sucking up my fear as I stared into those gorgeous deep brown eyes. He kissed my cheek and turned, slowly sauntering off, clearly not wanting to leave me.

I didn't know why I felt I would be fine on my own, because I wasn't. I knew that someone had to know I was there, because if Scott knew my arrows, then someone else was bound to know them as well. Almost immediately, my answer came in the crazed face of my grandfather who, as I turned around, shouted something unintelligible and obscene from his claw-scarred face before the metal of his sword plunged its way clean through my abdomen.

My eyes went wide at the impact, the pain not registering in my mind quite yet, though I could feel the tissues in my body ripping with the blade and then disconnecting completely as it was removed. My first collected feeling was warmth as my hands became coated with my own sticky sweet blood from where I had been clutching my wound. It came fast, faster than the pain, my shirt absorbing it like a sponge, trickling down my legs and onto the grass below.

Then the pain came, the searing pain of severed flesh making my knees lock, and then, when I could no longer contain myself, I screamed, though no sound came out. I looked up at my grandfather, wondering why, and all I was met with were a pair of dark, hateful eyes that sneered at me as I stared. The blood loss made me dizzy, my brain pounding in my head, my vision going white, and my locked knees buckled, dropping me to the ground.

"Allison..." I heard someone inquire, the voice of my mother undoubtedly. Then she shrieked.

"See! This is what we do to traitors! No good spoiled brat!" my grandfather yelled in response, deranged and no doubt waving his sword.

I couldn't see, but I heard jumbles of yelling, pairs of running feet, the sound of a blade slicing the air, and gunshots that didn't do anything. I heard screams of pain and fear, the terror of my parents overwhelming, yet I could barely stand to breathe... I heard the padding of werewolf paws coming closer and closer until they were practically on top of me, and when they stopped they were replaced with one pained, angered howl.

I heard more of my grandfather's cursing at the howling object, but it didn't last very long. After a few swishes of the blade and breaking of various objects, I heard a lone, strangled yell before a snap echoed through the forest, and the unmistakable sound of a thud rang clear, the sound of empty weight hitting the ground. My grandfather was dead.

I wanted to scream, scream for help, but I couldn't. I couldn't even move; everything hurt too much. I heard yelling coming from above, clearly male, and after a hushed argument I couldn't decipher, I saw the only person I really wanted to.

Scott was there, holding my broken body in his arms, and everyone had cleared away, all of them standing off at a distance. My father held my mother as tears ran down her face. She did not sob, yet this was the most emotional I had ever seen her before, and my heart ached for her. My father was stone faced, carefully watching Scott, not trusting in him, and I knew that he wanted to be the one next to me instead. I had no idea what Scott had said to get my parents to let him near me.

"Hey," he said through his broken speech, his eyes wide and wet in intense fear.

"Hey..." I whispered back, smiling through the pain.

"I thought," he cleared out his voice, catching in too many places. "I thought we agreed that if you needed anything, that you would just call me?"

"I tried...but I couldn't..." I sighed, still smiling.

"Allison...I, I don't know. I don't know what to do. Please, just tell me what to do, how to fix this..."

He was crying now, tears running down his face as he dropped his head onto my chest. I stroked his hair like Lydia stroked Jackson's, my blood stained fingers tracking the sticky goo through his soft hair.

"I'm fine...I'll be fine. I promise." I told him, murmuring words into his hair.

I felt so sleepy all the sudden, sleepy and cold. It was tiring, pretending to be alright as you bled out onto the forest floor. I truly believed I would be okay; I had suffered worse, but a quick nap was all I needed. Just one nap to re-energize...

"Allison..." I heard Scott say through my sleepy haze. "Allison, your heart rate, it's dropping...Allison? Allison!"

"Hmmm..." I sighed, waking up, forcing my eyelids to open all the way. "Scott...? I am so tired..."

He looked frantic, his eyes searching my entire body before finding my wound, finally taking in all the damage, feeling the puddle of blood that seeped into the dirt around us. He blanched and then his expression fell; he turned away, but I could see his face scrunching up, more tears running down his cheeks.

"You'll be fine, just like you said." he told me finally, shaking off the tears, smiling as if to reassure me of this. "You're going to be just fine..."

I heard someone else come over, though I could not see a face, and kneel down next to Scott, and I heard the familiar voice whisper something in Scott's ear. There was protest on his part, pulling me closer and shrugging the other person away. When the voice started to get a little louder and rose above me, gently tugging on Scott to get up, arguing started. Then, the voices got heated and frantic, words like "They're going to kill you" and "Come on" resonating through my ears, making me panic. Still, Scott refused, and suddenly, chaos erupted.

I heard more people come fast, and Scott's arms were ripped out from around me, his shouting becoming louder and louder. I heard fighting, the sound of physical fighting, and growling on Scott's part, no doubt in my mind that he had transformed in his state of distress. There was more fighting, yet Scott was the one to go down, a gun butt to the head from my father sending him to his knees, his golden eyes rolling back into his head.

The other voice shouted his name and attempted to run to him, but I heard more hunters go after the voice, the sound of feet being dragged across the ground following pained screaming. I could hear his struggle, his attitude as he was yanked up and away from Scott, threatening to call his father, the chief of police, and have them all arrested. I knew immediately that the other voice was Stiles. I wanted to tell Stiles to run away, that we would be okay, but I could still hear him fighting with the hunters, and I felt as if I were falling into a nightmare.

Scott had gotten up during this time, and was running after Stiles who was being dragged into my father's van. I could hear him yelling at the hunters, demanding that they let him go, but they refused, more coming out to contain the angry wolf. Scott easily took them down, yet before he could get to Stiles, something far more terrifying happened. Something loud and metallic pierced my ears, making them ring with excruciating pain, more so than the wound in my stomach.

A gunshot.

If I could've screamed, I would've. If could've gotten up and run to Scott who was tumbling to the ground nearly a hundred feet away from me, a growing splotch of red blooming from his abdomen, then I would've. But I couldn't. I could only watch him hit the ground, a shout of pain escaping his lips as he curled inward.

Our eyes met from across the forest floor, the pain in his evident, yet it was evident that his main concern was still me. I saw him turn over, his body posed to crawl, his arms reached out to pull him across the way to me. He succeeded most of the way, dragging himself along the path, wincing and howling at every lunge. He was nearly ten feet away when another pair of feet, a familiar pair dressed in boots I saw every day in the closet at home, hovered over us, his back to me, yet his face to Scott.

I barely had time to react before the gun went off again.

This time, I did scream. I screamed something so fierce, so terrifying, and so painfully loud that it made everyone jump back in shock and fear. It was as if all the sound that had been trapped within me for the past few minutes had bubbled up and broken free, creating the most heartbreaking and terrible of sounds. I sounded like death, of intense hurt and pain, of heartbreak and misery, yet full of anger and hatred. Every negative emotion left my lips, and no one dared stop me, not even my parents. I assumed they already thought me dead.

When I finally stopped, I braved the pain and turned towards Scott, my father no longer blocking my view of him, and I was relieved to find that he was still alive. However, a tiny new blossom of red was forming right above the other, right where his heart was, and mine automatically sunk. He was palling by the second, and I knew that if he didn't heal soon, he would die before any help could come. Those were probably silver bullets though. Scott could never survive a silver bullet to the heart.

Still, in his bleary condition, he desperately reached out to me, closing the space between us as we lay face to face, bleeding on the ground, our hands intertwined loosely. The world was cruel; at least if I had to die, I wanted Scott to be safe, not lying down dying with me. What was the point of death if you couldn't leave something good behind? There was nothing good left behind me now.

"Scott...I'm sorry..." I cried, tears running down my face.

"Don't be..." he sighed, a faint smile twitching at his taut lips. "You were worth it...you're always worth it..."

"We're going to be alright though...I promise." I said, nodding my head, though I was starting to lose feeling in my body.

Scott didn't say a word; he simply smiled and shook his head at me, as if to signal that he knew better than to believe in a false hope.

With that, I pressed my eyes shut and sobbed, my body shaking lightly. How could this be it? How could I be dead now, when my life hadn't even begun yet? I had so many plans, so many goals for the future, all of them ripped away in a heartbeat by the blade of a deranged dead man. I had such hopes for my life, such hopes for Scott and I both. It didn't seem right for us to be deprived of them so soon, before we even had the chance to figure things out for ourselves.

The sound of sirens found my ears before I could realize what they were. They started out as soft as whispers, breaking in between my tears, growing and growing closer until their distinct sound was made clear to me. There was a rustle around me, of feet rushing to leave, and the hushed voices of my parents following suit, trying not to get caught at the scene of a triple murder. Just as soon as they were gone, massive amounts of feet flew by us both, shouting things I couldn't make out, their flashlights searching the forest around us.

Scott's breathing was shallow, and he had begun to close his eyes when I shook him awake, afraid he might die on the spot. I could see a gleam of silver out of the red of his blood-soaked shirt, the trademark of a silver bullet, and prayed they would find us in time.

"Don't worry Scott, there are police here. They'll help us..." I said, my voice breathy and light. I couldn't feel a damned thing inside or out now.

Scott could sense the change in my voice, the spike in my heart rate, and he leaned up to see me, becoming much more alert.

"Allison?" he whispered, clearly confused.

"Scott?" I asked, a little frantic as my chest closed in on me. "I'm scared...why can't I feel anything?"

I couldn't see how he reacted, because as soon as I had my last word out, it felt as if someone had crushed my chest in and knocked the air out of me. I couldn't breathe, and I collapsed, my head hitting the leaves and dirt instantaneously, my eyes dilated and wide.

I could hear his screams for help, and I could see the bright lights finding our bodies, rushing to our aid, hopefully not too late to save us. Voices all blurred together as they surrounded us, calling into microphones, asking for immediate evacs, and checking my pulse. Eventually, Stiles' voice wafted through my ears, and I weakly turned to see him kneeling besides Scott, desperately trying to help save his best friend's life.

Scott's eyes were still glued on mine though they had grown tired and weary, the brown losing its lively luster. Still, even in death he was handsome, and it was a shame for such looks to wither. Our hands were still intertwined, gripping onto each other for dear life, though we both knew life was a fantasy at this point. All I could do was wait for something to happen.

"I love you." I whispered to him, my voice paper thin and almost gone.

"I love you..." he said back, his voice equally as weak.

We clung to each other as the officers returned, talking to the ones who had stayed behind, including Stiles who looked absolutely distraught, yelling at people to do something, but I hadn't the strength to look much farther. I lacked the energy to do much more than breathe, and even that was taxing, bordering on painful. Scott didn't look any better, and through all the pain I still couldn't truly believe that this was happening. We were both moments away from death's door; I could feel it, I just didn't want to believe it.

"I love you..." I quietly breathed out again. I didn't know what else I could say to make this any better.

"I love you..." he replied with labored breath, a smile still on his lips even though I was the reason he was lying next to me.

"I love you..." my head was spinning like crazy, the minimal oxygen I had been taking in destroying my body. I focused on Scott's face just to anchor myself in this world.

"I love you..." he mouthed, his eyes fluttering shut. I knew they would never open again.

Tear stung at the corners of my own eyes. I knew this was inevitable, but it was cruel to watch him die. I could see that his chest was still rising and falling, but the motions were becoming slower, and I knew they would stop any minute.

"Don't go..." I whispered, my voice straining and cracking through every syllable. "I...love...you..."

It was beyond difficult to speak. My chest felt like lead, the pressure building in it too great to withstand, and sleep, it seemed, was inevitable. My eyes closed shut right after Scott's, expecting darkness, yet the world I fell into was a different kind of sleep. Feeling returned to my body as I transcended into the light, leaving the world far behind me as I delved deep into my mind, somewhere I knew I would be safe.

I retreated far within myself, so far in that I was gone completely, and by the time the medics arrived, I was as pale as the moon and cold as a rock, my body as unmoving and rigid as the one next to me. Our hands were still linking us together, still holding on, even though we had already left.

By the time the ambulances came, it was far too late.

We were already safe.