She opened her eyes to a fierce collision of tattered ceilings and smoke. There was a dreadful moment of nothing before light and sounds filled her head, and she was falling into the abyss of…. What, exactly? Her consciousness drifted slowly back into her body, and she struggled to blink, and to think. This wasn't her room, her house. She frantically searched her surroundings for something to go off of, and froze. She was wearing the same clothes she had been wearing last night, and now they were tattered and bloodstained. Claire gasped and doubled over as intense pain claimed her torso, and she recalled the explosion. Where was she now? Where was Myrnin?
With shaky hands she pulled herself off of an overturned lab table, gritting her teeth when her ribs protested. She held fingers to a wound, overwhelmed by the slickness of her own blood, soaking her clothes. The immense pain blurred her vision as she stumbled over broken glass and onto the foot of the staircase. The top was now an awry twist of iron and fire, cement pouring down and blocking the door. She recalled standing in the entrance of the lab before whatever happened had happened…. And Myrnin, damn him. Where was he? Her phone was nowhere in sight.
She couldn't breathe. In desperation she crawled to the one doorway that could ever get her back home…. But how could that possibly work? The town was dead, beyond repair. Claire knew she couldn't summon even a bit of energy from the portals if she worked weeks to get them back up again.
She was going to die. And she was hardly awake. She should have cared more, had this happened any other day.
She summoned the little breath she could, let out a few raspy calls for Myrnin, to which her lungs buckled in protest. He had obviously gotten out and managed not to be trapped in a burning laboratory. Claire wondered how long it would be before anyone found her body down here.
Aching and fighting for breath with each sharp and painful intake of smoke, she managed to jimmy the door open just a bit and press her scraped hand against the wall…
And she drew out a portal .She felt it web out into what seemed to be infinite, and in a last wriggle of desperation, Claire pulled herself in and wished herself home, suspended for a moment in dark silence.
She was on the living room floor, her breath hitting the cold tile. She couldn't move, and her hands went to her rib cage, where she knew something had hit her in that explosion. She was still dazed as she heard the front door being kicked down.
Myrnin. "Claire…. Dear Gods. How in hell…" he paused, dumbfounded by the shrinking portal in that wall, but his attention snapped almost immediately back to a whimpering Claire. She was in his arms in seconds, and she heard someone pounding down the stairs. Stuttering cries heaved their way out of her chest as Myrnin hushed her, and she clenched her fists against the pouring wound.
"….ohmyGOD… what the HELL DID YOUDO, MYRNIN?" It was Eve, followed closely by Michael, who clenched the banister on the staircase, eyes wide.
Myrnin was already in action, laying her on the kitchen table and flipping on the lights. And God, it hurt so BAD….
He looked almost pained, his face contorted in agony as he listened to her cry out. She started to shriek as he lifted her sweatshirt and pressed his cold hands against her chest, and she tried to tell him that couldn't breathe… He was yelling something at Eve, and she was yelling something back, obviously panicked, and Claire saw Shane appear in the corner of the kitchen, only to be grabbed by Michael and wrestled out of the room. Claire could see everyone frantically hovering around her, feel Myrnin's hands on either side of her face, trying to tell her something about the portals.
Her eyes drifted shut for just a moment, and Myrnin screamed at her, finally realizing she wasn't breathing, not at all.
He pressed his lips to hers, trying to force air into her lungs, and Eve was dialing 911. Claire listened to it all, exhausted and trying to piece together what had happened through a cloud of her own pain. For the first time in awhile, she waited for the people she loved to save her life while she slipped out of reach.