Terezi! Terezi, where are you?! Sollux raved. She couldn't speak either. Wait, either? No, for some reason, neither of them could get anything past thought. Sirens snapped into the background. Someone was yelling they were sorry, sorry, so very sorry. It was all their fault. They hadn't meant to do this. It was an accident. Oh, no, look at all the blood.
Terezi felt a freezing spasm in her cheeks and forehead. Her nose was shrieking in agony, like her arms and neck. Everything hurt so much. There was something limp, wet and warm pressed against her sides. Yet...that something was cold at the same time? What- Sollux. They were his arms, splattered with blood and his skin losing temperature. Terezi tried to move off of him, maybe help alleviate some of his pain in the process, but found herself a rag doll. Movement was nearly impossible.
"I've got the girl," a man called back to whatever was in the distance. Terezi felt firm, leather hands wrap around her arms. She moaned, making as much noise as possible. Of course the heavy grip didn't understand her, but she was desperate for someone to grab Sollux and keep him safe. She wanted nothing more than for him to be alive, for him to be alright.
Terezi felt her legs swing into a kind of suspended bed, one that pressed against the pain on the outside of her arms. She cursed over and over in her head, feeling that the repetitiveness might ease the discomfort. Clunking people bustled around her and sat at the edges of the room, which she heard heavy doors close on shortly. Wait! Where was Sollux?! Wasn't he coming?
The room broke forward, rolling on and speeding up. Terezi wanted to cry out, wanted to scream and get some of this stabbing hurt out of her, but it was impossible. Her mouth wasn't working right, and it frustrated her. Not only was she blind now, but lost in the dark with nothing to do. She couldn't speak, move, barely hear, and her nose was being ripped off her face. Nothing would help her and all she wanted was to be unconscious, or to be back in the car with Sollux, telling him to start moving before whatever happened did.
"You wanna give her the gas, chief?" a female voice asked, though it was very masculine and boyish. Other people at the edges murmured, wondering if she really needed it or could hold out. Yes, yes, give me the gas! Give me the gas! Terezi screamed inside. She managed a moan and let it escalate in volume. If she was so distressed, they'd have to fume her, and she knew it. Whatever it was, she wanted it. She wanted anything, anything at all. Just to get rid of this feeling.
Guilt, physical injury, longing, worry, and this indescribable pressure in her chest. It weighed so much, and all Terezi desired in that moment was to be free. Get away, run. Terezi stopped and listened. The noise was gone. She couldn't hear anything, not even the murmurs around her. Something plastic was pressed over her cheeks, and she felt it through all the hurt, barely. Smog coated her face and broke through her throat and into her lungs. It pushed its way deep within Terezi, and she was unable to escape the dry, squeezing feeling that filled her core. Slowly, though, all her senses joined her sight; they became black, nothing, feelingless.
Terezi dreamed. She hadn't in years- not since she lost her sight. She'd been hit in the head when she was eight, but she didn't know who did it or what it was. Her parents wouldn't tell her, insisting that it was better she never knew. Now, at the age of nineteen, eleven years later, she was seeing in her sleep. Everything was tinted differently than she remembered it though; the sky was pink and the sun was brown. The grass was blue and her skin was green. Terezi didn't care though. She was seeing!
She was in her old neighborhood, where she'd first met her best friends. The sidewalk looked like some kind of candy cane, striped diagonally with red and white. Terezi knelt down and rubbed her finger over it. She stuck it in her mouth, tasting for a few seconds to see-
Nope, nope, that wasn't candy. She spat, hacked, and wiped her mouth with her forearm. In doing so, she realized she didn't have her glasses. She didn't need them here, not with her vision. She chuckled, glad to be rid of them. From behind, she heard a similar laugh.
Terezi wheeled around and faced her adversary. "Vriska?" she asked, unsure if it was her through the strange neon colors. Her normally sandy blonde hair was bright magenta, pale skin turned red, and all of her blue clothing and glasses shaded white. Vriska nodded, slowly approaching Terezi step by step.
"What are you doing?" Terezi faltered. She was starting to become nervous; Vriska had a dead look in her eyes and approached with a ghostly flow.
"Returning a favor," Vriska's monotone, cold voice replied. The strange thing was, her mouth didn't move as she spoke. Terezi squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, returning to the all too familiar darkness, and opened them again. Nothing changed. The wild colors were gone, the old faces vanished. But they were still there. She felt Vriska and several others stroking her body, and then was hoisted into the last, she screamed.
Her cries of fear belted through the dream, filling every aspect. The crowd below was mumbling and talking quietly amongst themselves. She didn't understand. What were they doing? She picked one voice over the others; it was Karkat, her oldest and best friend.
"We're paying you back," he whispered. Terezi was about to ask for what, what had she done, when they dropped her to the ground. She landed with a heavy thud, rubbing her back and bottom. Somewhere in the darkness, a foot came into her ribs. Terezi screeched, crying and asking why, why, why.
"You killed him! You killed him! If you'd told him the traffic was moving he'd be alive! You killed him! You killed him!" they chanted, over and over.
They all began to rip into her, tearing at her flesh and face. Breaking bones, drawing blood. But...eventually, it all slowed to a soft, cushioned feeling. Terezi lay there, limp and bloodied, ready to die. Sollux was already gone, and maybe she could have saved him. Maybe if she told him what she thought, that the cars were coming for them and he better pick up the wheel, maybe he'd be alive. She wasn't sure, but her gut feeling said he wasn't coming back. He wasn't opening his eyes again.
He had lost his life, the one thing that was worth saving. And now...Terezi's sobs burst as her body became hollow. She felt an emptiness in her core, something so strong that made her want to rid herself of everything she had. Tears, emotions, thoughts...maybe she'd be better off dead. She and Sollux; together forever, in the afterlife.
But, what was happening then? If she wanted to die, why could she feel again? Her arms were sore and stinging, and her face were freezing. Someone was sleeping in the corner; she could tell by their soft, deep breathing. Terezi's throat was painfully dry. She realized she was lying down, and wanted desperately to sit upright. Her arms could move now, unlike a few hours ago. She struggled to move, but managed to sit up a few inches. Her neck popped audibly as she licked her cracked lips.
"Eh...Terezi? Oh thank god, you're awake!" Karkat pronounced in relief. She could only nod slightly and run her hands over the crisp covering of sheets. "Do you...uh, wanna sit up?" he asked.
Terezi nodded again, and felt his stubby hands pull and lean her up against the flat, lifeless pillows.
"Where am I?" Terezi managed to croak. Karkat sat beside her, careful not to disturb the rest of her body.
"The hospital. Of course the fucking idiotic doctors decided to have a fucking epiphany and take you to the one on the upper north side of town instead of the much closer and cleaner south. I tried to tell them, so don't fucking blame me. I'm just here looking after your broken ass body and deteriorating immune system while the fucking geniuses here think that an old man's heart failure is more important than my best friend!" Karkat erupted. Terezi thought him hilarious in his angry state, but her voice was nearly useless and she felt laughter would kill her insides.
"You think we could get...some water?" Terezi asked with a hearty gulp. Where was her saliva? Her mouth had transformed into a barren wasteland. The sound of skin against skin echoed through the tight space as Karkat slapped his forehead.
"Yeah, yeah. I should have fucking thought of that, but my brain's been reduced to a shitpile of glowing sludge lately. Those fucking chairs aren't exactly the most comfortable fucking pieces for lounging and reclining for a couple days," he complained.
Terezi said, surprised, "You've been here with me for that long?"
She heard the scuffle of Karkat's sneakers against the tile as he halted, a foot away from the door.
"Well, duh. I was going between you and Sollux to be perfectly honest, but you snore, so it was just the epitome of my jackass life to try and sleep around you. I stayed with Sollux mostly."
Terezi felt her heart leap through her skin and trample every other emotion she'd been harboring for the past few hours. Even while unconscious, the guilt boiled like a hot spring.
"That's fantastic! Is he awake too? Would the nurse wheel him into my room? I wanna talk to him, and where are all my clothes and stuff, now that I think about it?" Terezi chattered.
"Ter...Tere...Terezi!" Karkat shouted, running over her rambling.
"What?" she asked, slightly annoyed.
"Sollux isn't in the best condition. They're trying to operate on him soon, but...he got a lot of glass stuck in his arms, his fingers are either sprained or broken, and...uh, well, he can't see anymore."
Terezi let the information sink around her, encasing her in another bout of depression and guilt. Sollux lost his vision? He...he was blind? Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no.
Terezi felt the stab of a howl crawl its way up her cracking throat, threatening to destroy her very sanity. She'd brought it upon him. She could have stopped him. She could have saved him. A tear escaped her careful clutches, and slowly rolled its way down her pale, freckled cheeks. Karkat cursed under his breath and was by her side in a few, short strides.
"Look, I didn't mean to make you cry," Karkat explained as gently as he could, "but yeah, he's not gonna be seeing for a while. They're pretty sure it's permanent. The good thing is though, his head slammed into the dashboard pretty hard in the crash, and they straightened out his mouth! No more shitty lisp anymore for him, yay, the world is one hundred fucking percent better."
Karkat sighed and rested a hand on Terezi's thigh. Curling away, gentle to not disturb what she found to be tubes and patches across her body, Terezi shivered visibly.
"I'll...just get the water," Karkat offered. He slid out the door step by step, continuing to look back upon her cringing body.