-Chapter 2-

Serena lunged out of the "shelter" and dashed away from Darien before he could get hurt. The tooth fairy followed in hot pursuit. She'd pay dearly for all those comments!

Another knife, this time smaller, was thrown at her. It hit her shoulder. She gasped in pain as the knife split her skin. Nails were thrown and hit her in the back. She kept going, determined to get the monster away from all those people that included Darien. She picked out the nails and knife. More blood was shed.

"Hm! This is more fun than I first thought it would be!" the thing said.

Serena ignored it and continued trying to run. She made it to the other side of the city. Another window was thrown at her and shattered, just like the first one had. Serena was cut up and seriously wounded almost everywhere on her whole body. No longer could she run. She now limped. Not only that, but she was exausted and worn down. She had nearly no energy left in her.

"This should just about do it!" the creature stated merrily.

Serena turned around to see what it was talking about. She bumped into a large tree while doing so. A huge blade was jammed into her stomach. The monster let go of the sword, satisfied with seeing blood drip from the wound and from Serena's mouth, then flew off laughing. Serena was stuck to the tree, too weak to pull out the sword.

A man came up and found Serena, uncounscious, pinned to the tree by a sword. "M-Miss?!"

He pulled out the sword and a peircing scream filled the air and scared away several birds. Yet more blood gushed out.

Darien heard the scream, which couldn't be mistaken for anyone else's, and came running to a terrifying scene. He saw a strange man he'd never met before, a blood-covered sword, and a bloody Serena. A strange feeling filled his gut. One no one has ever described before. He went over to the person he always called a meatball head. "S-Serena..." he choked out, "You... You said you'd be fine... But, you were lying the whole time, weren't you? Y-You... You knew something horrible was going to happen, didn't you? That's w-why you ran off..."

"Excuse me, sir. Do you know this young lady?" the stranger asked.

"Y-Yes... S-S-She's a special friend of mine."

"I'm going to take her to a hospital; you should come, too." The man picked her up. "Ooof... She's pretty heavy..." He struggled to carry her to a nearby hospital. Once there, he filled out alot of paperwork while a nurse came and took Serena to a hospital bed.

Twenty minutes later, the nurse came back out of the room. "We've cleaned her up and inspected her wounds. We don't know if she'll live or not but we do know that she'll need some time to recover. Let's see... Oh! There were one hundred and seventy-six wounds total. The majority of them were smaller wounds, but several were pretty deep cuts. There were also many that were extremely serious gashes. To say for myself, I'm suprised she even lived at all! Anyway, you can see her now if you want. She's still unconscious, though."

"Thank you, Nurse." Darien said.

The stranger and Darien went into the room where Serena lay, bandages all over her. She was bleeding so much that most of the bandages showed red on them.

'So... She took 176 hits to save me and everyone else... That must've been excruciating for her...' he thought. Then he noticed something else. 'There's a bandage on her head... Probably from when that crate hit her. That crate...' He remembered whent hat crate was flying towards him.

Before she could dash back out, a crate came flying towards the pair. Serena stood up and sheilded Darien from the indirect attack. She dropped to her knees, but didn't drop to the ground entirely.

'It was all my fault...' he thought. 'This happened because of me... Serena nearly died; all so I could live... But why? Why would she feel the urge to protect someone she hates so much? And why didn't she try to fight back? She only ran... Oh! It must have been that creature. She ran so the creature would follow her out of the city... In doing what she did, she protected everyone's lives... And she endured all that pain until she was sure everyone was safe...'

"Sir, what's her name?"

But Darien was too deep in thought to hear him.

"I sure do hope she wakes up soon... The nurse said she didn't know if this girl was going to live or not."

Still too focused on Serena.

"Well, my name is Derek Khoffman."

Finally, Darien snapped out of his little spell, but only after Derek got through talking, meaning he didn't hear a single word he said.

"Serena! I'm so sorry! I won't ever call you a meatball head again! Just please! Wake up! Wake up, Serena! C'mon!" Tears streaked down his cheeks. "S-Serena... Please wake up... I never got to thank you for helping me out back there... You know, when you shielded me... Serena... Serena... Wake up, already..."

"You said she was your friend. It must be hard for you to see her like this... I'm awefully sorry."

"I-It's not your fault. The nasty truth is, it's mine. I managed to tick her off and she stormed out of the arcade..."

"What happened after that?"

Darien spent the next several minutes telling the man what happened as far as he knew. But their little chat had to come to an end because they were interrupted by a sharp: BEEEEP! BEEEEP! BEEEEP! BEEEEP! BEEEEP! BEEEEP! BEEEEP!

Nurses and doctors rushed in shortly after and one of the nurses ordered Derek and Darien to stand back and to give the others some room to work.

"W-Work?! What are they doing?! What's going on?!" a panicked Darien asked.

"The girl's heart has stopped beating; they're going to try to revive her."

"WHAT?!"

A doctor shouted out to another doctor, "Set level 1; current flux, level 1."

"Level 1 set."

The nurse rubbed two shock generators together and shocked Serena with them.

"Set level 2; current flux, level 2."

"Level 2 set."

Shock! Nothing was happening.

"Get an oxygen tube down her throat, STAT!!!"

"Set level 3; current flux, level 3

"Level 3 set."

Shock!! Nothing happened.

"Set level 4; current flux, level 4."

"Level 4 set."

SHOCK!!! Still nothing happened.

"Alright, set level 7; current flux, level 7."

"Level 7 set."

SHOCK!!!!!!! Still no heartbeat.

"Set level 10! Current flux; level 10!"

"Level 10 set!"

SHOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Finally, what everyone had been praying for. A miracle. Serena's heart started beating again, first a little slowly, but it steadily climbed until it was at a steady: BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

"Oh, thank God!" Darien relievedly said.

"Well, well! She really did survive! That's so great! I got worried!" Derek said, also relieved.