Thanks so much for the positive reviews! I hope you enjoy, I had an… interesting time writing it. So venerated reader, read on, read on!

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Such a lonely day
Should be banned
It's a day that I can't stand

//Flashback//

I've always been terrible at ice skating. I don't even know why I agreed to come out here to the park and embarrass myself. To be honest, I'm having second thoughts. Here on the edge of the ice, watching the people in their puffy coats and fluttery scarves skid by, laughing, I feel so out of place. Takao and Max are having a great time, and Kai... Kai is floating over the ice, graceful and picturesque, like a bird in flight. He's not looking this way. Maybe if I just try to get on the ice with my skates straight, I can- Ouch! I should probably drag myself off the rink before I become road kill, though that would probably save embarrassment. Ack! It's so slippery! I need to get up before-

"Kai!"

He's holding out a gloved hand, and there's the slightest upward tilt to his lips that's just perfect. I take it, and he helps me up. I'm blushing, aren't I? Eh, whatever, I'll blame it on the cold. Besides, if I'm not mistaken, he's blushing too. He hasn't let go yet, in fact he's holding tighter. Why is he looking at me like that?

"Rei…Together this time?"

I like it.

"With you, Kai? Of course."

//End Flashback//

Rei had been knocked out before. Not just momentarily disorientated, but-wake-up-and-don't-know-what-day-it-is-or-where-you-are out cold. Twice, in fact. Once when his infallible neko-jin grace had failed him and he'd slipped from the top of cliff, and once when a cook at one of the restaurants he had worked in had a temper tantrum while holding a frying pan. Both times he had awoken to concerned, more or less panicking faces…

But never to a blazing sun and a brazen lizard on his arm; it was a green little thing, and it was staring with bug like eyes directly into Rei's own golden slits. He bared his fangs and hissed, partially to scare away said lizard and partially due to the pain he was slowly becoming aware of. It scampered away.

Closing his eyes, the blader took stock of his condition, leaving the question of what exactly had happened for a later date.

Head: hurt like hell.

Chest: Hurt worse than hell, and he could feel the blood congealing. (He made a mental note: getting shot sucks.)

Everything else: bruised, and hurt like hell. At least the bonds were torn, so it wasn't too difficult to get them off.

Tentatively, he sat up, and figured given the situation, he wasn't so bad off. A horrible burning smell caught his attention, and he cast his gaze over the bush around him, searching for the source. A smoldering heap of twisted metal, strewn over a stretch of burnt ground met his sight; the large black truck was nowhere to be seen. Shakily, he stood himself over, staggered towards the wreckage, and looked at it, face blanched with a confused expression, before vomiting.

Head considerably clearer, he limped over to a nearby rock and sat down, cradling his hands in his head. Was panicking an option? Nah, too late for that. Going into shock? By this point, probably been there and done that. Ripping off strips from his clothes (a now filthy grey tee-shirt and baggy grey shorts) and using them to bind various nicks and cuts, he tried to think things through a bit, ignoring the pounding in his skull. So he'd been kidnapped, and he was stranded, out in central nowhere, by himself. No, there was a possibility of with some lunatics with guns still out there.

But if he could deal with Bryan Kuznetsov, he'd be struck if he couldn't deal with this.

Rei just needed to find the road again, and then someone could help him, right? He was feeling more than a little bit of apprehension at trusting strangers at the moment, but there wasn't really much of a choice.

Now determined to find the road, the golden eyed boy slowly arose from the rock and surveyed his surroundings once more.

The rocky earth dipped and curved like a dragon's back, adorned with stretches of rough, brown bushes and small, worn trees. Cat like eyes flickered towards where the cars must have driven in wild pursuit; plants lay strewn on the sandy ground, the dirt gouged with ruts and tire tracks.

Wanting very much to reach civilization before nightfall, he began at a steady place along the path of destruction that his journey here had created. Sharp hearing alerted him to a dry rustling sound, and he glanced down to see the same green lizard.

"What is this, some twisted version of the Wizard of Oz? I'm sorry, but Toto didn't have scales, and I'm no Dorothy."

Rei's voice was thick and raspy, but the silence was becoming unnerving. Usually he'd go out of his way to find this type of calm, nothing but the duet of various birds and insects filling clear air. Now, however, it meant something else entirely. It meant no one might find him, and he might not make it back to Kai. They'd both be alone, and it would be all his fault.

That thought was too much for him to bear.

This in mind, he trudged on, becoming more and more desperate with each moment to see another human face. The stalker lizard was seriously starting to creep him out, and he refused to sink to the level of avoiding eye contact with a lizard. While he was avoiding eye contact with said lizard, he glimpsed a flash of black. Suddenly things seem to slow down, and his quickening breath screamed above the previous quiet, before it was rudely interrupted by the rumbling of an engine, wheels on rocky ground, and the booming crack of gunshots.

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Cliffhanger? What cliffhanger? Review and I promise it'll disappear!