Chapter 3. Don't Forget

Disclaimer: First thing is first, I would like to give a huge thanks to DaemonicKitten for being my second in command of sorts, and she had also given the idea for most of this chapter as well. If she hadn't poked me with ideas then I probably wouldn't have even updated this third chapter until many…many months later. -N

Dear Heavens-!

There was so much pain, hot and white searing pain racking through my body like an ocean wave. I could feel the warm liquid running over my skin, to splatter over the pavement like fluttering petals.

All my senses just seemed to be dim or on overdrive within my system at this moment. The harsh throbbing of my wounds flared open like flames licking upon my body.

The sound of screeching tires reminded me of the scent of burning smoke that was filling my lungs. It was heavy and it burned my lungs, causing me to choke painfully. The muffled sounds of screaming were distant to my ears, as it seemed to echo around my reality. It was like being underwater.

I felt as if nothing was truly reaching me where I laid sprawled on the pavement, as if my cold existence was fading or maybe it had already faded. Almost like falling into a cold abyss I could never claw my way out of.

Suddenly, my attention zeroed out the rest of the world, only noticing now the heavy weight of the metal shard hanging about my neck.

It felt heavier than I remembered and seemed to be getting warmer the more my breathing came out in jagged puffs. Heating and heating until it came to the point that it was boiling the very skin it sat upon.

It hurt, but it wasn't as terrible as the rest of my broken body.

Then…it slowly began to disappear, gasping in relief when it seemed to get cooler and lighter to my senses. Almost like a feather that was drifting from my hands, almost as if…it had never existed to begin with.

-Berith

Naoma's Pov:

The weeks after being in the hospital were to say the most painful, and the most boring I had ever lived.

I would have been more over productive and patient if someone had just given me a laptop, and maybe then I wouldn't have thrown that cup of water at the doctor.

But apparently, it's an unspoken rule to make your patients bored out of their minds until the only thing they had left was bad television programs and a major ache throughout the body.

And the day the nurses came in to release my cousin and I were the happiest seconds of my life, even when I kept saying "ow" as I walked out the hospital doors.

Days passed since we were released from hospital care, our wounds slowly healing from the minor to the more damaging ones that throbbed but slowly repaired its own skin. That much I was sure of when I unwrapped some of the bandages one day.

I sighed, my knees drawn to my stomach and wrapped around by my arms as I stared absently towards the far wall. Stuck in my own little world to even care if I was actually bored and simply staring at a blank wall, almost like something amazing would happen any second.

But that wasn't really were my thoughts were, oh no, they were more set onto the day Berith and I had been almost trampled and killed by that haywire bus swerving to either side.

It wasn't a moment I thought even remotely traumatic it was just these flashes of memories that came during the night that had me wondering, and pausing from any other activity but to relive that moment in my bedroom again.

Flashback:

I could remember lying on the ground, the blood seeping into the pavement like ink. Berith's limp arms held around the damage I was sure to come.

But the more I had laid on the ground, frozen and simply listening to the ragged breathing of my cousin's own breath, everything just began to fade until there was nothing left but myself and the numbing pain.

Then, it was like fluttering my eyes tiredly open from a wonderful dream that I didn't want to wake from. My blurry sight adjusted to my surroundings, mostly consisting of gray skies and the swirls of smoke invading my senses, and crying from the harsh stench invading my lungs.

It did take a while for everything to clear but when it did I simply caught sight of a flash of metal passing sharply through my parallel vision. But it was too deformed to have been from just a car though, I realized that when I thought of the more over shape that had passed above me.

The metal itself appeared to have come from a car, but a rustic colored vehicle with smooth and yet sharp edges that seemed to define it like an overgrown arm made of metal, almost like armor per say.

~FlashBackEnd~

I groaned, burying my face into my rising hands, "Damn, maybe Berith is right, I should take a break from Transformers."

Especially if I was starting to come up with ideas that I saw a huge metal arm passing over my head, then it was best to say I should take some Trans-rehab for that one…at least for a little while.

"Hey," Berith's voice called out to me, it seemed almost strained though where she leaned against the frame of my bedroom door, "Do you need anything at the store?"

I gazed up from my hands, not really pondering her question but more over in the crazy sense…Had Berith seen the metal arm?

Had the metal arm been…actually real, and she had seen it too?

But I quickly cast that thought aside as fast it came since it was obvious the arm had been my imagination to help distract myself from the pain at that moment of bloodshed. That much I tried to reassure myself of, but somehow…I felt this inkling of truth beyond the reassurance, as if maybe…it had had been real, but I was simply choosing to ignore it for being so far-fetched.

"Um," I shook my head to clear my fuzzy thoughts before straightening up, "No- no, I don't need anything, I'm good here."

Berith nodded absently and made her way out my sight. Once I heard her faint shuffling boots crossing over the flooring and the defined 'click' of the front door, I slumped back on my bed and exhaled loudly.

Berith's Pov:

I hissed as I made my way out into the open world, scrunching up my eyes from the glare of the sun before my vision began to adjust. I turned on my heel to fulfill the duty as food manager, before I relaxed back in the apartment and became a lazy ass again because of the pain.

As I leisurely made my way down the market, I had begun to wonder, to think and replay the little clips of dreams in the back of my mind.

It was strange, it was like reliving that moment I had been crushed by the bus, my body failing and blood spreading like wild fire over the inky pavement below my limp form.

But things were different, it was like everything had faded not in sense but in truth as well, until I was all alone in the dark abyss that had faded into the reality of all that noise, all that people, and all those smells.

I was frightened, wondering why I couldn't move, why I couldn't speak, and why I was alone, but then…I would hear a voice.

It would be almost fuzzy and at the same time so clear, as if someone manipulated their voice to have a hint of that auto-tune sound one would hear in most songs now a days.

The voice itself wasn't particularly clear in my ears, but hey- I was freaking out at the time, why the hell would I listen, was my theory.

And then I saw it, the spot where Naoma and I had been in the accident.

It looked normal as any other day I remember passing it with cars screeching to a slow steady stop, waiting for the light to change while people bustled about on either side of the street.

But I knew better, there was an accident once on this busy road and one that had almost caused our deaths.

Then I caught sight of bright yellow in the corner of my eye, making me turn my attention in that direction where I found my eyes locked onto the familiar yellow Ferrari.

If I thought it was beautiful before, it seemed ten times so now. Somehow it looked even newer than before from where I stood, watching it from the bright car from a distance.

I frowned; I knew that vehicle had begun the chain reaction that led to my cousin's and my hospitalization. But I couldn't seem to let my anger rise to the moment.

I mean, I did feel a tad of blame towards the car and the owner. But it was such a small resentment that it seemed more like a petty insult.

Especially since the accident wasn't planed and the blonde Ferrari owner was merely a bystander, that much I accepted.

I watched as the Ferrari owner stepped out, scrutinizing the blonde with narrowed orbs. He appeared really close to my age, judging from his looks, and he looked to be in his late teens, early twenties himself.

He was glaring as he sat all 'big-and-worthy' upon the hood as he pleased, his icy orbs seeming to glow in the light as he looked around.

Suddenly, it was as if time shifted when I was then assaulted by my dreams, as if seeing the glowering male was the key to everything.

FlashBack:

My head was light and my eye lids heavy, people screaming, and calling for help even as the warmth within my body began to slip soundlessly away from my skin.

It was like being there again, on the unwelcoming pavement I laid upon limply as my blood flowed steadily from my body. Crimson reaching in every direction like spilled fine wine.

I couldn't move, couldn't even speak as I tried and tiredly forced my eyes to stir open. Then I only met pure white.

Blinking a couple of times my blurry vision melted away and the white fluffs began to form patterns, but most of what I saw was human shaped shadows and an inky mist flowing about in my vision.

I still couldn't move, but I did what I could with my tired eyes. Flicking them around as the shadows moved about, some too frozen and shocked to even do anything but stand there with white splotches, which I guess were mouths, gaping open.

I wanted to scream at them. None of them were moving, none of them were doing anything but muttering to themselves, and I so desperately wanted to demand for someone- anyone to call an ambulance.

But my lips wouldn't part for my desperate plea, and then I wondered why it mattered…it was painful to even think and so I let my mind leave me, to wander and float with no ties to the pain throbbing through my body.

Then I found my movement, my control as I turned my head gingerly to the side, gazing up at the sky that seemed so much more peaceful than everything else around me.

Then out of nowhere I caught the streak of rustic metal passing by overhead, and I knew better to think it was a plane.

It was too deformed to have been from one, I realized that when I thought of the more over shape that had passed above me.

The metal itself was a rustic color with smooth and yet sharp edges that seemed to define it like an overgrown arm made of metal, almost like armor per say.

And suddenly, I found my world slowly growing black when this large shadow of a hand reached for me, as if coming from the skies where the clouds parted for it.

The hand itself was covered by this rubber substance, almost like one would find on vehicle tires but somehow softer as it tenderly grabbed my limp body.

Everything faded then as the overgrown hand of the heavens caged me under its hold.

Noise, people, buildings, everything simply faded…as if just a simple dream.

I could feel my eyes begin to water, cold tears springing from my eyes as the lids began to gradually close…but not before I heard it.

The voice, the warm kind voice that loomed over me as if I was still but a youngling, a baby girl that was still scared of the dark.

~FlashBackEnd~

I gasped, stumbling back as my eyes rapidly blinked to clear away the unsightly vision of my dreams in the light of day.

However, as my eyes landed on him, his eyes landed... Well, I might have been imagining things, but it looked like they landed on me.

As quickly as they did though, they kept going, like I was once again unworthy of his stare.

Then, surprise of surprises, he looked back. His head snapped back around, and he stared at me.

He was too far to make out his expression, but after a moment, the gaze was too intense for comfort and so I had to look away.

I could still feel his burning gaze though, even as I stared intently to the side of the pavement in an attempt to distract myself from being swallowed by those icy orbs of his.

But I couldn't take it anymore. I just didn't feel quiet safe or secure out in the open, and spun around to scamper off back home without a second thought.