Fatal

Alfred's body slammed into mine with a force stronger than any I had ever encountered from him in the past. Alfred had always been powerful and confident with his actions, but even before the time of gentle caresses and small, soft kisses, he had never hurt me before. He had never struck me to the ground, knocked the wind out of me, and sent sharp bullets of pain shooting up my whole body.

His touch had always been kind.

But yet, here I was, lying on the pavement, quite sure that I was bleeding, with Alfred somewhere nearby (or was that the weight that was currently pressing down on me?). I couldn't tell, however, considering that my vision was also spinning, my head was throbbing with an intense pain, the likes of which I had never known before, and I couldn't quite keep track of all my limbs. It felt like I had none yet had thirty all at once.

I think I was quite numb as well, though it's been such a long time since then that I can barely remember now to write this. But I'm relatively sure that I could barely feel anything. There was some pain, but yet there wasn't any pain at all. I don't know how to describe it, but I think the injuries were just so great that my brain shut down its receptors for further sensations. I felt like I was floating, but I was also weighed down by the heaviest chain—probably as a result of the fact that Alfred really had been lying on top of me.

I don't remember much of what happened next, but I can tell you the information that I received from the police report afterward. As you can probably tell by now, it was a traffic accident, and Alfred had rushed in to push me aside.

The fool.

There was blood everywhere, though Alfred and I were both still conscious. The car had apparently turned the corner without looking, speeding right into us as we crossed the road (with complete right of way, mind you). The driver had been injured too, though with the least harm out of the three of us. I hold nothing against Mr. Braginski now, although I did for quite some time, back in my younger days.

Anyway, lying there, I didn't know what they were doing to the man in the car, though there was a lot of yelling everywhere. It had taken them several tries to get Alfred off of me, and I wasn't really helping much by just staying limp, bleeding out upon the ground.

It was an oddly comfortable moment, actually. Alfred was on top of me, and I guess his blood, my blood, his body—everything together—it just felt so warm. It was a demented and macabre sort of heat, but I couldn't tell at the time. I remember feeling vaguely sleepy, as surprising as that sounds. All I could think of was Alfred, and that set my body and heart on fire in ways that no physical means ever could. I was in my own little blissful heaven, blocked off from the pain and shock for that moment.

I slipped in and out of consciousness, and at one point, I remember the weight being lifted off. There were sirens and voices everywhere, and someone asked me to look in a certain direction, but I don't think I did it correctly, because that's when things started happening at an alarming pace (or at least it was alarming for my shocked and lethargic mind).

There was a swinging sensation, a great feeling of vertigo as I felt the ground drop out from beneath me. Or was it that the sky was just falling down? Were the stars crashing together, the clouds spinning wildly, the universe breaking apart right before my very eyes?

I guess in a way, it was. Because from that day onward, my world would never be the same again.

Alfred was somewhere else at that point, lost in the fray. Part of me wondered if he was okay, but another part of me couldn't even remember why I was wondering that in the first place. What was there to worry about when I was drifting in and out of pure bliss, the image of Alfred's sweet smile in my mind to keep me company?

And then it hit me, like a great wave of nausea that follows food poisoning.

"Arthur!"

That was my name, echoing in my mind. It had been yelled, loudly and frantically, with a voice that was cracking with desperation.

Alfred's voice.

It repeated once again in my mind, louder this time, and I was gripped by a sudden mind-numbing fear I couldn't quite understand. It was disorienting—sickening, even. Apprehension flooded my body just as IV fluids flooded my bloodstream, and I think I might have even shook with anxiety and desperation.

I began to murmur Alfred's name, shifting around on the stretcher so much that they had to hold me down on the way to the hospital. But my mind was blank, a haze in which I knew nothing but the fact that I wanted to get to Alfred—I needed to get to Alfred. Damn anyone who would stand in my way.

The fear didn't leave me until I lost consciousness once again, this time for good. The last thing I remembered seeing was a white tiled ceiling, periodically broken by blinding white lights. I think I might have mistaken it for heaven of some sort, and I was simply so terrified that I had gone on to the next life without Alfred. That somehow, I had left Alfred behind in this tragic occurrence, leaving without at least one final good bye.

I apparently kept murmuring Alfred's name even as my mind lost it once again. It was nice to know that even in the aftermath of an accident, during the rush of panicking officials and the alarming loss of blood, my final word was still Alfred's name, my final thought still of his beaming smile, the touch of his gentle hands. If it was heaven, then at least I was going out in the right way.

This all comes from what people told me later, of course. I'll give you an award if you can be in an accident that painful and traumatizing and still remember details like that—decades later.

The incident actually wasn't all that horrible, though, in hindsight. It just felt worse because I was right in the middle of the fray, caught up in all the complications (not to mention a few of my ribs were practically shattered, and my leg was badly broken, as I later found out). It was a wonder that I had been even awake enough to register as much as I did.

We had been walking from dinner when it happened, on a nice but rare evening out. It was in celebration of Alfred's impending promotion of sorts; he was going to finally lead his own project (this is that same project I had mentioned earlier, though he was only one of the "underlings" then).

We went out to a newly opened Indian restaurant nearby. Alfred wasn't as picky about fine cuisine as I was, but he humoured me every so often. Thus, he let me pick, even though it was for his sake that were were dining out that day.

The dinner itself had been a pleasant affair. We were still getting used to referring to each other as fiancés in our minds, it having only been about a week since Alfred had proposed. But to the both of us, it felt so delightfully right, so perfectly fitting that we used it at any opportunity we had.

It was something like this:

"Alfred, what are your plans this weekend?"

"Oh, nothing all that extravagant. Just canoeing on the Potomac with my fiancé."

Or—

"Arthur, can you get to me the newly drafted contract by Tuesday?"

"I can try, but I'll make no promises. I promised my fiancée I'd visit his parents with him on Sunday."

See? That term made itself into front-and-center in our lexicon quite quickly, but how could we help it? We were both excited to no end.

And then, when Alfred found out about his promotion to head of his project, he almost cried. This is not a hyperbole in any sense, I can assure you. Alfred cried more often than one would think, though he got worked up about the silliest things sometimes (no McDonald's in rural Cambodia was quite a tragedy, apparently).

And so he cried, and he practically swept me off my feet in a tight bear hug when he had revealed the big news. We were both absolutely ecstatic about the change, and obviously for no reason more strongly than that of our impending wedding. We didn't want to be engaged forever; the sooner we could get married, the better. And of course, a good wedding that involved everything we wanted would cost some money (not to mention the world traveling we wished to do beforehand).

Thus, we thought it apt to celebrate the development in style with some fancy Indian cuisine. And it was from that restaurant, while walking home (a decently long distance, but it was a clear night, and you ought to know by now how much we loved the stars), that the accident occurred.

Through the mess of things, I didn't end up waking until the next afternoon, only to find myself in the whitewashed and dreadfully pristine "heaven" that was actually one of the hospital care wards. By bed felt incredibly cold, despite the duvet that was currently thrown over me. That was probably because I had never spent a night away from Alfred's side unti that night for the past six years.

It took me a bit to get oriented, considering I was assaulted by pain the moment I woke up. My mind was sluggish, likely from the morphine or some other medication they gave me for my pain (Harvard was known for law, not med). It was a few minutes before I even realized that my leg was elevated, and that most of the pain was stemming from that and my burning torso. The throbbing migraine didn't help matters either.

I'd seldom ever been inside a hospital room, since I was fortunate enough to have a family with a solid medical history. Both parents still intact, my own body functioning for the most part—life was good. And heck, even Alfred was—

What had happened to him, actually? What had happened to me, for that matter?

"Arthur!"

The sound of screeching tires. Something crashing. Breaking glass. Something else hitting the ground. Messy sounds and jumbled colors—and an uncannily comfortable amount of warmth.

I groaned and brought an arm up to cover my eyes, or at least made a move to do so, before the the excruciatingly stabbing pain put that plan to a stop.

My headache was already worsening, and I closed my eyes, struggling to find that floating peace once again. It seemed like a far off, distant memory, yet also so close and familiar at the same time. It was warm and inviting, and I would have rather had it back any day over these cold and hard white walls.

"Alfred," I groaned, my voice stuck in my throat. I really needed some water, otherwise I'd have just been croaking inaudibly for the rest of my (hopefully brief) moment of consciousness.

Searching around ever so slowly, I finally found the control panel and fished around for the button that would ring up a nurse and pressed it.

And pressed it.

And pressed it.

Hell, was the service in hospitals always this terrible? It was no wonder people disliked being cooped up in such an uncomfortable place. A few more days here and I was sure I'd be driven insane. The faster I could return home and resume life with Alfred, the better.

At long last, a woman finally came, looking flushed from running and vaguely annoyed that I had been so impatient. Well, if I was paying exorbitant money to be here, then it had better been worth it. I felt no remorse whatsoever on that standpoint.

What did get me, though, was the look on her face even after she had stepped in. Upon closer inspection, it seemed less like irritation and more like... unwillingness.

Unwillingness to be the bearer of bad news.

Fear instantly gripped my body, to the point where I found it quite hard to breathe. Blood was pounding in my ears, my chest so tight I thought my heart would burst right open and spill all of my anxieties onto the ground. Even before she opened her mouth to say anything, I somehow already knew. I already knew and I didn't want to hear it.

Something had to have happened to Alfred. Maybe he was in the hospital, just like me. Perhaps he had more broken ribs than I did. Maybe his whole side had been smashed to pieces. Dear lord, what if he was paralyzed?

I didn't want to hear any of it, and my face was scrunching up to throw a fit. But the nurse had seen that coming, and before I could do much of anything else, she let the words tumble out. It was a jumbled mess of syllables that I couldn't even register for a few minutes, but she had said it. Clearly. Loudly.

Irrevocably.

I swear right then and there that my heart really had burst, and that my innards had all but splattered itself everywhere upon the ground. My inside was a mess of sensations (and in hindsight, whose brilliant idea had it been to tell me right off the bat like that?).

I was trembling, shaking. I could feel it yet I couldn't feel it (or anything whatsoever) at the same time. My body was acting on its own, due to the fact that my mind was already gone, deep into the throes of shock and denial.

Because, as it turns out, I was the last to find out that Alfred (Formidable, Fierce, Fearless) Jones—

—Had died.

Author's Comments:

It wasn't like you didn't see this coming. So no tears. :T

And I'm sorry. I'm terribly unhappy with this chapter, since I feel like it deserves so much more weight and explanation, but I can't do it. I'm running out of 24-hour time right now, which I know is a crazy thing I imposed upon myself, but I still want to do it nevertheless!

One more chapter to go, guys!

- Galythia