6. Red
As consciousness slowly returned, Kyoko found herself lying on her side.
Something's wrong.
Her head hurt. Actually, everything hurt. Most especially her right arm, which was trapped underneath her body. She shifted slightly to free it and whimpered as the pain seemed to double. It was too much, she just wanted to go back to sleep, anything to get rid of the pain.
There's not supposed to be pain.
No. There wasn't supposed to be pain. That meant something had happened. She tried to look back, tried to remember but there was nothing, a blankness that caused a bubble of panic to rise in her chest.
She breathed deeply and gagged as foul air filled her lungs. Her stomach retched and she grimaced at the pain the movement caused before she gagged again when the taste wouldn't leave her mouth.
She shifted her hand slightly and her fingers brushed against something hard and gritty.
Gravel.
Why was there gravel?
Open your eyes.
She did. At first, the darkness didn't disappear and she blinked a few times to try and dispel it. Ever so slowly it began to bleed outwards from the centre and was replaced by a hazy redness.
She looked up and everything screamed back to her.
The funny taste in her mouth was her own blood. The smell was burning petrol from the car thirty metres in front of her.
The car that had turned into a raging fireball, flames licking into the sky and throwing a fiery orange blanket of light over the darkness as a noxious black cloud blotted the stars from the night's sky.
She could feel the heat from where she lay, prickling at her skin.
Car...
Ren.
Her eyes shot back open from where they had closed. Ren. Ren had been driving. Ren had been in the car.
Ignoring the pain, she pushed herself up with her left arm, scanning to see if Ren had gotten out.
There was nothing.
He didn't get out.
She couldn't breathe. He didn't get out. He was still in the car.
What's left of the car...
No! Ren wasn't...he couldn't...
Oh, but he is...
Kyoko let out a choked sob and turned away from the sight of the twisted wreck, tears streaming down her cheeks. She felt completely hollow and didn't much care when her left arm gave out on her and she collapsed onto her back, ignoring the pain was so much easier when she didn't have to fight it.
She stared up at the stars for a long time, watching as they flickered and faded. A small part of her wondered if she should get some help somehow, the larger part of her didn't care anymore.
Feeling tired, her eyes burning, she twisted her head away from the flames, looking out into the darkness.
Something pale lay around twenty metres from her. She blinked. It took a few moments for her sluggish brain to catch up to what she was seeing. It was a hand. She frowned and blinked again, trying to focus her blurring sight.
A hand...
Ren.
She jolted and cried out in a mixture of pain and relief. Ren wasn't in the car! He wasn't dead! It was with that thought that she noticed that he wasn't moving and terror slammed into her. No! She couldn't find that he was away from danger to have this happen to her!
Ignoring her better sense she gritted her teeth and pushed herself over so she was resting on her stomach, holding herself still until the screaming agony died down. Then slowly, so very slowly, she started to crawl her way over to him.
It took what seemed like forever. In the beginning every shift of muscles brought a fresh wave of pain and it wasn't until she was halfway through that the pain seemed to fade and a liberating light-headedness came over her.
She was tempted, so many times, to just stop and rest for a moment. To give into the darkness that had blacked out the edges of her vision but the sight of Ren's unmoving form made her continue on. She could rest and sleep after she had reached him.
Despite her resolve she could feel herself flagging. The pain had all but disappeared now, completely pushed out by the giddy feeling that made her feel that if she moved to fast she would just float away. Her vision had narrowed until there was just the paleness of Ren's hand surrounded by black.
Still, she fought on, desperate.
Eventually her outstretched fingers brushed her goal and with one last herculean effort she dragged her body up until she was lying shoulder to shoulder.
His face was turned towards her, darkened with blood and dirt. His pale hand, the same one that had caught her attention in the first place, was splayed between their two faces, strangely without a speak of dirt on it. It looked obscene.
He wasn't moving.
Kyoko reached out, unable to make any sound, trying to brush away the hair that was sticking to his face. She watched, curious, as her arm trembled violently before falling to the ground, on top of Ren's, unable to fight gravity any longer.
His hand was cold but the whiteness of his flesh was soon lost under a sheet of red.
Her vision blurred and darkness rushed in with a roar that blocked out the snap and crackle of the flames behind her.
Scared, she pulled Ren's hand towards her face, seeking comfort. She didn't want to be alone. Not now.
Her breathing shallowed out and the giddy feeling took over, she could feel herself spinning, the only thing that anchored her was Ren's hand clutched in her own which she dragged against her mouth, pressing a harsh, desperate kiss against his knuckles, tasting her own blood, before she fell into oblivion.