Author's Note: As you may have noticed, on the last chapter I changed the rating to PG-13, but this chapter's more of a PG-13½. It contains graphic images, and a character death. And no, it's not an OC.
This Chapter: The characters face the aftermath of the 'new' disaster, some with serious to fatal injuries.
P.S.: Clintronic Waldrop, who said it was a huge meteorite? –Laughs evilly-
Chapter Six: Slip and Fall
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had…"
—Gary Jules
Lucy Hall had almost no idea what was happening. One minute, she was in the infirmary tent, waiting for her son to return from whatever he was doing and her husband to return from NOAA, and the next, she was thrown from where she stood, dashed against the cloth wall that collapsed over her. She felt a shudder run through her body: a clear, distinctive, yet horrifying sound of a bone snapping. As her already slightly frail body slammed against the half-frozen earth, Lucy tasted blood on the back of her tongue, and her throat began to constrict. It was the awful feeling that invaded her body when Lucy knew that the tears were coming. She didn't just pass out, either. The pain was searing throughout her entire body, and the absence of sight was beginning.
She didn't dare move, even if she could. The only thing she could do was lie and wait.
Lucy fought to keep herself awake, although the epicenter of pain, where the bone had shattered, her left leg, was helping to keep her in the conscious world.
After a half an hour, she heard something out of the deafening silence. "Hello, is anyone in there?" someone shouted.
"Help!" Lucy pleaded hoarsely, a horrible feeling coming over her, worse than all the pain. Peter… Sam… Jack… what if? Oh God, they can't be…
She could hear footsteps against the earth, someone coming closer. And closer. Suddenly, the weight of a part of the tent lifted from her. "Lucy?" She recognized the voice immediately, but what remained of her distorted vision was adjusting the light she had very sparse of.
"Jason?" she called out, her throat throbbing as she spoke.
Although Lucy couldn't see, Jason nodded, attempting at lifting her from what remained of the infirmary. "Yes, it's me… Lucy, where does it hurt?" Jason asked, deciding now was the time to lapse into the serious; setting her down on the grass.
Lucy didn't answer. "Where's Jack?"
"Mrs. Hall—"
"Where is he?" she almost pleaded now, her eyes acquiring a gleam from her tears. The horrible feeling of cries and the fear swallowing the pit of her stomach.
Jason, too, was crying, but not aware of it. Lucy attempted to look deeper into his facial expression, trying to read what she already in her deepest fears and horrors already knew. She felt like she was about to throw up.
"I—Lucy, I'm so sorry…" he whispered under his breath.
When Sam first awakened, he'd gotten the feeling that he had been hit with a sledgehammer. A very large sledgehammer. His eyes fluttered open, and even that was a painful task. His shirt and pants were sticky and wet with blood, and his naturally tousled hair was matted with the fresh red liquid. He couldn't even think, only just barely perceive the environment surrounding him. One of Sam's arms was clearly broken, and the other had sharp, and rather large splinters lodged in his skin, through his tattered shirt. He was sitting in a pool of his own blood and pain.
Sam cried out in pain, the first sound he could make out. A primitive sound, and rather loud. This was enough to just barely clear his head of the agonizing ache running throughout his entire body. Laura.
His thoughts immediately sped to his girlfriend, the girl he loved so dearly. The girl who, if he could remember the answer, could be his fiancé. She didn't answer, though. There was no time before… it happened. He contemplated.
Where was she? Where was his Laura?
Despite the immense hurting sensation racing in his body as he did this, he tried to sit up to get a better view. Sam blinked as the sunlight settled in his blue eyes, holding up his wood-punctured arm against the sun, and then quickly letting it fall. "Laura!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, or at least as much as he could manage.
He waited for about five seconds, then another shout came. "Sam!" his heart did a few back flips as he turned to the sound of his lover. But he didn't like what he saw.
As much as Sam loved seeing Laura at this very moment, he didn't like seeing her in a position such as this. His wounds looked like band-aid boo-boos compared to Laura's injuries.
Her left shoulder had been slammed into the ground, burying it a few inches deep in cold mud, and her pale, seemingly emaciated legs merged into the ground as well. Other than what seemed like a million scratches, scrapes, and bruises coating her body, she received a huge gash across her abdomen, and probably several broken bones. Blood dripped from her body, letting the earth run red with miniature rivers of her blood. Laura was only a few yards away, but the distance seemed like miles. "And the answer is yes." She said quietly, just so he could hear, and he smiled through the tears of pain and slight grief.
"Sam," Laura sighed, her voice becoming less audible. "If we die…"
"We won't die." He interjected, his voice devoid of any confidence.
"… I love you." She continued as if she didn't hear Sam, but smiled. For him. But then, her expression turned stunned.
"Sam… I can't feel my legs."
Next Chapter: J.D. and his family, north of New Mexico, are reunited with Aaron, oblivious to what happened; Brian and Brennan discover Gwen's fate; Lucy tries to save what remains of her family… … and, well, I can't tell you everything!