Thankyou everyone for the overwhelming praise! It is a real honour! This chapter is rather dark, but hopefully will leave you eager for my next instalment! Keep up the great feedback, and I'll keep up the writing! Thankyou again!
Disclaimer: I don't own the OC, but I do own a TV which plays it every Tuesday Night! (I'm Australian!)
Inside the destroyed, upturned vehicle dangled the two limp bodies of Ryan and Marissa. The glovebox lid hung open, with no sight of the beautiful sapphire ring. That, along with everything else lay in darkness.
Marissa was having the most terrifying nightmare. She had just come out of one of her worst days, only to have a horrible fight with Ryan, the only one who understood. She remembered the tears that blinded her gaze. Then she remembered seeing it, and remembered the feeling of her body cripple and succumb to pain. She remembered feeling her head smash into the window; a million pieces of glass piercing her skin.
Her eyes fluttered open. She stared blankly at the picture before her; a chaotic image of the splintered windscreen and the open glovebox. She wheezed in excruciation. Her seatbelt was the only thing keeping her from falling into the dashboard. It choked her, and she could hardly breathe. The seatbelt held her at such a strong grasp that it scraped her neck, the strap sinking deep and blooding flowing from her chest.
She couldn't take it any longer. Her voice broke as a quiet but desperate cry escaped from her mouth. She shed a tear which slid into the corner of her mouth. It tasted like metal; blood was seeping from the wound on her forehead, which was throbbing uncontrollably.
Her breathing became more laboured and she felt her consciousness fading. The seatbelt was killing her slowly. She needed to break free before she lost the battle.
Desperate for relief, Marissa lifted her dangling left arm and felt weakly for the buckle. It seemed like an eternity, but finally she felt the plastic button beneath her shaking hand. With every ounce of strength she could muster, she took a deep, broken breath and pressed into the button.
But it didn't release.
She was too weak.
More tears bled from her blackening eyes. She released the hold of her arm, letting it fall back. But her soul stopped when her delicate fingers brushed the tips of Ryan's blonde hair. Oh, God!
"Ryan?" she choked, sound barely escaped from her voice.
Nothing.
"Ryan!" she began to hyperventilate, the ordeal almost too much for her to bear.
Again. Nothing.
In panic, Marissa twisted her head, only to be pulled back by a horrible ache that struck from her neck. She screamed in discomfort. She clenched her fists, determined to swallow away the desire to simply give up.
As far as it would move, Marissa turned her head slowly. Straining with her eyes until they nearly burst, she was devastated by what she saw. More cries charged through her body.
Ryan hung from his seatbelt, his head leaning in towards her. There was blood on the steering wheel where his face had collided and there was a deep red wound in the middle of his forehead. It destroyed Marissa to see him, like this. He was always the fearless one. Now this.
Even through Ryan's limp eyelids, Marissa imaged his clear blue eyes staring back at her, reassuring her that everything was going to be okay, that he was not going to give in, that he had not departed this world.
But still, there was nothing, and Ryan could never know that Marissa was next to him, praying that he would awake. It literally broke her heart.
Weeping hysterically, she felt around for his hand. She felt his soft fingers and folded hers in with them. She clasped it as tightly as she could. Gently, she raised it and kissed it, then rubbed it along her cheek. She breathed deeply and looked at him.
"Ryan!" she sobbed frantically. She was now numb to her own pain; no choking strap or glass-wounded gash could overwhelm her emotion. All she felt now was the deepest, strongest love for him, and yet the deepest, gravest sadness.
But still Ryan slept, his broken body sagging in his seatbelt.
Only when Marissa tasted a strong of flow of blood leak from her mouth did she realise her own ache again. Tears of anguish turned into tears of weakness. She felt again the seatbelt, suffocating her chest.
Neither of them would last the night. They needed help.
And at that moment, as Marissa's mind began to slip, there came from outside the car a distressed call.
"Can anyone hear me in there!" a man's voice whimpered.
Marissa's spirit rose. At a desperate surge of strength, she forced a gut-wrenching reply, "Help us!"
"Miss! Miss! Good God, are you alright!" the man yelled through the glass.
Tears again welled in her eyes under the pain and emotion, "My boyfriend…" it was all she could manage, all her body would permit.
"Don't worry, love, help is on its way. You and your boyfriend hang in there, okay?" the man's voice was soothing.
Marissa was still holding Ryan's hand, but her strength was failing. "Ryan, stay with me. Don't leave me here alone."
And at that final breath, her hand fell from his and Marissa fell into darkness, her senses collapsing and dead to the kind, tender arms that lifted her from the wreck.