If you have an issue with gore...this chapter's got a lot of it. Consider yourself warned.

Will had hoped that a bunch of kids full of greasy food would've at least piped down, but the bus was as chaotic as it had been all trip.

"Santana, sit down!" Mrs. Lopez hissed from somewhere behind him.

"Fine," Santana said as she plopped herself down on the massive console that contained the gear-shift.

"You see who I live with?" Mrs. Lopez asked Will.

Santana dismissed her with a wave. "B's about to blow."

"Huh?" Will asked.

"Britt's not feeling well. She swears she's preggo again because she saw a stork outside her window. I saw that bird, and, frankly, it wasn't a stork. It was a pigeon. I try to tell her not to eat the crayons anymore, but…" she threw her arms up in the air. "You know Britt. I think it was that shit-hole you took us to."

"So, roll down your window and let her get some air and ask if anyone has a plastic bag or something!" Mrs. Lopez suggested.

"You may wanna pull over for a bit, Mr. Schue. Unless you wanna clean up barf."

The bus hit a sudden dip in the road, causing Santana to lurch forward.

Kurt dozed, cheek mashed against messenger bag. Normally, he would obsess over the certainty that the imprints from the bag would mar his complexion, but at that point, he was too tired to care. Nobody had attempted to sleep in the North Dakota motel room the night before, and for some reason, judging from the ruckus around him, apparently he was the only one feeling tired at all.

He called his dad earlier that morning as Carole suggested to tell him they'd arrived in Seattle. He also got another text from Blaine, who was in the middle of finals at Dalton. He sent a picture of the Seattle Skyline as a response with the text:

"I'm sleepless. In Seattle. No, really. Sleep is apparently optional."

Blaine had sent a text back:

"I thought you were Meg Ryan in this relationship? It was Hanks' character who was sleepless in Seattle."

Kurt's thumbs flew over the keyboard:

"So I'm not allowed to evolve in this relationship?"

"I totally miss the eye-brow raise thing you would be doing right now if you were here."

"Eyebrows? Really? That's the part of my anatomy you miss?"

"I'd reply with a dirty joke, but I really do have to get back to studying. Trig is calling."

"Text me when you get done with finals today."

He laid his head against the flat end of the bag, put his ear-buds in, pushed play on his i-pod, and tried to drown out the rest of the bus as he attempted to drift off to sleep.

He barely registered Mercedes' phone buzzing next to him, and hardly felt the dip in the road at all.

"I'd say break a leg tomorrow, Baby-love, but you don't need it. You've got this sweetheart! Knock their socks off. Love you! XOXO. P.S. Say hi to Daddy for me and make sure he stays out of trouble. ;)"

Mercedes grinned at her mom's text and was about to send a reply when the bus was jostled and the phone slipped out of her hands.

She bent down to reach for her phone, but it was just out of reach, and was about to ask Carole in the seat in front of her to kick it back towards her when a jerk sent her tumbling on the ground. She vaguely registered a cacophony of sounds that didn't make sense, but mostly, she just heard screams, loud and piercing. There was the clinking of splintered glass as it made contact the floor of the bus. Above all, though, there was the sound of metal groaning as it began buckling in on itself.

Mercedes screamed as she was tossed like a ragdoll against the legs underneath the passenger side seats, and the back of her head throbbed.

Then it was still.

Now the only thing Mercedes could hear was the ringing in her ears.

The bus was at a halt. Mercedes couldn't really tell if the bus had flipped, but that was the only thing that made sense.

"Daddy!" Mercedes cried out. She'd never had a panic attack before in her life, but all of a sudden she felt her line of vision growing smaller and smaller and somehow her brain didn't get the memo that breathing was supposed to be automatic. She couldn't remember how.

She didn't know how long she laid there out of breath before she felt someone shaking her shoulder and heard a familiar voice calling her name.

"Mercedes!" the voice said. "Mercedes deep breaths…come on….in through the nose, out through the mouth…" she did and was at least able to slow her breathing enough so that she could open her eyes.

"Get your ass up!" Lauren. It was Lauren. Mercedes opened her eyes to see the wrestler hovering over her. She breathed as sigh of relief. "You hurt anywhere?"

"My head…" Mercedes mumbled, breathing in deep once more, she registered the sickening metallic smell of blood mingled with the noxious fumes from the fuel tank.

Then she saw it. A severed arm. A severed arm that was wearing the same sleeve Kurt was wearing that morning.

"No…oh no…nonononono" she whispered. "Kurt! I'm fine! Help him!"

Lauren just sucked in a deep breath, and didn't answer her.

"Get up…but don't stand up all the way." Lauren instructed, which of course, made Mercedes look above her, and there, just inches above her head, was a ceiling of metal that was smeared with blood. She felt her breakfast fighting its way up her esophagus, and that's what finally made her scramble towards the front of the bus. As she made her way to the front of the bus, hunched over, she saw several pairs of legs. "Help them! Why aren't you helping them?"

"Just GO!""

"No, Lauren! They need…"

She finally stood up a few feet from the front of the door, and whatever she was about to say died in her throat, because the sight that greeted her was something out of a horror movie.

Blood. There was so much blood. It was difficult to focus on anything else.

The seat Lauren occupied only moments before with Puck had somehow been spared, but Puck was lying limp and lifeless against the window.

Blood was still gushing from the lifeless torsos of her friends. Artie and Brittany's headless torsos were slumped against each other as their blood continued to spill, pooling in twin rivers on the floor below their seat.

Rachel's ridiculous unicorn sweater was so bloodied she could barely see the lavender color that it used to be.

Somewhere to her right, someone was groaning.

The glance in that direction would give her nightmares for years to come. It was Sam. They weren't…anything…anymore. but that didn't matter. She had to do something. Help. Whether she was saying he needed help or just screaming it in her head, she didn't know, but…

"Sam!" Mercedes screamed. "Lauren! He needs…he's still alive! You have to help Sam!"

But then she realized why Lauren wasn't rushing to his aid. His lower body was missing from the hips down.

There was a pained, shallow cough.

Then stillness.

She looked up, and that's when she saw the rest of the damage.

Quinn's ihead/i was only inches from her feet, severed at the neck.

Mike's upper half lying against glinting, bloodied shards of glass looked like pieces of amber in the sunlight. His brown eyes usually alive with laughter were now glossed over and empty.

And then she saw where she herself had been sitting with Kurt.

Whose body had been sliced at his shoulder blades.

She was still screaming when someone (or maybe a couple of someone's) had to bodily drag her from the bus.

"Mercedes!" Mr. Schue called out. "Thank God!" he breathed. She grabbed his hand as he assisted her out of the bus.

"Baby!" the familiar sound of her father's voice boomed over the throng of people outside, grounding her back to reality. She felt her father's strong arms wrap around her as he sobbed in relief. "You're okay?"

She could only nod her head as her father smoothed her hair and shushed her. "Hush baby, it's okay. You're okay. That's all that matters."

Her father didn't get it. Half of her friends she'd come to call family were gone. She'd just lost her two best friends in the world. She'd never hear Kurt or Rachel laugh or sing again, or see Mike and Brittany dance. She'd never roll her eyes at Artie for being his wannabe ghetto self. She was mostly over Sam, but any grief she still felt over that relationship was replaced by the horror at the realization that he'd just died right in front of her and she couldn't do a damn thing to help.

Sirens sounded in the distance after what seemed like an eternity, and it wasn't until then that it registered anyone else in her immediate surroundings. Slowly but surely, though, the other people started to come into focus. She saw Mrs. Lopez holding Santana, and Tina was sitting down on the sidewalk rocking back and forth, just staring dumbfounded at the wreckage. She couldn't see the front of her where she was standing, but Mercedes could've sworn that Tina's hair was blue this morning, not red.

Finn clung to his mother who was shaking with sobs, blood spattered on the back of his t-shirt. Mercedes was only peripherally aware of the spectators that had begun to accumulate. Some had their cell phones out, taking pictures of the damage, and a few were asking if everyone was okay, but most were gawking as though it was a spectator's sport, which made her angry as hell, but she didn't really have any energy to yell at anyone. She was still absorbing the reality of what had happened.

A tall, stern-looking woman in a police uniform approached them.

"Who's the driver of the bus?" she asked Finn, who pointed at Will.

"Oh God…" her teacher kept muttering over and over and over again. "I didn't even… I couldn't see… and then I heard all this noise all at once… and… just… c-can you tell me if… are any of the others…?"

She shook her head. "I'm sorry sir, but the EMTs haven't found any survivors at this point."

He ran his fingers through his hair, as his gaze remained steady on the wreckage.

"My kids… oh my God, how? H-how could this happen?"

"We were hoping you could tell us, sir.

He sucked in a breath and exhaled. "I don't know."

"Can you tell me a little bit about what happened before?"

"Santana was telling me Brittany was getting carsick," he said thickly. "But beyond that, it's a little fuzzy. M-my back was turned. My eyes were on the road. It was just… all happened so quickly and it was suddenly so loud."

The policewoman put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "The driver of the other vehicle is also being questioned. As soon as we have the full story, you'll have it. For now, though, we'll need a list of the names of your group and their family's contact information so we can notify their next of kin."

Will nodded, dumb-struck, and handed him the list in his pocket with all the names of the New Directions members and their parent's contact information on it.

Still in a daze, Mercedes couldn't bring herself to look at the bus just yet, so she looked down the street. About a hundred feet away, she saw what caused the disaster: a tractor-trailer had been carrying sheets of metal, and most of the metal had spilled onto the street. She wanted to hate the driver. She wanted to yell at the idiot who was responsible for this tragedy. She wanted to scream 'Murderer!' at him, because that's what he was.

But she didn't have any energy left to hate him.

"We've got a live one!" Came a cry from the bus.

Carole inhaled sharply a few feet away from her.

She passed a hopeful glance to Mercedes and reached out for her hand.

"Could it…?" Carole couldn't even bring herself to finish the thought.

Mercedes held her breath. She knew what Carole was hoping for, because she was hoping the same thing.

She saw him. She isaw/i Kurt's body. Still, despite that indisputable, cruel fact, she squeezed her eyes shut as the memory of the gruesome sight came unbidden. She knew it wasn't Kurt. She iknew/i he was dead, but still, she needed hope right now and she grasped on to the slim chance that what she had seen hadn't been real like a lifeline.

"Oh dear God, please be Kurt, please be Kurt, please be Kurt," was her mantra as she watched the EMTs wheel someone off the bus on a gurney. She knew who it was, though, as soon as she saw a familiar bracelet braided in the Buckeye colors.

"It's Puck!" she shouted, and a wave of guilt crashed over her for feeling disappointed that it wasn't Kurt.

"I've got to pull myself together," Carole said, sniffling. "Oh my God…how am I… this is just…."

Finn nodded at the vans from news stations as they began to pull up. "If we don't tell him, he'll find out when he turns on the TV, or he'll find out from some cop over the phone."

"I can't do it, Finn. It'll break his heart and I just can't…"

"It's okay, Mom."

Carole nodded and handed him her phone.

"Hey, um…Burt," Finn started. "Yeah, it's Finn. We're in Seattle. Can you do me a favor?" There was a pause. "Don't turn on the TV today okay?" Another beat of silence as Finn listened. "No…" Finn said. He swallowed. "He's not. Something happened, Burt. We're gonna need you to come to Seattle. There was an… an accident. No. He's not. He didn't…" His voice cracked and Finn swallowed. "He didn't make it. You should get the next flight out. We…they don't know. Call us back and let us know what flight you're taking. We'll meet you at the airport."

She should've cried then, but the tears just wouldn't come, not even as her father pulled her into a tight hug while Carole sobbed violently against her son's chest.

Mercedes inhaled and the smell of blood mingled with motor oil filled her nostrils. It made her insides churn, and her half-digested breakfast christened the sidewalk.