Chapter 7

Matt:

A garbled noise escaped my mouth, which I suspected was a groan. I felt a strange warm liquid trailing down my jaw. When I blinked my eyes open, all I could see was white, so my first coherent thought was, Is that the light? Am I dead?

And then, Aw, damn, I died of a car crash. How lame is that?

After that, I realized that the white was just the air bag. I gingerly leaned back from it, eyes trying to adjust. My goggles had saved my eyes from being damaged.

It was dark. How much time had gone by? Where were we?

When I looked to my left, the passenger seat was empty. The seat belt was haphazardly thrown on the cushion, the door ajar. No Mello around anywhere.

Panicking I'd killed the blond, I managed to wiggle out a pocketknife and slashed a hole in the airbag, since I didn't know how to put back the stupid thing. It deflated with a quiet hiss and I stepped out of my car. My left leg crumpled beneath my weight, having been in an uncomfortable position for a while. My right leg came out to support it, and thankfully I didn't fall flat on my face. Now that I could walk, I had to find Mello. I mean, I'd kissed him. I refused to die before knowing what his thoughts on that were.

"Mello?" I called. My hand went up to my forehead, where a gash was still bleeding. "Are you dead?"

I pushed up my goggles to my forehead and, surprisingly, wasn't hit by a mass of bright colors. Instead, everything was...dull. The leaves on the trees were a darker shade of green, the brown deeper, and everything else pretty much in the same predicament. I took one moment to glance back at my car. The maroon paint had been nastily marred by scratches, the front completely obliterated by the tree trunk in front of it. I silently mourned, wondering how the hell we were going to get back.

I started to walk down the road, repeating Mello's name as I did so. My left leg burned, and I wondered if I'd broken a bone or something. Whatever it was, I didn't take the time to find out.

"Shit," I muttered to myself as I blundered aimlessly. "All I need is this place to rain ash and it's Silent Hill." That game creeped the crap out of me. Hopefully it wouldn't be the case.

I continued walking, still calling. A few minutes later, when I was about to give up, I saw a sitting figure under a tree. Crossing my fingers, thinking, Please don't turn out to be a Bubblehead Nurse, I crept towards the figure. As I came near, there was this sort of yellowish glow radiating from the person. I knelt in front of them to discover it was Mello.

"Mello, how the heck did you get here?" I said hoarsely, tilting the unconscious man's chin. I examined his face for any fatal wounds, then inspected the rest of him. There was a dark patch of blood on his right hip, but he was otherwise fine.

"Nnn, Matt?" Eyes blinked up at me, blue irises dilating as he studied my face. "Fuck you...all your fault," he said coherently, head lolling to the side. "Heh...you're not dead..."

It took me a while to figure out how he'd gotten here. He must have woken up a while before I did, figured I was dead(how nice of him), and tried to get help. Unfortunately, his hip was in too much pain, so he stopped. Thank god he had the brains to rest beside the road. A car could have gone by and squashed him. But, then again, the chances of that happening were extremely slim. This place looked deserted.

"Come on." I helped him to his feet, supporting his weight. My leg protested, but I forced myself to suck it up and tried moving. Mello shoved me away weakly and I was too tired to fight back. He was capable of walking, though his right arm was tightly pressed against his hip.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Fine." Without another word, Mello took hold of my arm and started to support the left side of my body. "Dammit, I just wanted my puppy and I get this..." Mello kept muttering to himself as we shuffled down the road.

"L's house should be about two miles from here," I told him quietly.

Mello nodded slowly. "Got anything edible?"

I patted my pocket. "Would a pack of gum suffice?"

"I suppose." We continued on in silence. A few minutes later, I broke the quiet atmosphere.

"Am I supposed to worry about you keeling over all of the sudden because of blood loss?" I joked humorlessly.

Mello flinched. "No."

I stopped abruptly, stepping back a little. I fumbled around in my pockets for the gum, took it out, and held it out to him. He looked dead tired, and I seriously doubted he had the strength to chew gum. But it was the best I could do. After all, he looked hungry also.

"Thanks," he murmured, accepting it.

The injury on my left leg must have been pretty serious, or I lost quite an amount of blood. Either way, the moment Mello's fingertips met contact with mine, I stumbled forward, eyes fluttering shut into unconsciousness.

|~::~|

|~::~|

"--the wound has mostly dried up, but he has lost a fair amount of blood."

The area beneath me was soft and comfortable.

"What do you recommend, doctor?" A different voice inquired.

"Plenty of rest and not too much physical movement. He's had a bit of a concussion, but don't worry. It's not as big as his friend's," the first voice replied.

Friend? ...Mello?

My fingers twitched, and, like Frankenstein, I sat up. A wave of dizziness washed over me and I had to lay back down. The sudden movement just brought more nausea and made me want to throw up.

"Matt?" It was L's voice. "Open your eyes, but don't move anything else. You heard the doctor."

I did as he told. The light was excruciatingly bright and I longed for the tinting of my goggles. "Mello," I rasped.

A man in a white coat offered me a glass of water, which I carefully sat up for. I gulped it down, relishing the way it refreshed my throat. The dizziness was slowly conceding, but it was there. However, I forced myself to stay up and repeat, "Mello."

L smiled warily. "Of course. He's in the next room. Don't forget to tell show him gratitude; after all, he did carry you here with an injury."

...What?