Beep beep. Beep beep.

Some irritating high-pitched alarm was ringing near me. My already-throbbing head pulsed with each beep beep, beep beep. The warm granite against my left cheek was quite cozy, through.

… Granite? Hold on-

Beep beep, beep beep.

"Hmmwha…" Sunlight stung my eyes as I tried to hold them open. "Snow?" I coughed after taking an inhale of pure smoke. "Hope?" I pushed myself upwards off of my stomach-

"Ah- ow!" I gasped out and one of my arms gave out. "Oh, hoooou…" Once I took a solid, deep breath, I looked down to my side where the sudden, awful pain came from. Nothing was immediately sticking out to me. I worried that, whatever injury I had, was internal, which would be harder to fix. Any adrenaline that would've shielded me from the pain must've expired when I was unconscious. "Not good..."

Beep beep, beep be-

I grabbed Snow's phone right ahead of me and flipped the top open, then pressed it to my ear. "H- Hi."

"Who- you're Aurora?"

"You're Fang."

"What's happened up there? Was that blast you guys?"

I tried to gulp down a good breath before continuing. "Snow and Hope, they were right-" When I looked over to the ledge I last saw the two, it was empty. All that I could see was wreckage, smoke. "I don't see them-"

"You don't see them?"

"They had been right there, right before the explosion." There was no sign of either one on the rooftop. "No no no," I pushed up onto my knees to be able to get a better look around, "they couldn't have fall- ah-", but the movement signaled another pain, this time in my leg, which went out under me.

"I just need the basics, are you with them and is everyone fine?"

Breathless, I tried to focus on Fang's voice. "I'm sorry-" I just couldn't get a grasp of my words.

"Aurora- hey, it's Light, talk to me."

The sound of my sister's voice brought some comfort, making the fog clear up enough to continue. "Sis…"

"Tell me, are you hurt?"

"Yes."

"Give me a number, one to five."

I did my best to prevent panicked rambling from fall out of my mouth, and stuck to short answer. "Three… point five."

"Type of injury?"

I honestly didn't even know what happened. Just that there was a lot of pain. "Impact," was all I could come up with.

I didn't hear anything from the other line for a moment.

"You'll be okay, Aurora. But I need you to listen to me, okay?"

"Okay."

"Get to the closest safe spot you can reach. I want you to stay out of sight. Once you're there, don't move anymore. Understood?"

My head turned around to look for somewhere safe. The turned-over vending machine was just a few feet away, and it looked like it could provide decent cover so no one could see me from above."Okay- I'm doing it."

"Good. Don't worry about anything else, just do what I've told you."

I stuck the phone between my teeth so I could crawl on all fours over by the toppled machine. Each forward press made my wounds hurt, but I forced myself to ignore it. Keep moving. Once I managed to get over by the vending machine, I slowly leaned and turned to get onto my back. Keep. Going. Finally, I got back down to the ground.

"Okay. I've done it." Beads of sweat dripped off of forehead.

"You've done really well. I think I know where you are, Fang is going to go find Hope and Snow-"

"I don't know where they went- I'm sorry-"

"No, no, it's okay. Everything will work out. Just- I want you to stay on the line with me while I go to you."

I nodded, even though she couldn't see it. I heard Lightning saying something to Fang on the other end, and then quick footsteps over the speaker as I assumed she was running.

Trying to find something to keep my mind occupied and off of the pain, I looked up to the sky. It was warm with the glow of an afternoon sunset, barely any clouds moved past except for some small ones that looked like pulled-apart cotton candy. Smoke partially entered my vision, but I fanned it away. The sky was really pretty. Something that's there everyday, a constant, yet it always impresses people with the beauty and colors. Even in this moment.

"Still with me, Aurora?"

"Mmhm." Drowsiness tried to creep up in the back of my head. I've seen enough TV to know not to let myself get tired when hurt. "'Mtired."

"I know. But you can't fall asleep. Keep your eyes open."

And open they stayed, no matter how difficult. Time felt like it was going too slow with the anticipation of seeing my sister's face as she came to rescue me. The clouds moved with the rotation of the sky at a sloth's pace.

"Just a little longer." Lightning's voice was shaky with her panting as she was running. Interference occasionally crackled in and out of the line, which actually helped keep me alert, hoping the line wouldn't go dead before she could find me.

One cloud really looked like bits of fluffy sweet floss across the sky. Maybe l'Cie do get hungry.

"Aurora!" I heard Lightning call out, but it sounded distant. Stupid interference.

"Still here." I replied. The ground vibrated with a tempo and I started worrying that another airship was coming to attack.

Then something pink was right in front of my face. The clouds just got huge-

"Aurora- I'm here." Not an airship. Not a cotton-candy cloud. Lightning.

A breath of relief, and I let my hand fall from my ear, dropping the phone. My body eased at the sight of her.

Lightning's eyes quickly fluttered over me, checking me over, before coming back to my face.

"Bad?"

I could see Lightning intentionally steeling her face. "It's fixable." She pressed over my abdomen in different areas, until hitting one spot that caused me to cough out in pain. "Sorry. Sorry." She looked down towards my legs. "Does it hurt there too?" When I nodded, she moved her hands to my lower limbs to feel them as well. It hurt, too, but not as bad as my side.

"Magic?" I asked. Maybe one of those restoration spells like Hope uses could make the pain go away.

"No, not before I know what's going on inside. If there's broken bones, forcing them to heal before setting them will cause a permanent deformation."

Oh. Ew. "Shit."

"Shit, indeed." I would've laughed if my abdomen wasn't absolutely obliterated at that moment. Lightning leaned back. "Come on-" She slid an arm under my back, and the other under my knees, and hoisted me up. The lift hurt, but I couldn't muster up more than a low groan at the pain. "Let's find the others. I'll take care of you when it's safe."

I clung the best I could to Lightning's neck while she started moving. My head lolled over onto her shoulder. "Sorry."

"'Sorry'?" She repeated with confusion.

"I tried to keep an eye on 'im." I spoke towards her ear. "Didn't see the ship." Hope's assault on Snow kept me from spotting the very obvious aircraft coming our way, and I wasn't able to warn them before we were attacked.

Lightning didn't respond- well, she could've, but I don't think she did. It was hard to hear much with the wind flapping past us as she ran with me in her arms.

If Snow and Hope were okay, I just wanted to make sure that she knew it wasn't Snow's fault that this happened. He was quite literally hanging on an edge for dear life. I should've focused on our surroundings. Hope shouldn't have attacked Snow, but I couldn't find it in me to blame him, either.

I felt the jostle of Light running down some steps, then she stopped. The sudden stillness put an end to the stimulation I was getting from the beat of each footstep, causing the pain to edge back up. I shut my eyes and tried to breath through the pain.

She was speaking to someone, and I heard other voices as well. My mind was stuck on trying to fight the pain, but it was overwhelming, and the urge to just let myself go to darkness was increasing. I gripped at the nape of Lightning's shirt to get her attention.

"Just a little longer." She said lowly. Lightning shifted around and I felt myself touch the ground again. "Don't move."

"'mnot planning on it."

I opened my eyes slowly to see what was happening. I could make out Hope, standing infront of a large orange figure. Despite my blurred vision, I recognized that thing- the aircraft that attacked us before. It really does look more like a lobster. Maybe that's the concussion talking.

Fang was alongside Hope. Lightning stepped away from me and unsheathed her gunblade to join the battle.

I moved my head around (slowly, would've been a mistake to move too fast) to try to find Snow. C'mon, c'mon…

My eyes fell upon a blond, slumped over body nearby. Snow wasn't awake. I couldn't get my vision to focus enough to see if he was breathing or not- I just had to hope he was. If Hope survived the fall, surely Snow did.

I felt my head pulse with pain again and my hand went up to press against it. "Uh…" I shut my eyes tight again. I know you said no magic, but I'm desperate. With any strength I could muster, I tried exerting curing magic onto the bruise forming above my brow. It was barely a puff of air, the most feather light touch of that cooling relief. My hand fell back down to my side. This tiny bit of magic spent the last of my capability to be fully conscious.

The edges of my vision started darkening, like a vignette, yet lights in the sky bloomed wider. I didn't want to shut my eyes, out of fear of passing out, but I also wanted to shield them from the weird way things moved in my sight.

I heard the sounds of the battle across from me finally winding down. Oh thank Maker. I attempted to push myself up on my elbow, but I was quickly met with pain, and with two hands holding my down.

"Don't move." Lightning met back up with me where she had set me down. "We'll be there soon." She lifted me into her arms again, and this time I didn't have anything in me to complain.

"I've got Snow!" Fang's voice called over. "Let's go!" Fang hoisted the limp Snow off of the ground and threw one of his arms over her shoulder. Hope was standing by her and his head moved back and forth between Fang and Snow, and Light and me. Even with my screw-y vision, I could tell he was worried, exhausted.

I tried to utter out, "it's okay," to Hope. But it barely made it past my lips. My energy was dangerously low, and I knew I wasn't going to be able to stay awake much more.

Unable to fight it any longer, I felt my head tip back before lulling off to sleep.