Flame slowly opened his eyes and something he immediately noticed was how bad his head hurt; it felt like a migraine times ten, and he had just dreamt about the weirdest thing, too.

He couldn't exactly remember what happened because it was already a little blurry, but he remembered that he dreamt about Umber being trapped under a beam and he completely destroyed his talons getting to him, and then an animus (which he remembers not trusting in the slightest) came in and did this weird blast thing to get them out, and then swore he wasn't animus even though it was extremely obvious that he was.

Calm down Flame, it wasn't real, he thought. Umber is probably lying right beside you now, waiting to be woken up for our anniversary.

Except when he brought his talons up to his forehead, they looked a lot whiter than usual. Like there were…bandages wrapped around them? He looked over at his other talon and saw the same thing.

Actually, he wasn't even in his bed — the sheets weren't the same color. Instead of being under their brown, stale blanket, he was now laying under some even more stale white blankets. He thought they looked extremely similar to the ones they use at the hospitals, which was weird because they didn't live in a hospital.

Then it hit him like a stabbing pain, one much similar to how it feels being stabbed in your heart, but there was no blood, and no fatal hole in his chest. They were in the hospital, and that dream wasn't a dream at all; it was real, and Umber really did get trapped under that beam, and he really did burn his talons, and that animus really did help them escape, and Umber really did get trapped under that beam.

And Umber really did get trapped under that beam.

And Umber really did get trapped under that beam.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized just how real this situation was. The words hit him harder and harder as he replayed them over and over again, constantly sucker-punching him in the throat and leaving him breathless.

"Oh, hey! You're awake already!" a voice from across the room said.

As he regained his senses, he could see that he was in an all-white room, in an all-white bed — that was quite uncomfortable — and there was a curtain right beside him that seemed to split the room in half, which could easily be pushed aside since it was attached to a metal bar connected to the ceiling.

He looked over to where the voice came from and could see a bright pink RainWing sitting in a wooden chair in the middle of the front wall, right by where the door was. He seemed to have been fidgeting with some of the grooves in it before he realized that Flame had woken up.

"I've been waiting here for-"

"Where's Umber?!" Flame interrupted. Ignoring his pounding headache, he leaped out of bed and was immediately hit with a fresh serving of vertigo, stumbling over his talons and almost falling over a few times.

The RainWing immediately shot up from his chair and ran over to help Flame balance.

"Woah, woah, take it easy," the RainWing said. "You just survived a fire, you should lay down for a bit-"

"Where the fuck is Umber?!" Flame said again, except this time it was more of a demand than it was a question. "I'm not 'laying down' until I know he's okay!" He batted his talons away, using the bed as support instead.

"Alright, alright, calm down," the RainWing urged. "He's right here. I'm warning you though, I don't think you're gonna like what you see." Without giving him a moment to consider this, he threw the curtain aside to reveal Umber. Poor, sweet Umber who wanted nothing more than to take Flame on a great first anniversary, but instead was awarded with a scorching hot beam to the snout.

He was covered head to talon in bandages — that's what he assumed anyways since he was half covered in blankets — which was somehow worse than seeing his scales completely charred and made him audibly gasp. He couldn't put his talon on exactly why, but he knew it had something to do with the fact that he was just…laying there, completely unable to move and speak.

Is he even awake? Flame wondered with another stab of heart-wrenching dread shooting through him.

"U-Umber…?" Flame whispered. He could already feel the tears forming in his eyes as he desperately tried to hang onto the hope that he could feel gradually fading away.

Without a moment of hesitation, he ran over to him, ignoring the constant, excruciating sting in his talons with each step. His headache worsened once he felt tears uncontrollably dripping down his face like a newly formed waterfall splashing down and smacking the ground with a loud crash.

He grabbed onto his bandaged arm, his grip light and gentle so that he didn't hurt him even more. Tears dripped off of his face and landed on the bandage, turning it a darker gray color.

Why… Flame thought. Why is this FUCKING WORLD AGAINST ME?!

He could feel his grip tightening around his arm as he buried his head into Umber's chest. His heart pounded and his stomach contracted as his sobs split through the air of the small, white room. The stinging in his talons got worse as the seconds passed, but that only made him angrier.

Not because of the pain itself though, he didn't care about that. But because the world had only let him off with a mere warning — a warning that screamed that he wasn't allowed joy, he wasn't allowed happiness, and most importantly, he wasn't allowed love. And any attempt he made at having any kind would be ripped away faster than he had the chance to get it.

Yet, through all of the pain he was currently going through, he couldn't drown out the feeling that the RainWing was staring at him. He wasn't going to leave Umber's side to yell at him though because if he was being honest, he really didn't care enough right now.

"Hey, if it makes you feel any better, he isn't in a coma or anything," the RainWing reassured. "He's been tranquilized so that he doesn't wake up and have to feel the pain."

Flame considered this for a moment and let those words run wild through his mind, before feeling another jolt of anger pulse through his entire body.

"WHY THE FUCK WOULD THAT MAKE IT BETTER?" Flame screamed, shooting his head up and whipping around to face the RainWing. His vision was still blurry from the tears that soaked his eyes, but he could still see how startled the RainWing was by the way his scales immediately shifted to light green.

He jumped back, obviously spooked by Flame's sudden outburst.

"I-I don't know, I just-"

"YEAH, THAT MAKES IT SOOO MUCH BETTER KNOWING THAT THE ONLY REASON HE ISN'T TALKING TO ME RIGHT NOW IS BECAUSE HE WOULD BE GOING THROUGH THE WORST FUCKING PAIN OF HIS LIFE!" He could feel his headache getting worse as he screamed and put his talons to his head while wincing.

"I-I'm sorry," the RainWing apologized. "Let's just calm down and we can talk this over, alright?" He walked over to Flame and tried to pat him on the shoulder to comfort him.

"DON'T- fucking touch me," Flame barked, smacking the RainWing's talons away. Flame went back and sat down, hovering over Umber, while the RainWing slowly walked back over to his chair and sat down, going back to fidgeting with the grooves in the wood.

What followed though wasn't exactly Flame's idea of "talking it over" though, because they sat in silence for the next hour. The whole time, Flame gently gripped Umber's talons and stared into his emotionless eyes as he slept. The pain he was going through hadn't gotten any better in this time — not his talons or his heart.

It felt so strange to sit by Umber for this long, just watching him sleep. Normally, Umber would have woken up by now and either kissed him and then immediately wandered into the kitchen to find something to eat, or pull him back into bed and fall right back asleep again.

But there was none of that playful spark inside of him anymore. Even though he looked peaceful sleeping like he was, Flame could still tell that that was all except the truth. They both had developed this special bond between each other so that they knew exactly when they were sad, angry, or just worried about something, even in sleep.

Right now, he could tell just by staring at him that he was in some sort of distress.

Is he dreaming about it? Please don't be dreaming about it, Flame thought. Maybe if he thought about it hard enough, he could telepathically change his dreams? That's what he hoped anyways as he thought about happier things he could dream about. Dream about our first kiss! Dream about something with your sibs! Just dream about anything except what just happened, please!

Our first kiss… he remembered with another stab of pain in his heart.

They had just gotten back from their first date and Flame had finally given in and accepted to try Umber's tea. At first, he was a bit suspicious of the mixture and thought that it was most likely going to be disgusting and a waste of time, but to his surprise he actually kind of liked it.

He liked it enough that when Umber turned away, he tried to drink a bit more than just a tiny sip and he ended up burning his tongue, which made Umber wince once he saw it.

"Do you want me to get you some cool water?" Umber asked.

"Nah, I think I'm okay," Flame answered as he pushed his tongue around in his mouth to see if he was, in fact, okay. "I burn my tongue all the time. I'll just walk it off."

"I didn't know that was something you could 'walk off'," Umber said with a hint of sarcasm. He had a maniacal expression on as he jumped at the opportunity that Flame had so freely given him.

"When you're as tough as I am you can," Flame retorted, shifting in his seat and shooting him a confident smile.

"Suuuuuuuuure," Umber humored as he took his cup off of the table, blowing on the steam so that he didn't make the same mistake that Flame had before.

Flame watched as Umber took a few sips, then set it back down on the table. Flame had been sneaking glances at the leather satchel Umber had around him all day, waiting for the moment that he would finally give him the gift he promised.

A few times, he swore that he could hear hints of paper crumpling around in there, but it surely wasn't something insanely valuable or anything; he had probably bought something from the store.

He watched as Umber reached for it, and he immediately sat up in anticipation, giddy excitement running through him as he realized that he was finally going to figure out what the gift was.

What he was expecting was something like flowers, or maybe a note telling him how much he loved him, or maybe even a graphicoll he bought at the store (which Flame would've most likely already read), that would all explain the crumpling he heard every now and again.

That's when Umber pulled out a scroll with ink soaking through that made him sure it had to be a scroll of some kind.

"Is that what I think it is?" Flame whispered with even more excitement pulsing through his veins.

"I hope you like it." Umber had a big smile spread across his face.

He carefully turned the scroll around and his talons and opened it. He was met with an unfamiliar title that he had never seen before which surprised him because he had seen basically every title of every graphicoll in Possibility, and Possibility had almost all of the biggest graphicolls!

"Did you buy this?" Flame asked with spiking curiosity.

"Erm, no, I made it." He blushed a bit at Flame's approving nod.

"It's a graphicoll!" Flame exclaimed, radiating pure happiness and joy. Perhaps he could just freeze time and stay like this forever just to see the way Umber smiled, but he didn't have nearly the power to do that.

They inspected the graphicoll for a few minutes, going through all of the funny drawings that Umber had made. Flame was in it, of course. Ibis was in it as well, except she was wearing all-black clothing and seemed to most definitely be the villain of the story.

"So…do you like it?" Umber asked, looking for some sort of confirmation as if there were any doubt that Flame did.

"Of course I love it! Umber, this is incredible. No one's ever gotten me a gift like this- I don't even know- I'm just-" He kept stumbling over his words in pure shock that anyone would ever spend their time making him something like this.

But something came over him in this moment; something that made him want to be as close to Umber as possible, and never let go as if his life depended on it.

He put the graphicoll down, knowing that it was now or never that he would be able to express his gratitude, and that was to do the only thing he thought would be appropriate in this situation: kiss him.

This would be Flame's first kiss, and most likely Umber's too, but he didn't care if he did it horribly or not. He needed Umber right now, and he needed him to know that he needed him, just so that he might realize he needed him as well.

Without warning, he pressed his lips against Umber's, slowly pushing his talons against his chin. Umber was obviously caught off guard by this. Maybe he didn't want it? But he didn't pull away or anything and this was all the confirmation Flame needed to continue.

The warmth and taste of Umber's mouth was almost hypnotizing to him like he couldn't stop even if he wanted to. But after a few seconds, he reluctantly pulled away, their pants filling the air and their hearts beating fast.

"Thank you," Flame said with a pant.

"Yeah- I mean- anytime- no problem," Umber stammered. "I'm glad you liked it. I know it's not as good as your other graphicolls and it might have some tea stains on it and I guess I shouldn't have mentioned the tea stains-"

"Shut up and kiss me," Flame interrupted, pulling Umber's snout in for another kiss.

But that was cut short when Flame heard the door swing open, making them both freeze in place as if they had been frozen by Darkstalker.

He realized that they had just been caught, by none other than Sora and Jet.

By the time he got to the end of the memory, he found himself crying once again, tears pouring from his eyes and soaking the white blanket.

As sadness turned to anger, he turned to the wall and punched it as hard as he possibly could, causing a great big hole to form and cracks to spew out in all directions for a few inches before stopping.

He took his talons out and looked at the bandages around them stained with blood and felt the pain begin to set in, adding to the singeing of the burns. He was already so mentally exhausted that he hardly cared right now though, and just fought through it like he had been doing for the last hour.

"Hey! C'mon, we just had these walls painted!" the RainWing complained, though Flame suspected that he wasn't actually annoyed because his scales had splotches of pink with the rest being a dark purple.

Flame didn't respond to this and only stayed silent for the next couple of seconds as he contemplated punching him in the snout for saying anything to him right now.

What would Umber think? the back of his mind whispered, which made him immediately decide to stay beside Umber. And after a few moments, his anger dissipated and turned back into sadness.

"How…how bad is it?" Flame muttered through his tears, turning to face the RainWing. This was a burning question of his that he's had since he had woken up, but he'd been too scared to find out so he tried avoiding the question completely.

But right now, he needed to know because he could hardly stand another second of wondering if Umber would be able to be woken up soon. Just the thought of hearing his voice sent excitement running through him, but that quickly faded whenever he realized the state he was in right now.

"It's…pretty bad," the RainWing admitted with a drooping voice, his scales shifting to fully dark purple. "I didn't want to say anything, but…he's not looking too good."

Flame felt a wave of shock run over him, causing him to feel like he wasn't even in the real world anymore — like he was in a dream. He kind of wished that was the case though so he could pinch himself and wake up from his worst nightmare any moment now.

That's when he heard the door creak open, and a new SkyWing came walking in. She was wearing one of the strapped white pieces of fabric around her neck, which also had one of the red crosses on it. Except this one had a few lines above it, almost like the roof of a house in a drawing.

She seemed to be holding a needle full of some sort of liquid that he assumed she'd be injecting into Umber to help with his burns.

She took a glance at the hole in the wall, bits and pieces still falling off indicating that it had just happened. Truthfully, he didn't care if the hospital got mad at him about it right now. But she seemed to just ignore it as if it was normal.

She began walking over to them with the needle still in her talons, and Flame shifted aside so that she could inject Umber without being in the way.

"Talons," she said, gesturing toward Flame.

Does she want me to hold out his talons for her? What kind of fucking hospital is this? Flame wondered with a bit of rage — like these were the dragons taking care of him.

Flame grabbed one of Umber's talons and held it out steadily.

"No, your talons," she corrected. "You still need to get a shot so your burns don't get infected."

Normally, Flame hated getting shots, but the fact that she didn't have to give Umber a shot meant that he could sit by him while she did it, and hopefully that would ease his nerves a bit even given the situation.

Reluctantly, he set Umber's talons down and reached his out, and held them as steady as possible while he braced for it. The needle wasn't extremely big, but he hated getting all shots, regardless of their size.

He gripped Umber's talons in his, blankly staring into his eyes as he waited for her to finish. He got so lost in thought as he stared blankly at Umber that he didn't even notice that she had already stuck the needle in him and was already putting the cap back onto it.

"Alright, I'll be back in a few hours for your second one," she informed.

Right before she walked back out the door though, Flame still had a question knowing that she was probably the only dragon qualified enough to give him the cold hard truth.

"Wait!" Flame called out. "Is…he going to live? I want you to tell me the truth. I can't just fucking sit here for days and wonder 'Is he going to wake up?' or am I just doing this all for nothing?"

"I-" she paused, trying to think of what she'd say next. "If our calculations are right — which they definitely could be wrong — we think that…" she hesitated. "We think that his chances to live are slim," she said lowly.

No…

Hearing this put him in a state of immobilizing shock. He couldn't tell if he wanted to cry, punch another hole in the wall, scream at himself for letting this happen, or all three. It felt like his whole world had been shattered into a million pieces, like a window having a ball thrown through it and the shards being scattered all across the world so that there was no chance they could be put back together.

"We're working on figuring out something for him though!" she quickly said, obviously picking up on what Flame was feeling. "We just got a donation from Queen Ruby that was specified to go toward his treatment."

There was a pause.

"I should've stayed with him…" Flame muttered. "I should've stayed with him and died in that FUCKING FIRE, BUT THAT TURVAR MOTHERFUCKER HAD TO PLAY HERO!" Flame screamed. Looking out the door, he could see a few heads had turned to look at him. He didn't care though; right now, he was filled with so much anger and despair that it outweighed whatever was causing him to care about what others thought of him.

He could see that the RainWing's scales had turned completely white, and could even see that a few spots along his arms and legs had begun turning invisible as he contemplated disappearing and running away.

"NOW INSTEAD OF BEING WITH HIM RIGHT NOW, I HAVE TO SIT HERE AND WATCH HIM SLOWLY FUCKING DIE!"

"H-Hey, I'm sure he was just trying to help," the RainWing said nervously but calmly, trying not to provoke Flame any further. That didn't work though, as it just made his anger spike even higher.

"TRYING TO HELP?!" Flame screeched louder, thick clouds of smoke rising from his nostrils. "THE ONLY THING HE MANAGED TO DO WAS TURN MY LIFE INTO A LIVING HELL! HOW ABOUT I TAKE THE DRAGON YOU LOVE AND SCORCH THEIR SCALES UNTIL THEY TURN INTO A FUCKING NIGHTWING, THEN LEAVE THEM TO ROT IN A GODDAMN HOSPITAL UNTIL THEY DIE? HOW'S THAT SOUND? CAN RAINWING SCALES COVER THAT UP?"

By now, he could see that the RainWing was gone; either he had run out without Flame noticing somehow, or he had turned invisible, or maybe even both. A few of the heads that were looking before quickly turned away once they saw Flame look in their direction and began pretending to focus on something completely random instead.

"Get the fuck out," Flame said. Though he wasn't screaming anymore, he made sure to sound as threatening as possible. "Both of you, GET THE FUCK OUT!"

He watched as the nurse quickly turned around and left, obviously frightened by his screaming. He heard another set of talons clacking against the floor behind her, signaling that the RainWing had still been in the room and turned invisible to hide from him.

The door closed seemingly by itself and Flame sat down by Umber. His eyes were still closed as if nothing had happened at all — the same exact expression, looking like he was just getting a good night's rest. But he wasn't, and Flame found himself getting the same unnerving feeling knowing that his face didn't match up with how he really felt.

Umber…I can't lose you. Please don't go. Please don't leave me, Flame thought. This isn't fucking fair! Why can't I go with him?! Why do I have to be the one that survives?!

A part of him wished that he could switch places with Umber right now, but then another part knew that then Umber would have to sit over him and go through the same thing. He'd take it better though, right? He wouldn't be screaming and swearing at everyone, scaring them to the point where they went invisible, would he?

He realized that there was no point to dwell on what could have been, because this was happening right now, and there was no turning back time. Though he still wished he could rewind time and restart the day, walked up and down that hill a million times, drank whatever tea Umber wanted him to, and went to that restaurant. Except they would leave a few seconds early and he'd gobble up that scavenger in a millisecond.

That's when he had a moment of realization: He wasn't the only dragon that cared about Umber. He had his sibs and his winglet that also should probably know what's happened to him.

The closest dragon was Sora, who couldn't be more than a couple of minutes away from them. The second closest was Clay, who was at Jade Mountain, and then he could stop at the Mud Kingdom to try and find the rest of his sibs.

He knew what they all looked like from the few times he's seen them, but it would definitely be a bit hard to find them in the crowd of dragons that lived there as well.

There was still one issue though: Flame didn't want to leave Umber's side. What if something happened to him while he was gone? What if he wakes up and he isn't there with him?

It'll only be a few hours, Flame told himself. Maybe less if I hurry. That's not enough time for something to happen to him, right? What are the chances?

As he stood up, he heard a knock at the door.

"I thought I told you to fuck off!" Flame yelled. "Leave me alone!"

"I-It's me, Turvar," the voice said. "I just w-wanted to check up o-on you two."

Flame felt another jolt of anger surge through him, as if it was the only emotion he was allowed to feel today. But Turvar being here was a mix of good and bad. Seeing how he's an animus and everything meant that he could heal Umber, right? Just the thought of that immediately made him hopeful.

He stomped over to the door and swung it open, the wood slamming against the door stopper and making the whole thing rattle. Now that he could see Turvar, he realized that his wings were all completely wrapped in bandages from when he jumped in front of them, along with a few patches on his back.

Flame yanked his wrist, pulling him inside and slamming the door behind them, and then locked it.

"H-Hey!" Turvar said, backing up away from Flame who was blocking the door. Flame knew that this would do nothing if he really was animus, but he had to seem as threatening as possible to get him to heal Umber.

"Heal him," Flame said. "Don't you fuck with me right now!"

"W-What?" Turvar said confusedly. "What d-do you m-mean?" He had walked back a bit, trying to avoid Flame's threatening gaze — his stutters were definitely worse than before so he had to have been considerably scared, which was odd because he's never met an animus that was scared of anyone.

How is an animus this damn nervous? Flame thought. If he wanted to, he could probably kill me in a second!

"Cut the shit and fucking heal him already!" Flame said, sounding as threatening as possible. "I already know you're animus, so get on with it already!"

"I-I'm not a-animus!" Turvar denied.

"Will you stop lying and JUST FUCKING HEAL HIM ALREADY?! I SAW YOU IN THE BUILDING, SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?!" Flame screeched. His throat began to hurt from all of the screaming he had done today, but he needed to convince Turvar to heal him, so it would be worth it in the end.

"I-I can't!" Turvar said.

Instead of screaming even more though, Flame allowed himself to calm down for a second by taking deep breaths because yelling at him was obviously getting him nowhere.

"Prove it," Flame said, shooting him a glare.

"W-What?

"Prove to me that you're not animus, and I'll let you leave."

"H-How do I-I prove it?

"I don't fucking know! Cast a spell or something." Flame paused, figuring out the perfect spell for him to cast on Umber. "Go up to Umber, put your talon on him, and say 'I enchant this dragon's burns to heal in an instant, with no side effects or scars and he will wake up once his burns fully heal'. No stuttering, and no covering it up with another spell in your head or so help me moons!"

Turvar sat there for a couple of seconds, trying to process everything that was happening before Flame growled as a reminder of what he was supposed to be doing.

"A-Alright, I'll t-try!" Turvar walked up to Umber while trying to avoid Flame as much as possible, rested one talon on his arm, and closed his eyes, repeating the phrase that Flame told him to. He almost stuttered a few times while saying it, but eventually got through it relatively smoothly.

They both waited a few seconds, the tension high in the air but nothing happened; Umber didn't wake up, and none of his burns seemed to have healed — though he couldn't exactly see them under the bandages, he just assumed nothing happened because he wasn't currently kissing Umber.

"Nothing's happening…WHY IS NOTHING HAPPENING?!" Flame yelled. "Did you cover up the fucking spell? I know animus tricks! What the fuck did you do?"

"N-Nothing! I-I swear!" Turvar said desperately.

Flame stood there for a few minutes considering this answer before realizing with a stab in his heart that Turvar might not actually be animus.

But how did he do that blast then? Flame wondered. SkyWings can't just do that! I can't do that, so why the fuck can he?!

"How did you do the blast then?!" Flame demanded. "Some sort of hidden SkyWing power? How'd you do it?!"

"I-It's- uh…" Turvar hesitated, to which Flame growled at him again. "I-It's an a-animus touched gem…" He held up his right arm, pointing to the sparkly gem hidden among his scales. "R-Ruby gave i-it to me w-when she adopted m-me, and i-it's supposed to k-keep me safe. T-That's it, I s-swear!"

After a moment of thinking, Flame finally realized that all of this was the truth and that Turvar really wasn't an animus that could solve all of his problems with a few words. One thing stuck with him though, and that was the fact that he said Queen Ruby gave it to him.

So he's a prince then? Flame realized.

"Get the fuck out," Flame spat. He unlocked the door and opened it before moving to the side so that Turvar could get through. Turvar quickly trotted over with his head down but stopped right before leaving to tell Flame something.

"I-I'm really sorry I c-couldn't help," he said lowly. "b-but I hope U-Umber recovers s-soon." He had a bit of sincerity in his voice, which reminded Flame that he actually did care at least a little bit for Umber.

Once he was sure that Turvar was gone, he slammed the door and felt like his world had just been shattered once again. It was as if the world had just given him all of the answers to his problems, then took them away right before he could read them. The world was just playing with him and he knew it! Like he was their puppet, and he wasn't in control of anything but was just along for the ride it took him on.

"FUUUCK!" Flame screamed, crumpling onto his knees on the floor and slamming his head against the tiles a few times. "FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!" He banged his talons against the floor until he felt his wrists begin to bleed and fracture, the pain being a futile distraction from what he was actually feeling.

"IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?!" Flame screamed at the ceiling as if he was talking to a higher power. "ARE YOU HAVING FUN DESTROYING MY FUCKING LIFE YET?! FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU!"

His screams turned into sobs echoing through the room, paralyzing him to lay there for the next hour and cry. His migraine from before was raging, becoming even worse than the pain in his talons and he felt like puking a couple of times as his stomach uncontrollably contracted every time he sobbed.

Finally, though, he mustered up the strength to stand up and saw that there was a pool of his tears on the floor, along with a little bit of dried blood from his wrists.

I have to tell the others, Flame thought reluctantly in between sniffles and pulses from his headache. He didn't want to leave Umber's side, but they all deserved to know. His wrists started to hurt from putting pressure on them as he stood up. The blood was dry though, leaving a big, red stain that was darker than his scales on each wrist.


Author's note: I'm really tired after finishing this. That last part was Flame's raw emotions, which I had to take on in order to make it as realistic as possible. This chapter might be a little bit lower quality than usual, but it's really hard to write stuff as depressing as this and still keep it higher quality, especially being a first time writer with the timeframe I've given myself. I think (hope) it's probably acceptable to most people though.