The Transtempus Penalty (ERERI//RIREN)

Chapter 45

HEY BITCHES. IT'S WEDNESDAY. And look who really is being consistent ;) I said I'd update and here I fucking am. Prepare Ur-anus, cuz ur about to get ass-blasted. See u next week, whores. Love y'all.

Along with the rush of flashing lights and paramedics, came the rush of thoughts, like a wall of water that completely saturated my mind with dozens of different scenarios, each of them worse than the last. The emergency responders ushered us further away from the vehicle so that they could begin their work. Levi helped me to my feet and began slowly guiding me up the slope, back towards the road. The five of us - being Farlan, Levi, Isabel, Marco and myself - were all corralled towards the road and away from any potentially traumatizing information that could be revealed too soon.

"Just to confirm, one male and one female occupant?" A nameless medic asked nobody in particular.

I began to absently nod at the man, trying to banish the possibility that the female occupant had expired from my mind. Not realizing I had closed my eyes until I no longer felt Levi's arm around my waist, I opened them just in time to see him grip onto the collar of the paramedic's uniform.

"You do everything you can for her and more, you hear me?" Levi hissed, scouring the man's eyes for the assurance that he would follow directions. "Everything. I'll know if you don't."

"Of course, Sir," the man nodded sheepishly, turning and beginning to size up the wreckage, looking for the most opportune place to begin the extraction. Levi returned his arm to my side and began to lead me further up the road to Marco's van, but something in me couldn't keep walking away.

Swallowing back bile, I dug my feet into the gravel as convincingly as I could, given that I was feeling faint already. Nonetheless, Levi noticed my change in inertia, and paused himself, allowing himself to absorb the scene that unravelled before him.

Once the suspended vehicle was stabilized, I watched the firefighters and EMT's approach the vehicle with strange looking tools that allowed them to pry the door out of the frame, and keep the frame from collapsing upon itself at the same time. The sound of sirens had become all but background noise while I strained my ears, trying to hear any updates from the stoic emergency workers.

The next step involved several responders to look inside the vehicle and assess the situation regarding the occupants. First out of the car and on a gurney was Petra, as the door that was pried off was hers. They lifted her limp body from the seat, and even at the distance I was at, I could tell that her legs had a few too many joints.

Isabel let out a quiet gasp when her face came into view. Blood evidently was coming from almost every orifice in her head, including her eyes, it seemed like. A part of me felt squeamish, but almost as though I was holding my hand to the griddle of a hot stove, I bit my tongue and continued staring forward, hoping to sear the image into my mind forever.

I felt Levi's hand reach down and wrap mine in a vice-grip, which I returned by squeezing his hand just as hard. The nearly bone-crunching grasp we had each other in was the only thing keeping me from being drowned by the silent siege on my thoughts. I could only be glad that he was keeping me grounded while they lowered her from the cot onto the gurney.

"Is she-" Marco trailed off, walking towards Petra in an almost trance-like state of being. His footsteps were hardly even shuffles across the desert highway, completely in spite of his long legs. He broke away from the rest of us and tried to make his way to her as they carefully hoisted Petra's inert body into the ambulance. Before he could get too close, though, he was shooed away by a police officer, who gripped his shoulders and shoved him backwards in a way that made the mouthful of acidic bile return to the back of my throat.