Arms Wide Open

Part 1. The arrival

Though everything is pitch dark, she can feel her senses coming back to her slowly, as she feels herself moving as if suspended in midair as if she were floating, air rushing by with such strength that is almost painful, and for a moment she believes she's flying.

A moment passes by, enveloped by the exhilarating sensation of weightlessness, and without warning her body is suddenly crushed by torture all over it, and then Lightning remembers, through her hazy and painful thoughts, that she's been injured, that she and her men were in the epicenter of a terrible accident, and that she didn't know how many of her team had survived... if any at all.

She might as well be the only survivor...

Unable to open her eyes, she forces herself not to fall into such dire thoughts. But the pain is just too excruciating to let her think properly, and as her eyelids finally start to obey her, though just barely, a deafening sound is the one to orient her first. The humming "chop-chop" sound that envelops her whole allows her to understand she's being evacuated in a chopper, being carried in a hurry towards her home, hoping to get medical attention. Her head, legs, and chest hurt as if they were burning, and she feels as if every bone in her body is broken. But at least she's alive.

Through the wind that cuts into her flesh, Lightning finally opens her eyes and recognizes the shadows that hover over her: some of her men are surrounding protectively her supine form, securing her, though their eyes are fixed away from her, on their path ahead, all of them carrying countenances and glares as if they were trying to force the chopper to go faster by sheer will. Obviously, they care for her, as she cares for them all. They're her team. In a way, they're her family too. But she already has a family on her own, and as the train of thoughts link to each other, she thinks of Serah and the rest of the l'Cie, and wants to make the helicopter go faster too before she feels the unwelcome pull of the darkness trying to envelop her whole, as her sight begins to blur. The stubborn pinkette knows she should be fighting it, but her body, and even her brain, seem to revel from her commands, too exhausted, too much in suffering to even pay her any attention.

Her eyes begin to shut down, but right at the moment, she knows she's losing consciousness again, a sudden, gut-wrenching pain strikes her at her lower belly, running from her back, and she arcs her body, as an involuntary scream takes her by surprise and manages to escape her lips. She notices her men moving in a frenzy all around her, forcing her down on her stretcher, while one of them (most surely Falcon) works on her. The pain is so excruciating it silences the rest of her aches, and she bites her lower lip hard, drawing blood from it, in an attempt to prevent another scream from escaping her lips, right before darkness envelops her whole. Her last conscious thought was directed toward her baby sister.

Please, sweet Etro! Don't let her worry over me! Don't let her see me like this!

oooooooOOOOOOXIIIOOooooooooo

The small house is rattling everywhere. Thousand of tinny water droplets from the tropical rain smash hard and violently against the ceiling and windows, big and dark clouds covering completely New Bodhum's beautiful shore, hiding the sun and making the natural light grow dimmer, which, minute by minute, envelops the small living room in semidarkness as if it were already late in the afternoon, so close to nightfall, instead of being just midday. The overall atmosphere feels a bit sleepy, a tiny bit moody, and the house's temperature drops, losing its previous warmth, while the air is becoming rather chilly. Although the wood walls seem to be resisting the ambush of the storm, they are undoubtedly beginning to absorb the humidity. The people inside can sense it in the air, as it gets filled with the soothing smell of dampened earth. A relaxing and natural smell that almost lulls the house's occupants to sleep, if they were to close their eyes long enough.