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YOU WOKE UP to the sound of what the Great Plains considered silence. The crickets were deafeningly and agonizingly loud just outside your tent amidst the rustling of the grass that made up the flat land around you. You had heard it for the past few nights but you were inexplicably drawn to the sound at that moment. It almost sounded like the nights back at home, but you knew you were nowhere near your hometown. Instead, you were stuck in your little tent, surrounded by wadded-up fabric covered in blood, illuminated only by your dim, flickering lamplight.
"I didn't turn it off?" you rasped out, watching the flame flickering a few feet away from you, inches from your knee. You were surprised that you hadn't knocked it over in your sleep, though, you had learned that after a few nights of sharing your tent back in the beginning of the race had cured your restless kicking when you slept. You went to reach for your lamp, leaning up just slightly until your abdomen ached far too much for you to move any further.
"Fuck," you whined, wincing so hard that once you reopened your eyes after shutting your eye tight, there were white sparks dancing in your vision. You blinked them away quickly, grimacing as you looked down at your abdomen, wrapped in muddied red bandages and heaps of gauze. Had Johnny and Gyro- No, they wouldn't have helped you, especially not when they didn't believe you about Texas Red in the first place.
"Iron Maiden," you muttered, watching as your silver stand appeared beside you, flickering faintly like the flame of the lamplight you could see through her. You hadn't even gotten a chance to ask Iron Maiden a question before she flickered into thin air. You could only sigh— it wasn't like you really needed to hear it when you knew that only your spirit would ever try to help you.
As you lay there, you heard a sudden crash that consisted of clanging pans and rattling tin plates. You stared up at the top of your tent listening to Gyro and Johnny talking to one another with Gyro's obnoxious laughter echoing into the relative darkness. You couldn't see much besides their silhouettes and the remnants of the fire from the previous night just outside the comfort of your tent. You managed to make out their whispers, mainly consisting of the plans for the route.
Like hell were they going to leave you while you were injured even if they didn't know you were injured, or rather, didn't believe you were injured. No matter how much you despised them, you knew better than to ride on your own to the next town. Riding alone in your condition meant risking death and you had already done enough of that after stabbing yourself to get rid of Texas Red's stand.
You brought your arms back, resting them on your bedroll as you pushed yourself up, only to immediately fall back down. Your torso ached, the muscles strained and taut so tight that you feared for a moment that you wouldn't be able to move at all. You looked down at the mess of bandages once more, bringing a tentative hand to the bulging gauze and bandaged.
It was fine at first and all you could feel below your fingers was the bumpy texture that made the fabric of the bandages. But as you added just the slightest bit of pressure, your whole body flinched away, a stinging pain spidering out from the wound. You held back a whimper and threw your head back, tears flooding your vision as you bit down hard on the flesh of your lip.
