Rise

Eyes

"I got you pancakes." The redhead sets the plate on her lap. The girl's eyes widen at the luscious sight of the syrup gliding down the sides of the treat. Her mouth begins to water. She never thought she'd be able to see such a thing again – but there it is before her. Beckoning her.

"When and where did you get this?" she questions him, pulling herself out of a trance-like state the breakfast treat had sucked her into. Dez continues looking onward without further response, hands on the wheel.

But one of his arms is injured, she realizes, as soon as she faces forward again. She turns to inspect him again. She panics, fearing that she'd been hallucinating as he clearly only has one hand on the wheel. How'd he hotwire the car with only one hand, anyway?

"Hey, Trish. How'd you sleep?" Trish jumps as her thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the familiar voice, her stack of pancakes nearly falling off her lap. She hesitates before turning around. It couldn't be...Could it?

"Ally?" Trish asks, now facing the girl in the back. The chestnut-haired girl smiles brightly back at her.

"Hey, sleepy-head." Another voice. The blond appears beside his girlfriend.

"Austin!" Trish exclaims, setting the plate on the dashboard and moving off of her seat to pull the couple into her arms. "How'd you two get here? Are you both okay?"

"We're fine, Trish," Austin replies in his signature happy-go-lucky manner. A sudden change in his expression, his features relaxing into a neutral, almost robotic, state sends a warning to her. "But who's driving the car?" he questions, his voice holding what would best be described as malice. Trish's brows push together. Was that supposed to be some kind of joke?

"Who's -what? Dez, of course." Trish gestures beside her. Her two friends watch her with grave expressions upon their faces – their cheer now fully replaced by bitterness. They stare her down as if interrogating her, as if she had done something despicable. "What? What's wrong?"

"Look what you've done to him," Ally speaks up harshly, eyes watering. Her voice alone, carrying sharp accusation, cuts deep. She pulls Austin towards herself and sobs into in chest. Trish dares to look beside her at the driver seat, and immediately wishes she hadn't.

She chokes; gasping for air as the sight had knocked the wind out of her. There he was. Laying his head on the steering wheel, looking up at her with those eyes.

Those eyes.

No longer that bright, iridescent blue. In fact, completely void of any pigmentation at all. They watch her – still as stone, focused into her own. His whole being, perfectly still, but somehow crying out. Crying out for her; she can feel it as if it were her own.

"Dez...DEZ!" she cries, lifting his head off of the steering wheel and setting it back against the seat. "Austin, Ally, I don't know what happened, he was okay – he was fine just a second ago!" she claims, shouting back at them as best she can with her choked-up voice, frantically trying to hold the boy up against the seat. After a lack of response, she looks back to find the couple gone. "A-Ally? Austin?" She shudders. They were right there. She wastes no time pondering, and lays her head against the redhead's chest, searching for a movement, a heartbeat – anything.

"Wh–" she starts, staring at the blob of red goop that had fallen onto her lap. She looks back up. His arm. No longer injured.

No longer there.

She chokes some more, gasping for air. Plop. Another red goop falls onto her lap from the stump of an arm he has left. The blood oozes out thickly, its movement and viscosity resembling the syrup on her pancakes. Tears streaming down her face, she moves herself off of his lap, only to be pulled back onto it.