Basket (C)Ace

Alive. Mostly.

TW: Panic attacks, depression, and mention of blood, death, violence. As always, read take care. <3

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Alec should be dead. Really.

He remembered the overwhelming pain of arrows digging deep into flesh, the dizziness and all-consuming numbness that spread through his body as he lay on the ground with his blood pooling out around him, the numb terror that washed over him, and the sudden sense of finality that collapsed onto his lungs as if Death itself had reached its hands into his chest and grasped at his heart to steal his last dying moments.

And yet...

"You can't do this!"

A vision of—something—danced across his closed eyelids. A shape of a boy coming out of the darkness, tackling his soon-to-be-murderer to the ground. "You can't do this!" The boy had cried, desperate and almost manic as he tried to keep the attempted killer down.

Alec could almost make out that face, kneeling down beside him sometime later. Light brown hair lying flat against his head in the pouring of rain. Freckles adorning pale cheeks and nose. Ocean blue eyes. An angel, his mind thought, beautiful and so pretty—too pretty to be real, to exist in the same context of blood and pain and horror. Too pretty for it not to be a figure whisking him away to the afterlife.

Now, though, even before he opened his eyes—he knew he wasn't dead. Not fully, not really. His muscles ached, and there was an all-too human throb of pain in his legs, his arm, from where he'd been shot. It was dull; his body had mostly healed from the injuries now, probably, leaving behind some bruising and mostly healed-over wounds that would be gone within the hour.

He was alive.

How the hell was he still alive?

It took a long few seconds to force his eyes open, the lids too heavy and too much to pry open. When he finally managed, he found himself in a small room, lying on a twin size bed, blanket practically up to his chin. A bed room, maybe a guest room based on how little there actually was that he could see from his position against the pillows. It—smelled nice.

Stretching out his hearing, Alec could make out maybe half a dozen heartbeats or so. Too many, too close.

He suddenly realized that he had no idea where he was. He was lying in someone's bed, wearing clothes that weren't his, in someone's house that he didn't know. Given that he had just been chased by a horde of hunters and stranded in a town that his alpha had considered evil, this was bad.

His hands weren't strapped to the bed, his veins weren't filled with wolfsbane, but—that didn't mean he wasn't still somehow in danger. Still somehow trapped.

Alec had to get out of there.

His limbs felt too heavy, his arms like lead at his sides. Still, Alec gritted his teeth and forced himself into a sitting position. Pain radiated through his body at the simple movement, and a wave of nausea and dizziness rushed through him so suddenly he had to press his back against the wall and his palms against the mattress to steady himself. Once the room stopped spinning, he swung his legs off to the side. Squeezing his eyes shut, he took a deep breath to prepare himself for the pain that would undoubtedly rocket through his still-healing legs.

He had to fight through the pain. It didn't matter that his body was screaming, and that the bed felt soft and safe and all-too comfortable. He had to go, he had to get out of here. He didn't know where he'd go or how he'd survive, but he couldn't just stay here. Not here.

He pressed his palms against the mattress, set his feet firmly on the ground—on the all-too soft carpet—and opened his eyes.

Alec meant to push off the bed the instant he did so, but froze as his eyes caught onto a body in the chair on the other side of the room.