Near the Horizon [A YLIA AU]

1: Wound

~ ~ ~

Fifteen minutes before the marching band rehearsal ends for the day, the band director gives the ensemble a water break. By the doorway, Ray sets his glockenspiel next to the line of snare drums, then he grabbed his jug of iced water that was next to him.

On the other side of the walkway, Asa set down her keytar. She went over to Ray, who was busy desperately chugging down water contents.

"What's up?", She asked, grabbing her water bottle.

"Hey", Ray acknowledges Asa. "Band's been practicing for an upcoming parade competition happening this weekend. I didn't know you were watching our rehearsal."

"I've wanted to join the band. Except the only instruments I can play are pianos and keytars." She smiled.

"The drum techs are still thinking about opening audition spots for keytars next semester", Ray informs.

"Really cool." She says after taking a drink of water. "That'd be great." She sighed.

"Marching band is going to be pretty interesting if the techs agree to it"

"Yeah it will be."

Over the loudspeakers, blasts the band director Mr. Ike's voice. Ray turns towards the hill / makeshift press box and bleacher. "Two minutes left! Start finding your spots. We're going to run the opener on the move!"

Asa, hearing the director's announcement, tells Ray, "I guess you'd better get back to practice."

Ray takes one last huge gulp on the jug of water. He then plants the jug back on the ground and racks on the glockenspiel.

As Ray was about to take off running, a low-register bass drum collides against Ray's back. Ray is sent to plummet the ground with his instrument, mallets falling out of the pockets onto the side of the corpse. The bars of the glockenspiel sustained damage from scraping against the cement, small pieces appeared to be chiseled off. As for Ray, he's tumbled over his instrument, knees scraped. His head has not touched ground due to his body hanging over the frame of his instrument, held by the harness like a tight seat-belt.

Asa sees Ray get hit with a bass drum and tumble to the ground. She runs over to him. "Ray, are you okay?"

"ow... yes, I think I'm alright..."

The bass drummer responsible for the injury responds with a mock, finding amusement from the malevolence, "Oops... looks like you ought to tune that"

Asa turns to the boy with the bass drum. From her crouching position, she couldn't see his face. Despite that, she knew who it was, "Shut up jackass."

She turns back and holds out her hand. "Need some help?", she offered Ray.

Ray takes off his harness and tosses it aside. Ray tries to get on all fours and then stand up, but almost fallen onto the ground as his damaged knees prevent him from standing properly. Ray grabs Asa's hand and tries to stand up again.

Asa pulls Ray up and put his arm on her shoulder. "You sure you're okay?"

Ray thinks over Asa's question, hesitating but eventually comes up with a reasonably reply, a way to tell her that Ray should be alright. "I'll be okay. A scraped knee shouldn't stop me from doing simple roll steps, and we're only doing parade block for the rest of rehearsal anyways."

Ray struggles to bend down to grab the handle of the harness. He takes the time to equip the bell set.

"Yeah, well you just had trouble standing." She says, hands on her hips. "So, let me help you."