Blood. So much blood.

It covered the ground around me.

I blinked through my tears, fighting against the unrelenting, raw pain that threatened to tare me apart.

I dropped to me knees, the force of my fall enough to rip my jeans, but I didn't care. I only had eyes for the source of all of this anguish.

Before me lay a man, face down on the bricks of the sidewalk we had traveled only moments before.

I continued to sob uncontrollably, and pulled his heavy body closer to mine.

Somehow I knew he was gone. I could feel it.

Where once I had felt whole- complete, now only pain remained. Hollow, empty, nothingness consumed me.

I buried my face in his still warm neck and screamed through the pain.

In all my life, nothing had hurt so much.

"I will do anything!" I sobbed, turning my face up towards the grey sky, praying to whatever god may be listening, "I will die in his place. Just bring him back."

Just bring him back.

~~~~~

"Anastasia? You have to wake up now, Anastasia."

I groaned, attempting to roll to my side and stop the light assaulting my eyelids, but I didn't budge. Assuming I was still so tired I was unable to get my body coordinated with my brain, I lay there with the light in my eyes.

My head pounded in rhythm with my pulse and within seconds my chest had started to constrict with panic. What happened to me?

"Anastasia..." The unfamiliar voice growled.

"Go away." I tried to snap but it came out as more of an inaudible gurgle. What the hell?!

Squeezing my eyes shut tighter against the sudden increase in throbbing that coursed through my head I tried to focus- to remember how I had gotten here.

My head was near the point of bursting.

"You need to drink this or you will only feel worse."

My entire body went cold, suddenly recalling where I had heard this voice before. It was him... But what was he doing here? In fact, where was I?

Cracking an eye open my suspicions were confirmed when I found Jayce looming over me, pale golden eyes fixated on my face with an annoyed scowl. Above him hovered blue skies, cast in the mystifying early morning glow.

Was I dreaming? No, I concluded seconds later, if I were dreaming Jayce wouldn't be scowling.

My mind flew into orbit with questions, fears, various scenarios to place why Jayce was here, why I was unable to move, and why my head felt like it was being split open with a battle axe.

Without my consent Jayce grasped my lifeless forearm and drug me up into his lap, forcing me into an awkward upright position where I was more or less propped into a haphazard slouch.

I opened my mouth to speak but no words would come out and when I tried swatting him away my arms remained limp at my sides.

What was this?!

My panic grew by ten amd my heart threatened to drum right out of my chest the more I struggled to speak- to move away from Jayce. Nothing I done seemed to work and I only lay completely still, propped up against his chest, my head begining to droop to one side.

"You need to drink this," Jayce repeated, holding a small glass bottle up to my lips, "it will counteract the sleeping drug."

I again could not give my consent before he was forcing the bottle past my parted lips and dumping the awful tasting contents down my throat.

I started to cough, my entire body trying to force the nasty liquid back up before it could be ingested.

Jayce tossed the bottle aside and clamped my mouth shut, leaving me with no other choice but to swallow the substance back down.

I coughed more and he done nothing to help ease my discomfort or prevent me from choking to death.

"You will be fine soon enough." He assured in a gruff voice, laying my limp body back on the hard, gritty surface below.

If that was meant to assure me, let me assure you, it did not help.

Back on the ground I forced my eyes to focus, but wished I hadn't moments later when I realized what seemed so off about my bed; I was not laying on a bed at all, I was laying on sand.... In fact, everything as far as I could see was covered in sand. We were in the desert.

I shivered, both from the chill of the early morning air and the fear that had crept its way into every nerve of my body.

For the time being I was just thankful for the warmth of the sun caressing me, providing it's comfort when I could find it nowhere else.

How I had gotten here and why Jayce was with me was still a mystery, and I had a horrible feeling forming in the pit of my stomach that, somehow, I had played a very key role this.

I lay there unmoving long enough to watch the sun reach into the sky. Jayce was nowhere in sight which led me to wonder if he had left me here to die.

I had to have been...