<a class="postlink" href="http://i1213.photobucket.com/albums/cc465/saphiraah1/Decorated%20images/Fire.png">[ img ]</a><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Pain... the entire world is pain... All I feel is pain....</span><br/><br/>For what felt like an eternity it was as though his body was gone. His thoughts were burned away by a wild fire of fear and pain. Slowly, however, the world righted itself. Fleeting thoughts, sensations and impressions peeked through the flames.<br/><br/>Anxiety... He needed to be somewhere.... but where? The thought fled before he could grasp it.<br/>Fatigue...<br/>The feeling of cold stone beneath him, pressing into his legs, his back, his head....<br/>The sound of air being pulled through his nose, into his lungs.<br/>Cold... so very cold....<br/><br/><br/>When at last he came to, he found himself lying at the end of an alley. A large dumpster to his right, and a stack of wooden pallets to his left blocked his view of the alley to both directions.<br/><br/><a class="postlink" href="http://i1213.photobucket.com/albums/cc465/saphiraah1/Decorated%20images/defeated.jpg">[ img ]</a><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Where am I... How did I get here?</span><br/><br/>Somewhere in the back of his mind, he calculated his position and realized he was undetectable by anyone who might pass by the Alley. Odd... why did he think that as if it were a good thing? Clearly he was in need of assistance. So why was he relieved that no one could see him?<br/><br/>Still dizzy, he remained motionless, taking inventory of his injuries. Mostly, he found only minor bumps and bruises. Again, he found himself analyzing each injury with a calculating eye, categorizing them as either serious or minor. The only serious injuries he found was the massive bump on the side of his head, which explained the pounding headache, and what seemed to be a badly sprained knee, though it could possibly have been broken.<br/><br/>The sound of a horn honking brought his attention the sounds of a bustling city. He looked from left to right, but still could see nothing. Too anxious to sit still any more, he bent his good leg, reached up to grasp the top of the dumpster, and heaved. After several long, painful moments, he managed to get his foot beneath him and stand. His balance was rather precarious, so he braced himself against the dumpster and the stack of pallets and took a tentative step. Pain shot through his leg. Yep... definitely broken. Marvelous.<br/><br/>His eyes darted about, searching the debris around him. He spotted a pile of rags nearby and hobbled over to them. When he picked them up, he found the back to a wooden chair. With effort, he managed to break a pair of dowels from the chair. holding the dowels to either side of his knee while wrapping the strips of cloth around his leg proved a great challenge but he finally succeeded in splinting his knee.<br/><br/>Finally, he braced a hand against the wall of the building and began to hop slowly and painfully to the end of the alley. When he reached the end, he was sweating profusely, panting as though he'd just run 5 miles, and the world was spinning worse than ever. The sun pounded down, scorching the top of his head and nearly blinding him. The sounds of people moving about, cars driving past, and other common noises filled his head and he leaned his back against the brick wall, blinking to clear his vision.