Sunshine.

Chapter 1.

            It’s cold.

            That’s the first thing he notes, laying there on the cold earthy ground, rocks digging uncomfortably into his stomach.

             It’s cold, even though the sun is blazing down, heat radiating off his back, a relentless and hot, sweltering day. But, he’s as cold as ice, shivers racing up and down his spine.

             The second thing he notes, is that he’s alone- left deserted in the middle of nowhere. If he could, he would call out for help, but his throat is sore and he doesn’t have much effort to do so.

            The third thing he notes is the amount of blood he’s laying in.

            It’s a vile puddle of gore, filling his senses with iron clad stenches and pain.

            Oh God, the pain.

            He can’t tell where it’s coming from, his entire body is screaming and spasming with jolts of pain, muscles contracting and wailing. He would be too, but he’s in too much of a shock to do much of anything other than lay there, hoping that the endless torture would eventually stop.

            It was hell- complete and utter hell.

            Red was nowhere to be found- neither was his team, his helmet was too far for him to reach without tearing himself apart even more, and he was bleeding out, pathetically, in a desert.

            Nice going, Kogane.

            Guess it all ends where it began, huh?

            The desert was familiar, but at the same time nothing like the one he lived at back on earth. He wished he could feel the heat instead of this goddamned everlasting chill of ice. Wished he could call out for someone, in particular, a certain blue boy who he knew was probably frantic at this given moment.

           Keith huffed, and coughed, the sound rattling in his chest with a sickly-wet sound. That wasn’t good. Hell- None of this was good. This was on the top tier of ‘things that could go wrong’.

            He tried to focus on breathing. It was getting progressively harder and harder, as if something were infiltrating his lungs. He imagined dark tendrils, wrapping around them and squeezing tightly, leaving him breathless.

            He was going to die here.

            All alone.

            Would the team know? Would they find him?

            …

            Would they care…?

            Surely they would, right? He was apart of the team, he was a paladin, they couldn’t just… Not care.

            A shudder wracked Keith's entire frame, and he gasped at the new wave of pain that ran through his form. More blood was being added to the puddle below, a steady ‘drip, drip, drip’ could be heard if he listened closely enough.

            Although, that was hard to do, considering the rattling in his lungs was getting louder and louder.

            Another shudder, and finally, a cry of pain. It tore from his throat with another raspy, wet sounding cough. His lungs were filling up with fluid- they had to be at this point, he could hardly breathe. Couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe- he was monumentally screwed.

            How pathetic is was to die like this.

            From some simple, easy battle, too. One wrong mistake and BAM! He’s on a desert floor, entrails spilling out, abandoned and forgotten.