The panic of breath beckoned within the dark crowding my canvas of sparkling grey.

The fuddling entered my bleated subconscious as consciousness awoke just as my brown eyes flung open towards the smeared sky of tiny dots – pressing my eyelids tightly in one quick embrace, I unhinged them to find the dots were of the stars.

Those stars of which I carried silent wishes and dreams towards; those stars now streaming a tad brighter, seeming to plead for myself to regain my wits, and get up.

My head pounded as I tried my best to crack the muscle within my neck. Recounting the minutes prior to this grassy bed; my eyes led a wary glance towards the littered ground; tiny swimming holes polluting the fresh earth, as if bits of sinkholes blistered below 'till suddenly blurting gobs of the iron rich juice towards the surface – which, now lay surrounding me.

Eyes opening to an even more appropriate amount of white to be shown, as I laid sight upon what offered the earth, and myself the engrossingly rosy onslaught from above.

My conscious slowly crept behind me, swinging firmly and baseball-like into my skull; leaching itself onto the cerebral; concluding the implausible image before these very eyes.

Never, did I think to indulge a typical habit of a horrid scream; instead, cringing at the vivid thoughts of what this man must have went through to be forever frozen with that kind of pain upon his face – I empathized the grief, as this wasn't the first I had the pleasure of witnessing: as I had been the one who had eventually found Grady – silent; chilled; preserved forever within his own reasoning of demise.

That's the thing about anyone – supernatural; gifted; a simple human; upper, middle, or lower class – you never know what someone is going through, even if you think you know them inside and out; people can still put blinds up that never reach fully open. Then what do you do?

You simply, have'ta keep moving; keep going; otherwise it will drive you and all involved completely, and ultimately – crazed.

Instantly urging my eyes to not fill with the moisture wanting to protrude out; to possibly mourn the loss of a nice-enough guy; Nikki herself never mentioned him again afterwards; it was strange but understandable as to how anyone deals with grief; or loss; to each their own. I never pushed the subject again, as it got a little easier as time went on.

The familiar face, the whiskery face of the night security guard I'd come to know; whom simply requested 'Please, call me Rick...' sheering back onto my own stunned expression switched a light to be lit again within the fragments gathering.

Fingers were tracing along the forearm involuntarily, to a rolled-up sleeve leading up the shirt; over hard biceps; over the shoulder and onto a scruffy jawbone, while all along, eyes following suit to the familiar dismayed face.

Realizing at that moment I wasn't alone, or for the matter, able to catch my lagging breath from the half body draped horizontally upon me, I gasped (as much as my lungs would allow) as the slightly heavy presence spoke; the slightly algae green sparkle of pupils flitted onto my own.

"You're stunning when you're being saved?"

That voice was hardly to be missed. Searching for an answer to those silly words.

"Where... did you.... err... fall from...?" catching some breath; my throat finding a suitable tone besides the squeak that filled my head-voice.

I felt instantly ungratifying pain all over as I moved under his weight - must mean I haven't bit the dust quit yet.

"Bet you say that to all the individuals you save them from heavy rounds of bricks and human debris..." Sarcasm came so naturally to me. "...How did you knoweerrmm...?" his index finger silencing me.

"You really don't know how to say, 'thank you..." Half entertained at his own straight-forward comment. "... Besides, does it really matter at the moment?"

There was no response I could give that would argue a great reprieve. He was right, there was no point in pursuing a dispute where none lived.

It was more important that it was decided if I should call campus security for their lack of one, or – more consensually – get Nikki to come investigate and decipher her on conclusions on what we're dealing with.

Even with my own 'humanly' born qualities could devise that no human could've leaped onto this fully erected scaffolding, and not be scathed by the fall to which they would have to take.

I shook the wind swimming around in chaotic fashion.

My gaze crawling towards him.

Him?

Him!

The sudden interest of how he hadn't catapulted towards a hysterical outpour of horror riddled reaction began to baffle me. He must have read the jumbled expression glued onto my face, as he reached to prick off some object from my left cheekbone – flesh.

Flesh!

I gulped with eyes twice grown; cupping my cheek in protest, hoping to not find more human casing exfoliating my pores.

I couldn't have been more wrong, as my hand elasticated off my own skin by way of an evil scientific experiment gone awry; magenta goo lubricated between slender fingers of my right hand.

My mouth engaged in some ventriloquist portrayal, as sounds purred from the deeper end of my throat, but, not a single move made from lips.

I felt disgusted; bowel movement; throat seizing... Oh – no... I was going to throw up!

In front of Talek. This will not be pretty, and yet, probably never sexier.