A Hope as Bright as SUNNY and as Charming as MARI

Prologue 1/2: "It's a long way down...

HERO's P.O.V.

In the end, all I can say is... we didn't see it coming - none of it. I mean who would? After that sleepover, SUNNY was supposed to leave but in the morning we just kinda... found them...

BASIL was standing in front of the door just... staring, he looked horrified, and dreadfully wounded. We tried to reach out to him, tell him that breakfast was ready and to ask him if he was ok, but he didn't budge - not a muscle was moved. And then AUBREY mentioned SUNNY and BASIL stiffened. Then, he lowered his head and pointed in front of him - to where he was staring and then he fainted.

AUBREY was able to catch BASIL before he hit the ground, and because of BASIL's pointing, I looked forward. I'm not sure if I'm glad that I did but, oh was it needed.

SUNNY was there, lying in a pool of his own sticky, red, iron-smelling blood. It was obvious he'd been there for a while based on the blood everywhere but we thought he was dead, and rightfully so.

When KEL saw SUNNY from the back of our little crowd he ran right up to him to see if he was alright - concern was evident on his face as he rushed by me. It didn't help that he didn't know how to check pulses, so instead he started shouting out to SUNNY.

While this was happening I was frozen stock still, I couldn't process it. SUNNY was dead? AUBREY still had BASIL in her arms but she looked terrified, POLLY on the other hand actually went to go call 911 to get an ambulance for SUNNY (and BASIL), but we weren't even sure he was still alive.

Then I realized, we weren't even sure he was still alive. In other words, we weren't even sure he was dead. Regaining my composure, I walked towards KEL and SUNNY and successfully checked SUNNY's pulse.

Though it was weak, he was still alive. Relaying this information to AUBREY and KEL left them with much more hopeful expressions, expressions that could even be called bright or charming.

Finally, the stress of being in the presence of a corpse was off my shoulders, so I could inspect SUNNY's body to try and find the source of all the blood. While doing that POLLY rushed back in to tell us about the ambulance and then asked for our findings.

AUBREY and KEL told POLLY that SUNNY was still alive and the information seemed to relieve her. After that POLLY asked me what I was doing, I told her I was trying to find the source of all of the blood. And then I found the wound, and oh my god.

I told POLLY, AUBREY, and KEL that majority of the blood was spilling out from a wound on his eye or- probably more accurately, the blood was spilling out from of his eye and eye socket. The eye itself was out of the socket and badly damaged, way beyond repair. The only reason I could tell it was an eye was because it was still connected to the socket.

Around the empty socket, on SUNNY's face was a huge cut, or gouge? I don't know but it was entirely around his socket and it looked extremely bad. The wound was huge and very bloody. It was a miracle that he was still alive and yet... there was more.

There were several cuts and gashes everywhere on his arms and legs, some looked recent, others older. There was also a lot of scarring. Then up on his neck there were more cuts and scars but no gashes, and these all looked at least a day old. And there was also something more terrifying than that on his neck.

A rope burn. Actually - several rope burns.

One of the rope burns looked exactly like MARI's but thinner and lighter, probably because of age. The others were similar, lightening and thinning with age.