Gehenna had barely gotten far enough away from the captain before his energy finally gave out and he had been forced to power down into his civilian form. The blood was pouring out fast from the wound in his shoulder and blood loss meant energy loss, which in turn meant no power to keep his Knight form up.

He was pressing his hand as hard as he could into the wound on his shoulder which, by the way, hurt like a ******** b***h. It was the only thing he knew to slow the bleeding in such an awkward place, though, and he really had no other options. If he didn’t slow it down he might bleed to death before he could contact anyone.

He passed the park entrance then and shambled his way to some shady apartment buildings standing across the street. There was a tiny alley there, half in shadow but with light enough to see anyone approaching. Considering he didn’t really want anyone to stop and ask him why he was bleeding all over the place, it looked like a good deal to him. Once he was next to the buildings he pressed his good shoulder into the wall and let it support him as he crossed into the shadows and finally just collapsed in a slump, too tired to keep walking.

Once down, he dug into his pocket carefully with his half-limp arm, finally pulling out the cell phone and flipping it open. For a moment he was dumbfounded – how was he going to make this call when he couldn’t bend that arm up and the other was too busy keeping him from bleeding to death? Then, of course, he realized he could just use speaker phone. She’d just have to deal with the shitty quality.

He scrolled through the list of contacts until he came to ‘D’, then found Delphine’s name and pressed enter. It rang through the first attempt and went to voicemail, at which point he promptly hung up with a scowl and dialed again. He couldn’t call Penny because he didn’t want her to know, he couldn’t call Bo because he didn’t know how to explain this, which meant Delphine really was his last hope. A scary thought.

“Come on, answer your ******** finally. Look, some Negabitch stabbed me through the shoulder and I’m bleeding to death, I need you to take me to the hospital.” His voice was oddly calm for someone that was actually bleeding out, but his face was beginning to look strained and tight. He held the phone up with his hand as high as he dared, then leaned his head back against the wall. The conversation went on like that for a few more seconds until she finally decided he was serious and got the directions.

When she hung up he just let his phone fall into his lap and closed his eyes. He was pretty tired at this point and a nap sounded damn good. Maybe he’d just sleep until Delphine arrived..

The next thing he was even vaguely aware of was a lot of cursing and a tugging hand that was trying to pull him up to his feet. He stumbled when he was finally standing and found a smaller figure next to him to lean on. It was someone noisy though, and complaining about blood and seats and clothes. He didn’t care much once he was finally stretched out in the back of a car and drifting in and out of consciousness. He remembered street lights overhead, flickering through the tinted windows.

Out of his hazy darkness he remembered the bright lights of the hospital washing over him through a suddenly open door and the sound of a dozen rushing people connected to two dozen hurried hands.

Then the world vanished in complete darkness where there was nothing. There were no lights, there was no Destiny City, there was no one but himself. He stayed there in that darkness briefly, beyond pain and at peace, with only one thought in his head.

Was this what Cimmerian’s darkness was like?