12:32 in the Afternoon

It was amazing the affect heat had on the city. Steam rose from the roadways, buildings shimmered in the rays of the sun, and cars honked at each other almost grouchily as their engines overheated and died. The people were grouchy then too; elbows shoved and voices grumbled as I pushed through the streets, spitting sweat off my lips and squinting upwards at the sun.

There'd been a massive heat wave affecting the city for days. When I was at home I'd sit blankly in front of the fan, watching my mother frantically washing dishes with a half-gallon of water. It was always too hot to do much outside, but I'd already exhausted my indoor summer break resources. I'd mastered fifteen different yo-yo tricks, memorized all the newest songs, defeated Ganondorf three times, and discovered once again that on the thousands of TV channels there was nothing to watch.

Thus I was pushed out of my house, forced to wander the streets in search of some form of entertainment. The sun beat down on me too hard; I could feel the skin under my hair burning and crinkling. Disgruntled, I ducked under a tree, wandering into the shade of a park. My eyes glanced lazily around as the boredom inside me grew greater and greater, rising up against the wave of lethargy that kept me rooted to the spot.

I was so glad when I saw you.

You were idly swaying on the swing, your arms wrapped around yourself, a small smile on your face. The shine of the light on your golden hair almost burned my eyes as I looked at you. You were a classmate of mine that year, a friend, and although it would not have been my first choice to hang out with a girl in the park for fun, I liked you more than most other people in my class and anything was better than just standing under a tree all day.

"Rin." You turned and smiled widely as I sat down on the swing next to you, the metal seat burning my skin for a moment. Something moved in your arms and I glanced down, noting a small black cat nestled against your skin. It seemed very content there, staring at me with smug eyes, almost as if it knew something I didn't. 'Hah hah,' It seemed to say. 'She's hugging me and not you.'

"Hey Piko," you responded, drawing my attention away from the feline. "What are you doing here?" I stretched out my arms and then wrapped them around the chains, feeling how quickly the cool iron became hot and sticky with my sweat.

"I don't know," I said blankly and frowned because it was the honest truth. "I was just wandering around looking for something to do. This fricking heat is killing me." I sighed and raised my shoulders, continuing to prove a point. "I don't even remember what day it is." You laughed and shifted the cat into one arm while you reached into a pocket of your sundress, pulling out a phone and showing it to me.

"It's August 15th," you said as the screen lit up, showing the date and time. "About 12:30." A weight dropped in my chest and I threw my head back, glaring up at the sticky sun again.

"That means school's going to start soon." I wriggle my fingers in and out of the links of the chains and kicked at the ground with my feet. "Summer's almost over and I haven't even done anything." You chuckled again and slid the phone back into your pocket, holding tight to the cat again.

"Yeah, I actually don't like summertime that much." You pushed at the ground with one foot and sent your swing into motion for a moment. I stared down at our shoes in the dirt, raising my eyes as the kicked up dust rose higher and higher into the hazy sky. "You have so much time but never want to do anything. It seems like such a waste." You pursed your lips and came to a stop. The cat emitted an uncomfortable sound and glared at me, seeming to blame my arrival for all the unwanted motion impressed upon it. I gave the cat the finger.

"Who's pet is that?" The feline ruffled its coat and sat up in your lap, seeming rather affronted.

"I guess it's just a stray," you responded, sticking your tongue out at my rude gesture. "I found it roving around."

I snorted. "Because parents always tell you to pet stray animals." With a 'humph' you stood, cuddling said animal and backed away into the shade. I jumped up with a yell and followed you, finding welcome relief in the tree covered walkway you strolled down. You looked at me reproachfully.

"Sure you don't wanna run? I play with wild things. You might catch something." I snorted again, bumping shoulders with you in what I hoped was a friendly way.

"Nah, I'll risk it. Besides, there's a vet down the street from my house." We laughed, the sounds of teenage friends joking echoing down the street. The cat meowed once and stretched it paws out, jumping away. It seemed to have had enough of this human nonsense.

You gave a gasp and dashed down the walkway after it. It trotted nonchalantly along, just out of your reach and I watched amusedly as you ran into bushes and trees after its retreating tail. I caught up with you as the trail connected back onto the main street, the cobblestones turning again into sidewalk. You were glancing around erratically, calling out random feline names in an attempt to get the cat to come to you.

A black head stuck itself out from underneath a bench and bounded away over the crosswalk like he knew what it was there for. "There!" you squealed with delight and turned in its direction taking a step onto the heated asphalt.

A wind blew by at that moment, taking the edge of the heat but bringing with it grit and dust and the smell of burning fuel. I blinked my eyes as they watered and focused again on the road. The heat grew back again, hotter, and in less than an instant. Your back was to me, just a few feet in front of me in the crosswalk. I stood on the edge of the sidewalk and felt my eyes rise and my hand shoot out as the crossing light suddenly blinked red.

That wind was a mere forewarning of the gush of air the truck was about to bring as it barreled past, tugging along the smell of exhaust and fire. The driver didn't slow, they didn't have time to. They just pushed on past and came to a stop a block down, seeming to realize something was wrong.

My eyes were closed against it all, but I could feel something. A warmth, something hotter than the stifling air, resting against my legs, my hand, a drop on my cheek. I could feel it, I could smell it. My lids opened, the light seeming too bright for a moment, and then seeming to reveal too much.

I could see the places where your bones stuck out, pushed out of place on impact. The skin there had stretched and tore, now hanging around the exposed white in tattered strands. Even as I watched blood poured out of you like a water balloon with holes, draining in rivulets that seemed to bubble and boil across the scorched tar, sending to scent up and around. Your face was tilted away, your smashed hands splayed out towards the cat sitting contentedly on the other side of the road, your knuckles broken like Christmas chestnuts.

I didn't hear your scream until long after it had dissipated, echoing in my mind with each drip of blood off my skin, sprayed with your body fluid. The smell of it wafted up into my nostrils, confusing me with how similar it was to your smell yet so different. So different.

My breath caught in my throat, the airway that used to be there seeming like something I had only read about. Words? What are words? How do I breathe again? I wanted to close my eyes but I couldn't, couldn't tear myself away from the image of you lying there broken, smashed, bones protruding and joints bent backwards, skin peeled and sizzling on the hot blacktop.

The world continued strangely around us, cars still passing by on nearby streets, the cat pawing at a buzzing fly, the sound of crickets chirping in the trees we came from. There were people around me, telling me to back away, to look away, but I couldn't, because that bloodied thing on the ground was you, you who had been standing next to me not ten seconds ago. I couldn't understand it. It couldn't be real, all my logic screamed at me that it wasn't, but all my senses laughed that it was. That you were over there and I was over here and that this was real.

It was all real. The wind and the scream and the blood and the heat and the people and the cars and the crickets chirping like nothing was wrong. It was all real.

A/N: Don't talk to me about the Kagerou Project and how this doesn't fit in with it, blah, blah, blah. I wanted to write this idea before I even knew the Kagerou Project existed. And now I do know it, but it's confusing. Amazing and beautiful and awesome, but damn confusing. Not even gonna try to write that one.

This is my first time writing something this, uh, graphic. Feedback? Too much? Too little? Does it seem fake or are you throwing up?