Pain. Sunset could feel it throughout her body. Was she still dying? It sure took longer than movies and books made it seem.
But wait, she was starting to feel more. She could feel heat on her body, she could feel something rough and hard against her back, she could smell something burning.
"Am I on fire?!" She thought as she forced her eyes open. It was dark. She could still be in the alley but… the ground wasn't hard. Had they dumped her body somewhere?
Wait. She reached up to her neck and hesitantly felt along it. She could feel something but… it wasn't the brutal slash from before it was more like… a scar. But that couldn't be. It just happened and it was clear there wouldn’t have been anyone around to save her in time.
Deciding that line of thought was going to lead to even more questions she didn't have answers to, she felt around her body. The ground felt crisp, breaking and turning into dust at her touch. Where in the world was she?
Soon her sight began returning to her, it looked like she was in a forest. That wasn't too surprising. There were plenty of forests around town after all.
She tried to push herself up, only to fall back down. Great. It was then, as her chest hit the ground she realized something. Her shirt was soaked in cold, sticky liquid. "Well shit. There goes the dream possibility," She cursed with a sigh. "Then again, the scar on my neck already kinda ruined that," she thought as she managed to push herself up.
She still felt weak, which made sense. Even if she somehow got it all back, she had lost a lot of blood.
Now standing with the help of a nearby dead tree, she took a deep breath, regretting it almost immediately as some dust filled her lungs.
Through her hacks and coughs she was able to place the smell. Ashes. Something had burned here recently. It was strange that the ground was still warm, but that wasn't something she could worry about. She had to find her bearings. She had to figure out where she'd been dumped, and could worry about the other stuff later.
With that in mind, and after a few minutes of deep breaths, she carefully, and as quietly as she could, began making her way through the forest. Heading to the far left of where she'd woken.