The next day only Blaine, Sam and Puck decide to press through the forest towards the thrust of ocean a local had said was perfect for surfing. The others remain at the main beach, content for lazy swimming and lounging in the sand.

The air is hot with summer and damp from the thrill of the ocean as they get closer and closer. The tread of mulched dirt and leaves gets grittier as they reach the sandy shore and Blaine tugs his sandals off, feeling the dirt and sand harden his feet. Behind him endless cliff faces are sliced up by waterfalls that skitter on and on. The board under his armpit feels safe and when they finally run across the sand together he feels light despite the weight of it. When he strapped to it, the board feels like part of him.

The waves are perfect, evenly spread with a high rise to them, breaking only as they peak and then running fast towards the shore. Blaine aches to be among them.

“Jesus, you don't get this in Ohio,” Puck breathes out, before dunking his board into the water, the weight of it flips him over and he comes up choking for air. The other two bend over in laughter, trying to breathe again before smoothly slipping into the waves.

Hours later, Sam and Blaine are racing, arms fiercely griping at the water, stroke after stroke slicing up the waves. Puck loiters behind watching them humorously. In the concentration of their race, neither boy notices the darkening of the waves beneath them, shadows moving in the black depths. The water becomes unseasonably still, and the waves become soft and penetrable, like the water itself is loosening in vulnerability.

Blaine's dolphin-bottomed board slices through the water, easily, like butter and he drifts ahead of Sam, his experience winning over Sam's length and strength in his arms. Grinning, he swoops his arm down for another stroke, happy enough with the win to no longer continue, not with the pitiful offering of waves the ocean is offering.

His arm hangs in the water for a moment as he turns to call out his success to Sam but mid yelp he feels something swoop under him and grip his shoulder, at first it feels tight and uncomfortable, like he's losing circulation and then there is impenetrable pain.

He lets out a scream that could curdle the water they float on. I'm dying, he thinks, I'm being torn apart. Rushes of water crash over him as Puck and Sam frantically, paddle towards him, dragging the board away so he's torn away from the jaws that rip at him. Something leaves with it but he can't concentrate on anything but the searing pain and the lightness of his mind, itching to get out.

Puck pulls at his body, shouting for help and he slips a little off the board until they can tug him onto the rough surface of the reef, sharp pain stutters along his spine and the blue of the sky spins over him blotting with dark spots.

“Call the hospital,” Puck shouts to Sam whose body is retching forward into the ocean. Blaine can't breathe, the splotches above him are leaking further and further and everything is smudging into nothing, he can't work out what hurts and what doesn't, “Sam I need you to work with me here,” Puck adds.

“Okay,” Sam breathes, reaching for his phone deep in the ziplock bag in his pocket, typing frantically.

Puck tugs at Blaine's skin, tipping him to one side and ripping the leash of Blaine's foot to yank it around and around his shoulder stemming the blood as it seeps everywhere. Red against pale skin, red against Puck's hands, red ink seeping into the waves across the way.

“Come on,” Puck says, gripping the board and tugging it up the beach, “Come on, come on, come on.”

“He can't die,” Sam chokes out, he's tears spittling onto Blaine's barely awake face, as Sam bends over to lift the other end of the board so they can stumble back up the beach, to a truck waiting, so they can career around corners.

“I can't drive,” Sam says, when they reach the rented truck, his shaking hands shoving the board, jamming it against the side, so Blaine's body thumps against it and his head lolls to the side. Sam cradles it back onto the board, trying to stop his jittering fingers, his wrist thwacking against the metal of the truck.

“Sam pull it together,” Puck says, almost angrily, shoving him into the passenger side, and ramming the car into gear, jarring them out of the forest, the road bumps beneath them and they squint with it. Sam tries to ignore Puck continued cursing to himself between faint, “I don't know how to get there, I can't, they need to be here, where the hell are they?”

They hear the ambulance first, its piercing screeches giving them enough time to pull over and grapple for Blaine's body, slapping his face in the hope that he'll wake up.

“I need to phone Kurt,” Sam says, suddenly and Puck's face falls, pale and wet still with salt-water.

“What can we possibly tell him?” he asks, as the paramedics round on them, efficiently maneuvering Blaine into their white van.

“Follow us to the hospital, okay?” One turns to them to say.

They nod silently and duck back into the truck. The voicemail they leave on Kurt's phone reads simply: ‘something got to Blaine, get to the hospital now.' The whirr of the car's engine is not enough to drown out the tugging criticisms that their minds chuck at their skulls, accusations against speed, against wit, against cowardice.

In the Ambulance, Blaine can breathe again, with only the help of the clear plastic mask that settles over his face like a snow-globe. His skin is crusted with sand and salt and wet with blood. His t-shirt is soaked to his skin and he feels both cold and feverish, everything feels off-balanced and he longs for Kurt, for his hands against his face and neck and holding his fingers tightly. Instead he feels numbness and dense air.

He listens for the thump, thump, of his gurney, crashing down the hallway. He is red alert, red, red, spotting against his skin. Heavy yells, strap him into himself. And red is what he sees before there is nothing but darkness.

***

Kurt leaves his his flip-flops and phone abandoned where they slipped from his hands as he sprints from the beach, sand spraying up his leg. The others call after him but he simply grabs Artie from the deck and haphazardly wheels him until he can haul him into the front seat and ram his chair in the back.

“I don't know what's happening,” he explains as the car begins and he spins out of the parking lot his fingers ticking nervously against the wheel. His eyes bulge against his too pale skin, like they might burst out, the very pieces of him fraying with Blaine in danger, “But Sam calls and it's something to do with the water I just know it, I told you, and I knew you'd understand.”

“Kurt, where did Sam say we need to go?” Artie says, authoritatively, hoping that the steadiness of his voice will calm Kurt's somewhat erratic driving.

“The hospital,” Kurt breathes out, closing his eyes for a moment before he feels like he's tipping and opens them, “I can hear the sirens in my head and,” he glances at Artie, gnawing his lip with his teeth, “he can't be back there, he just can't, with his eye and before and it's not the place for him, he can't be there.”

“I'm sure they'll be doing their best,” Artie replies, focussing on the rhythm of his speech rather than his words, knowing that Kurt is not really listening to anything other than the ideas that whip at his skull.

“Yes, but I don't know if I can do it either,” he adds, quietly as they pull into the hospital lot. The outside seems quiet compared to the inside where their fantasies are being ripped apart. Kurt tries not to hurt Artie as he almost rams him back into his chair, murmuring desperate apologies and then they're hurtling into the building towards the front desk.

“Please, it's Blaine Anderson, is he okay? Please let him be ok,” Kurt rushes out.

“He's in surgery at the moment,” the woman smiles fondly, but frowns at his bare feet. Until now Kurt has not noticed hold cold they are, they're almost blue with it, “he's lost a lot of blood and obviously with a shark bite there's risk of infection…”

“It was a shark?” Kurt repeats, paling further and gripping Artie's chair even tighter, despite Artie's perfect ability to wheel himself around, “it bit him?”

“Took his arm it looked like,” the woman adds, snapping gum between her teeth and turning back to the computer, “You can wait by the chairs if you want.”

“No, I'm not doing that,” Kurt breathes out but Artie tugs at his hands until he can wheel him backwards into a chair, spinning around to face him and pressing their hands together.

“It's going to be ok,” he says, softly, trying to hide his own panic, “but we do need to call his parents and yours…”

“His arm, Artie,” Kurt says finally, sinking back into his chair pulling his blue feet up onto it. He feels dull and heady, like he's dreaming. This isn't something they can heal, not like a starfish. This is a piece of Blaine he will never get back, a hand he'll never hold, an elbow that will never hold him close again. His face aches, “you can't just take something like that; it doesn't make sense.”

“Kurt, we don't know anything yet, okay?” Artie replies, “give me your phone, okay, I'll call everyone.”

“I left it on the beach,” Kurt tells him, pressing his face into his knees to try and get some feeling back, “this can't be happening, I thought it would just be he hit a rock or something, I don't know but there's so much out there, out in the water. Why did he even go out there? Who would want that? You can't feel the bottom, you can't feel anything. Oh God, he couldn't feel it. What if he doesn't know? What if he's freaking out? Of course he's freaking out.”

“Kurt I'm going to need you to sit here and breathe for me, okay?” Artie interrupts him kindly, “I know waiting's the hard part okay, but however much you tie things in knots it's not going to change things back there, okay?” he reminds him, before wheeling away to the front desk again. Kurt watches the wheels spin and imagines a tinier Artie who ran and played, whose very being was wreckaged. Once out of earshot Artie lets out a deep strained breath and feels his face flood with panic, who could rewrite Kurt and Blaine life like this, rip open the already delicate pages, strip away the neatly stitches back together paper reminders of their lives so far together. The sickly white walls of the hospital call to him, hark back to ages past, there is no good outcome to such ghostly places, only manageable, he hopes as his fingers cross over one another, twisting in the receptionist's phone cord.