Thump. Thump. Arialla could feel every beat of her desperate, traitorous heart, pumping more blood out through the wound in her neck. She didn't have it in her anymore to be frightened; she just wanted to get it over with, to die already so that the pain and helplessness would end. If the gods were merciful, she would have fainted by now, but even her beloved Safrin held no mercy, and Arialla remained conscious, at least partially. She couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't cry for help, but she could still feel.
Someone had cried for help, though, a scream that might signal someone to investigate, to find the young woman on the ground, drenched in her own blood, clotting in her red hair instead of in her body where it belonged. If Arialla were capable of thought at the moment, she might have wondered who had screamed, why that person hadn't helped her -- but for all she knew right now, she had screamed herself, or imagined the sound.
The idea of help arriving didn't comfort her, anyway, or even occur to her. In that moment, there were no other people in the world: just Arialla, and her blood, and her fading life.
please don't take my sunshine away
