It was too fast.

They weren't expecting everything to go out of control. Maybe a bit problem here and there, but not everything. Alas, it already happened. Nothing could be done to turn the time backward.

Just like the thick, bloody red puddle on the floor wouldn't flow back into fresh wounds and close itself up.

Earlier Irene had received the distressed call from Wendy's lab from the other side of the building, and she sprinted through the crowded hallway under the flashing alarm lights on her way to Wendy's wing. She kept dialing both Wendy and Sakura's phone but reached their voicemails instead.

Turned out, Wendy was no longer in condition to be able to answer her phone.

And Sakura's phone laid forgotten under a table with its screen upside down amidst the mess of the lab.

Tears pickled Irene's eyes, her body pressed flat against the wall was already numb to the pain. A limb had through her torso (and likely through the wall behind) and the owner of that limb, a creature that Irene couldn't name, had been struggling to pull its limb back.

An unfamiliar creature with, strangely enough, very familiar shade of eyes.

Irene did one last look around trying to find a familiar face among the dead spread in the room, and when she found nothing she turned her eyes back into the creature hovering slightly above her.

The creature growled.

A growl that somehow sounded like a whine.

With shaky hands, Irene touched the front of the creature that she assumed as its face, her fingers moving upward to trace the sticky skin under its eyes.

"Sa...kura..." She breathed, each word pumping fresh blood out of .

She didn't know what happened with Wendy's team, or how did this creature come out. She knew only one thing; the creature was someone she knew very well and she could feel Sakura's conscious slowly fading away.

Just like her own life slowly seeping away.

"It's...okay..." She breathed, watching the familiar eyes finally disappeared. In its place were bloody red eyes and when the creature raised its other hand, Irene closed her eyes.

+++++

Irene let out a loud gasp, her body shooting forward into the darkness. She looked around, blinking her eyes as her surrounding slowly but surely starting to shape up. She could see the familiar desk, familiar drawer, familiar bed. She was back in her room.

And she just had a nightmare.

Sakura! her mind shot out and she jumped off her bed. Gathering her thick duvet around her arms, she scrambled out of her room into the door across the hallway to Sakura's bedroom.

Under normal circumstances, Irene knew better not to disturb the younger in the middle of the night, but the nightmare had scared her, and watching Sakura died scared her and losing her life on Sakura's life scared her...

Her mind was in a mess and before she realized what she just did, she was already halfway climbing up to Sakura's bed.

"Yah!" Sakura sleepily shouted, her eyes glaring at the uninvited figure who already wrapped herself under her own thick duvet. Though as Sakura slowly came to her sense, she realized that it was Irene and the glare instantly dropped into a worried frown. "Hey, what happened?"

"I just had a nightmare. It was scary..."

Sakura's heart dropped hearing her sobs. "Of course, nightmares are scary." She cooed, pulling the duvet slightly so she could slip inside. Irene didn't say anything when Sakura pulled her to the center of the bed, laying her head on the younger's arm as Sakura embraced her like a human bolster.

Sakura's heartbeat became her lullaby and the nightmare slowly forgotten as Irene finally fell into a dreamless sleep with a smile.

unedited.