In a way, the pain had already started to fade. It made room for the rest of the sensations, most of which Claire had never felt before. Warm blood trickling down her cheeks, slow, until she felt it brushing past her ear (she'd never bled long enough to track its progress like the slow crawl of ants, her body usually patching all over as soon as it'd started). The sharp sensation in her side was easily recognized as the piercing of ribs through skin, Claire's eyes roving around as though she could capture it by sight. That moment. That realization. As much as she was wary of it, Claire thought that right then, she was happier than she'd been in months. She wasn't walking through fire. She didn't have to watch her best friend dying in a pool of drying blood on the ground. She had a life, and it was a life kept through choice, making it all that much more powerful. If she wanted, she could leap off the tallest cliff on the island, have it end in a second.

But as her eyes gradually came to rest again, finding another pair in the darkness, Claire found that she didn't want that. She just wanted to be. To live. Opening her lips to speak, Claire managed a soft cough, eyes shutting again as she tried to swallow the blood down and make room for words. Edmund's hand felt strangely warm against her cheek; of all the people who could have come across her first, she was glad that it was him.

"F-fell," she explained in a whisper, swallowing again, before opening her eyes and staring at the Compound roof for emphasis. "I just fell." Her hands moved to rest on her chest, feeling, patting, as though she could still just find her ribs and shove them back in.