[i]"Please..."[/i]

An ominous sound, like a human voice, drifted uneasily across the darkened playground. Startled, Izzy stopped the roundabout at once, sending it to a skidding halt by dragging her heel on the ground. For a moment she waited, pensive, wondering what she had heard. Was it the groaning of the metal roundabout? The wind? Perhaps a strange noise made by a passing car? Izzy swallowed, a cool sweat beginning to bead on her head as she continued to listen. Though she stayed perfectly still, her eyes frantically searched around her, looking for anything that could have made such a sound nearby.

[i]"Please..."[/i]

Izzy jumped. There it was again. A human voice, unmistakable. She reached quickly for her walking stick, and for the flashlight at her belt. Her head whipped around, looking for the source of the voice, before realizing that she could barely seen anything this time of night. She flipped on her flashlight, shining it around in search of the phantom she had heard.

[i]"Help me..."[/i]

The voice called out again, and Izzy was able to trace where it had come from. Though she was more than a little hesitant, she didn't think that whoever was calling out was a threat to her. The voice, arguably a man's though it was hard to tell, genuinely sounded like it was in pain. As much as it had alarmed her, she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she was the last hope of someone who was grievously sick or injured.

Slowly, cautiously, she followed the voice. Izzy took only small steps, very careful of where she walked, keeping the beam of her flashlight always out in front of her. She didn't hear the voice again after that, but continued in the direction from which she had heard it. She stepped through bushes and into the small grove of trees surrounding the park. Those soon thinned, and she was in the weedy, uncut grass that surrounded the landscaped area. A familiar, tangy sort of smell that she couldn't quite place. That was, until she shined her flashlight down at her feet. Blood. An incredible amount of blood, soaking the ground in a great, red smear in the direction Izzy was walking. She swallowed hard and picked up her pace.

Finally, she spotted a disturbance in the grass up ahead. She crept forward, shining her flashlight at the mass on the ground that could have been a body. She thought it was shivering at first, but then realized that her hand holding the light was shaking. As she came within yards of the thing, it became clear that the shape was a man. Caucasian, tall, blond, perhaps he was handsome if his face was not streaked with blood and contorted with pain. She looked to his clothes, and saw that he was wearing a sharp, dark grey suit. Or, it was a suit at one point; it more closely resembled a bloody rag at that point. Looking closer, Izzy saw something distinctly wrong with the man's silhouette. His limbs were gone. His right arm, from about the elbow down was torn off. His left had been neatly cut at the shoulder. Both of his legs had been savagely ripped away as well.

The man's head rolled to face Izzy, and she yelped with the breath that she hadn't realized she was holding. At least he was alive; if he was breathing, Izzy could barely notice. His eyes opened, their golden irises reflecting the light of Izzy's flashlight back at her.

"Please..." He moaned, blood pouring out from between his lips. "I don't want to die."