The crash happened at 3:00 AM on a rain-slicked stretch of highway near the Armitage estate. Arm, driving himself for the first time in weeks to escape the suffocating silence of his office, had finally succumbed to exhaustion. His luxury sedan hydroplaned, spinning out and colliding with a guardrail.
The news reached the school by dawn. When Mild heard, he didn't think; he ran. He arrived at the hospital still wearing his rumpled school uniform, his heart a frantic, echoing chamber of guilt.
Arm lay in the sterile white room, his head bandaged and his arm in a sling, but his eyes were wide and burning with a feverish intensity when Mild walked in. For a moment, the "Ice King" mask was gone, replaced by a raw, naked hope.
"You came," Arm rasped, trying to sit up despite the monitors beeping in protest. "Mild... I knew you'd come."
Mild stopped at the foot of the bed, his hands clenched at his sides. He couldn't let the walls down. He couldn't let the sacrifice be for nothing.
