nala

compound

Torra

Nala laid practically lifeless on the stretcher. The infirmary wasn't far, but there was a short window of opportunity left for Nala. Her eyes glossed over, like they're wasn't anything left to them. "Nala, can you hear me? Nala, how many fingers am I holding up?" A doctor asked as we walked through the double doors of the infirmary. "Unresponsive. Start a fire outside. Sterilize some knives. Get water and vodka." The doctor instructed the others.

"Vodka?" Andi asked.

"A disinfectant." A woman instructed. The woman uncapped the vodka and Andi snatched it, taking a quick swig. The doctors took the back and set it on a a side table and assisted the team to pull Nala onto the operating table. I heard her wince, at least she was still live. Andi walked to the other side of the table where the doctors had began to scrub in. They washed their hands, cut and filed their nails (God knows why), and pulled a second red apron covering most of their body.

The doctors mumbled out lots of medical terms that were beyond my small knowledge (knives don't belong in bodies). The doctors started pulling knives and scalpels and tweezers out. "She needs to be operated on?" I asked. She was barely breathing and had lost half of her entire blood mass.

"We don't know what it's like on the inside." The doctor calmly stated. "In the event she stops breathing, we need someone to do mouth to mouth." The doctor looked for a candidate.

"I will." Andi piped up. She stood at the head of the table, combing through Nala's dirty matted hair. Nala's eyes still weren't closed, Andi pushed them shut with a small sob.

The doctors began to work on Nala. They numbed the muscles around the stab to reroute blood flow so she would (theoretically) bleed less.The doctors carefully removed the knife, Nala biting down on her jaw as the knife was pulled out.  "Laceration to the stomach." A doctor mumbled to his team. The doctors took a magnifying glass and looked around the wound. "Do you feel anything still inside of the wound?" A doctor asked. Nala shook her head. Nala tried to press herself to sit, but Andi held her shoulders down.

"Stay down for a minute. You'll be better soon." Andi whispered. A doctor brought in a red hot knife. "What the hell are you doing?" Andi barked.

"The wound is clean and empty. Would you prefer to leave it open?" The doctor asked, obviously rhetorical. I shot him a rude glance. "I need you all to hold her down." The doctor said as he put the knife back in the fire.

"The hell?" Aden laughed. "No way. Aren't there some medicine to pass her out?" Aden asked.

"We put her under and we don't know whether or not it works." The doctor said.

"Fine. Make it quick." Andi choked out. She removed her hands from Nala's hair to hold her shoulders down. Aden and Jordan went to grab Nala's ankles, while Rimona and I grabbed her hands and held her arms down.

"Andi?" Nala croaked.

No.

No.

She was awake.

A red-hot knife would be stabbed back into Nala.

"Yes Nala." Andi began crying.

"Will it hurt?" Nala asked, barely even managing a whisper. It was like she was just moving her lips back and forth.

"Maybe a little." Andi smiled while tears streamed steadily down her face.

Andi nodded to the doctor and she nodded back. The doctor recollected the knife and gripped it tight with two hands. Doctors on either side of Nala pulled her skin tight. Nala squeezed our hands, obviously trying to muffle her pain. The doctor slid the knife into the stab wound, Nala's burning flesh soon overcome by her very own screams.

Nala clenched down on my hand so hard that a bone might've been broken, but she knew better than to move. The doctor pulled the knife out of Nala, which was now covered in dried blood and flesh burnt to a crisp.

Tears flooded Andi's face. Rimona let go of Nala, briefly rubbed her own hand and comforted her. Andi still had her eyes set determined on Nala, who had passed out. I briefly bent over to listen for her breath, which was heavy.

"She needs sleep. She'll wake up tomorrow morning." The doctor removed her second apron.

"In sixteen hours?" Jordan joked.

"You try surviving a stab wound." The doctor scoffed her and left the infirmary. Jordan still had his eyes on the door, in which she dramatically left swinging.

"I think he's in love." Aden joked.

Doctors pushed starstruck Jordan aside and prepared Nala to be moved to another bed. The doctors pulled her onto a stretcher and walked her through another set of doors to the beds.

I went out of the operating room to a crowd that had circled the infirmary.

"Is she alright?" A child asked.

"Nala onh Napoli should be walking by tomorrow." I disclosed on Nala. The crowd cheered loud enough to make the Earth shake (I'm pretty sure it did).

"What do we do now?" A woman separated from the crowd and asked.

"Now? We take the compound back." I instructed, hoping to sound somewhat as confident as Nala. The crowd separated and collected weapons. "We take back what's ours!" I cheered, flailing a random sword I found. We raced past vendors and merchants, houses and yards. The compound materialized, small towers and turrets exerted from the original fee blocks of building. There were a few cement yards, otherwise just a collection of building blocks. We all ran past the gates, which were oddly unguarded. The mob ran up stairs that had been formed like a maze.

The mob ran straight through to the throne room, like they had an idea of where to go. Most of the compound workers had been gathered. The people still for the Committee had been circled by people not for the Committee, those on my side. On Lanca's side. I drew what little confidence I had assumed from Nala, and stepped from the crowd. "It's time to go friends." I quipped, something Nala would say.

"And what if we don't?" A burly man countered.

I nodded to the people behind the opposed, pushing them out of the compound. "What do we do know?" Someone asked.

A pretty woman, nowhere near Nala, had come out of a door, her poofy hair bobbing up and down when she walked. "I think it's up to me." She said, ogling at a circlet. "Don't worry. I don't exactly care for it." She assured as she threw it down on the ground. "I'm Sasha. Heir to Lanca." Sasha explained. "Where could I find the 'Queen of Death'?" Sasha questioned, something nobody knew the answer to.

"'Queen...of...Death'?" I asked for myself and everyone.

"You would better know here as Nala onh Napoli."