A Place For Burned Souls

3

Pain hammers in my head as I gain conscience. I raise my hand to my forehead, and my fingers find the fabric of a bandage over the wound. Confused, I open my eyes and lift my head, but a wave of dizziness shouts me to stay lying.

I look down to my leg and arm, also bandaged. Strange, don't remember having those with me. My confusion turns to alarm, remembering the guy I bumped into in the woods. With the healthy arm, I grab my knife, which lies, with my backpack, beside my head. I clench my hand around the handle and hide it against my clothes.

The sound of steps that I was waiting for appears and I close my eyes, pretending to be still asleep. I can tell by the sound that he moves something and puts it beside me. Then, his fingers touch my forehead and I stop acting. I swing the knife to his chest, trying to stab him, and the boy, surprised, almost lets me, a few centimeters from spilling blood. The movement makes me immediately weak, but I attack him again, throwing a fist at his temple. He twists my arm before I hit him, and I might have screamed in pain as I felt the cut in my arm sting, because he lets go of me. Taking advantage of it, I put my whole weight above him. His eyes wide as I lean the knife against the skin of his neck. The blade makes a thin cut before he rolls and I'm the one stuck under him. He grips my arms and takes the knife of my hand, slamming it against the ground. I groan and squirm under his grip.

"Stop! You're opening your wounds!" He says with effort in his voice as he tries to make me stay still.

"Let go of me!"

"Just stay still! You're just making it worse! You're opening the stiches!"

"Let go of me!" With that, my body loses its strength again, filling with exhaustion and pain. Defeated, once more. The boy sighs and it's just now that I really look at him. His hair was a mess of wild dark brown strands, and his eyes were the same intense color. He looked one or two years older than me.

He releases me slowly, afraid I might strike him again. And how I wish I could. Instead, I let myself rest on what just now I realize is a cold floor. Around me, shelves were filled with a huge number of books, ripped pages were scattered everywhere. I can't remember the last time I've been on a bookstore.

"Where are we?" I ask the boy.

"Somewhere around Bighorn Park."

I give him a questioning look.

"Along Gore Creek, in Vail, Colorado."

"Ah." Didn't really help me.

An awkward silence hangs between us.

"And you brought me here?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"If you brought me here there must be a reason." Says the stubborn side of me.

"There's not much of us left in the world. Shouldn't we be helping each other?"

"I don't need help."

"Really? Would you have preferred that I left you to bleed in the woods?" He says with a slight of sarcasm in his voice, which just makes me to start getting irritated, but I don't answer. "And about that..." His hand goes to my leg, and I catch his wrist before he touches me. The boy gives me a pleading look and, with an angry sigh, I let him.

He rips the bandage off and, through the teared part of my jeans, he analyses the wound that the Soul Eater made me. Risking a little, I give it a sneak peek.

I shouldn't have.

The flesh is red and covered in both dry and fresh blood. The liquid comes out of the wound in a dark color, accompanied by pus. It had been stitched, but the thread was now all loose and destroyed.

"Shit." He mutters.

Shit.

The boy turns and grabs whatever he had put beside me before. It's a small case with needles, sewing thread, and a nail scissor.

"What are you doing?" My voice revealing my nerves.

"I need to make you new stiches, or the wound will open more and get infected. Here." He helps me sit with my back against a shelve. "This is going to hurt."

"No shit." I mutter.