PoraBora

Chapter Seventeen

Pora examined the scarring of his arm, wincing. It hurt. It hurt worse than scraped feet, or that way his ankle felt sometimes when he stepped wrong in the sand. The pain made him feel sicker than a stomach of seawater. He groaned as he clutched his arm. Blood squeezed out and the water soaked it away where it dripped down his body.

Washed, he could see where every tooth tore through him, gashes made larger as his arm had been sawed by the swim. His skin mushed into red flesh, pulsing with blood from broken veins.

I'm going to bleed to death, he thought. He pulled off his woven garb, using his other arm, and secured it tightly around his wounds. The clumps of grass stung him until he screeched, but he breathed hard and tied it tighter and tighter.

He couldn't clench his fist, and trying shocked him to tears each time. If he hadn't personally been cleaning Bora's teeth, he would have worried about infection.

The shark was in the water now, circling the reef. He'd expended energy for a bite that hadn't tasted like his usual prey, and so spat it out. It left him hungrier. He'd be searching the atoll for an easier, more satisfying meal.

Bora knew him. He always knew him, on the island, in the clear serenity of the pastures, when everything else was a hard-shelled turtle and the only waves were two inches tall along the shore and Bora had already eaten. But even in the toil of a frenzy, when nothing was left but blood and instinct, Bora still knew Pora.

Pora examined his work, which was soaking thickly with blood. It would be enough, he concluded, for now, even though every heartbeat was another bite, pulsing across his body in tentacles, jellyfish stings from arm to head. He groaned between every thought, even if every thought was, I'm alive.

If Bora hadn't dragged Pora away, every shark would have found out on their own they didn't want to eat him. Nothing would have been left but ribbons, and Pora doubted the pilot fish were as picky.

Pora laid down on the reef. He hated to, knowing he could be crushing polyps, and it wasn't comfortable, digging into his skin like jagged rocks. But his head spun too much to stand up, and he doubted he could keep himself afloat on his back right now.

The storm passed to the north. Pora didn't think he would last if it came his way, but it seemed to be moving eastwards. He grimaced as a throb of pain pushed out a hard sigh. His head hurt, which he thought was stupid, because he hadn't been bitten on the head.

He wasn't sure if it hurt more if he gripped his arm or didn't, or if he was on his side or his back, so he didn't move. He was hungry. Just like Bora. Just like the sharks that had been in the water below him. He thought about them, and the islands they had come from, and wondered if any had islands like Bora where they relied on a boy or girl like him to clean their parasites.

He hoped they would be able to find their next meal without a person dangling over them.

Pora's skin itched like it never had before, beneath his skin, all along his arm, and he slammed his other fist into his leg when he couldn't do anything to help the arm itself.

It wasn't much of a solution.

The moon and stars hung like the lights of angler fish, if angler fish swam in schools and might draw prey from the ocean beneath. Their light made Pora's head hurt. It probably wasn't their light, but they didn't make it any better. A shape like a whale swam through the stars and Pora knew his head was spinning. He shut his eyes. Nothing improved. He gripped his arm, above where the chewed flesh was covered by grass. Squeezing helped, but ultimately it was so little that he gave up.

He figured he must have slept, or passed out, and wondered if it really mattered which, because the next thing he knew, light pushed through his eyelids. He steeled himself and opened them.

Several blinks later, it was morning. He had been turned by the tide atop the reef, and his back itched as bad as his arm. He sat up slowly. A bird passed overhead. It wasn't Tota.

Pora groaned as he stood. He was hungrier. He wondered if Bora was still around. There were a couple of sharks on this side of the atoll, but neither were big enough to be Bora, so he didn't even poke his head underwater for a closer look. He circled the atoll on his feet, stepping as carefully as he could so as not to snap polyps with an errant foot. He didn't want to swim, because he was pretty sure he was about to spend an awful long time doing it.

Bora was still there. Pora let out a sigh of relief and dove into the water.

The shark did not respond, allowing Pora to approach with ambivalence. It opened its jaws, allowing Pora to reach in and do his work.

I know what we need to do, Bora, Pora mouthed in the water. His blood hung above him, but the shark wasn't interested. It knew that flavor, and maybe even knew it was Pora's. We have to go back to our island.

The shark began to swim, tail fin slow, almost idle. Pora held onto its pectoral fin with his good arm, resting his other against the shark's darker back. Bora would know where it was. Where he was. Pora only had to stick with him, and, in time, they would be back.

Pora only hoped Tota would make it too.