Surviving

Chapter 13

You had no idea how long it took you to make your way back to your cabin. For all intents and purposes you should have died in the mud on the first night and how you survived is still a mystery. But, instead of overanalysing the power of grudge holding, in your quest for retaining some small measure of sanity, you chose to focus on the fact that you did, indeed, survive.

You couldn’t remember much of the journey to the hut apart from the constant agonising pain and the fierce need to survive simply to spite Koba. If you were being completely honest with yourself, if a benevolent entity HAD crossed your path during that time, it was no wonder they had let you be, probably coming close enough to your half-dead form to hear your mumbled profanities and nopeing right back out of there.

Reaching the cabin didn’t signal the end of your troubles. You may have been out of the wind and rain and somewhat protected against the animals of the forest but you were a long way from recovery. You only managed to stumble across the threshold before you tumbled to the ground in a tangle of limbs and pain. And then you knew no more.

You regained consciousness some time later in the exact same position. No surprise there. Finding some energy from the depths of somewhere, you managed to pull yourself across the floor so that you were propped up against the wall of the hut, staring blankly at the rectangle of the doorway in which early-morning light was seeping through. You had no idea how long you sat like that, staring at the flickering light of the sun slowly rising through the trees. The jolt of fear that shot through you at the realisation that you probably wouldn’t last the day was a numb, distant thing.

You thought you were hallucinating when the shape first materialised on the doorstep. The next second you fleetingly thought it was Death, come for what was left of your soul. You immediately banished both theories as the figure stepped across the threshold in that jerky gait you knew so well. He came closer and knelt down next to you and you could’ve laughed in relief at seeing his ugly scowling face. Something about the fact that he was the one to find you struck you as extremely funny and suddenly you were laughing. He pulled away from you, scowling deeply.

“What funny?” Koba growled. You laughed harder.

“You said I would die alone" you giggled, gasping out the words breathlessly. He looked at you as if you were crazy which caused you to laugh even harder. You were bent nearly double, tears streaming down your cheeks as you laughed and laughed. Your forehead pressed into the dirt and suddenly you weren’t laughing anymore, you were sobbing, your entire, bruised, battered, slashed, mud-coated form shaking with the force of it. Your hands scrabbled desperately against the dirt, searching for purchase, for an anchor, something solid to cling to. You were nearly retching with grief.

“You said I would die alone" you sobbed, the words ending in something like a wail, torn from a place deep inside you, a deep, dark, icy-cold place. A hollow place. A place you had tried over and over to patch up, and when that didn’t work, a place you had tried to pretend didn’t exist.
“I don’t want to die alone. Don’t let me die alone. I don’t want to die!”

And suddenly he was there, pulling you close to his furry, startlingly warm body, cradling you against his chest. You could feel the steady beat of his heart thumping against your cheek and it seemed to prompt a reaction in your own heart, a hesitant beat.

You stayed like that for a while, his arms tight and solid around you. His warmth warring against that all-encompassing cold, slowly pushing it back to where it came from, deep down inside your chest. You were trembling against him, you body jerking weakly in attempt to remind you that you were still alive.

“Why do you hate me?” you whispered, an echo of the question you had asked that night so long ago now. The night that had started this entire shitshow. “What did I do that made you hate me so much?”

Koba huffed through his nose, shifting slightly and for a heart-stopping moment you though he was going to pull away, leave you to die on the floor, alone. You let out a choked sob, scrabbling desperately against him, trying to force him to stay. “I’m sorry” you sobbed, “please don’t leave me”
He stilled, body freezing against yours, then he let out a sigh and relaxed, pulling you closer.

“Not leaving” he huffed, his voice softer than you’d ever heard it. “Are injured. Need help”
You blinked, your brain processing his words sluggishly. “You’re staying?”

“What I said” he grunted, rolling his good eye, but despite his apparent grumpiness, his arms tightened around you, pulling you closer against the warmth of his chest. You sighed in relief, snuggling against him shamelessly. The sense of relief you felt made you drowsy and before long you were lax and sleeping soundly in his arms. You never saw the way his expression softened as he looked down at you, nor felt the way he nuzzled his face into you hair, his arms tight around you, as if afraid you would disappear if he loosened his grip. All you knew is that you had never felt more safe than wrapped in his arms.