To Rhial

55

Desmond

Cramps shot through my lungs, the clumsy stomps of my sprinting boots silent to me. My whole head was locked in a sweating mess of pressure and heaving. Little particles of ash bit at my throat and mouth with every breath as I broke out into the square before the park. Meanwhile, the frail figure in my arms fidgeted and threatened to shatter like glass if I made even a slightly wrong move. I'd skinned deer and elk, but I'd never gotten used to just how much blood could spill out of a body. It spewed out of her every time I jostled her the wrong way, staining a crimson trail behind us.

I stumbled into the treeline, slipping over the muddy earth beneath me, unwilling to let myself fall. I stomped through beds of flowers and small shrubs. Adrenaline was rushing through me, guiding me forward when my body couldn't take it any longer. Miriel was the goal.

Her slashed arm dangled in front of me while her stub drenched my chest. She was so light, as if bouncing a little too much would send her off like a feather.

How did she even get like this? Jaw off kilter, missing an arm, eviscerated waist and a broken leg. What the fuck has she been up to?

Her agape eyes stared emptily into the ashen sky like it was calling her away. I wouldn't let her go, cradling her in my arms, wrapped in her wings.

Branches whipped my face and bushes grasped at my feet. I ducked to avoid a limb and my body gave out, crashing into a patch of fiery orange flowers.

All I could see was smashed flowers and soil, panting on my hands and knees, gasping for breath. The brisk day became hot, a cold sweat was consuming me. I couldn't even stand. My legs were limp and shaking, struggling to push off the ground.

"God dammit!" I screamed into flowers, ripping a clump up with my hands and launching it. "I'm so fuckin' useless all the goddamn time! Give me this, just this once. God, I ain't ever ask for much. Gimme something, please!"

The flowery fumes attacked my nose. My heartbeat thrummed through my head like church bells. Spots of light and dark darted across the world in front of me, fighting for hold over my soul. I turned my head up, searching for something to remedy it, to ease the pain.

A moment of calm washed over me, like the animal staring into my eyes was asking a question of me. "Why are you struggling?" A moss green llama-like creature that we'd seen before casually stepped forward, sniffing at the ground around Vetia.

Blood. She needs blood.

I slipped the dagger I'd found by her body out of my belt and crept forward. A second wind graced my legs and I acted. I crashed forward, scrambling toward the animal on all fours, wrapping my arms around its tall neck and my legs around its torso, yanking it to the ground with me. I gouged the dagger straight into its throat and ripped as hard as I could, carving a wide smile across its main arteries.

I wrenched its neck backward, dragging it toward Vetia, ripping its head further and further back, trying to make it bleed faster.

Its blood is soaking into her skin, but how much does she need? Will this save her or only prolong her death. Fuck it. It doesn't matter.

I slashed and bled it for ten minutes. The flow had gotten so much slower, it was just dribbling out. Blood from one of those things restored her entire tongue, this had to be enough to at least get her stable.

"Go faster! Fucking Christ, what's a guy gotta do to bleed something quickly around here?!"

A brush of needles on cloth behind me. About ten feet back. I glanced behind me, ready to tell a motherfucker to keep walking.