Ikiiri

Ikiiri Chapter 2

The hunter looks down at her sadly and shakes his head. "I'm sorry..."

Then he stoops down and collects her body, moving her to a different place.

***

The hunter walks somberly through the woods, moving towards an unmistakable noise coming from ahead of him. In passing by a tree he lays one hand on it, steadying himself, then looks up and regains his composure. Manny stomps through some thick brush in front of him, storming angrily after her. He throws a tree limb aside and steps through a bush, where he sees the man and hurries over to him. "Did you see her? Where did she go?"

He tries to walk past him, but the man grabs him by his arm and turns him back. "I lost her."

Manny stares at him for a long, painful second before asking, "Wwwhat?!"

"I lost her," He repeats, tossing his head to one side. "She knocked me down and when I turned around, she was gone. Not a trace. I don't know where she went."

"You can't be serious..." Manny says, trying to pull away and go off in her direction.

The man pulls him back again and asserts himself. "Manny, it's useless! She could be in any one of a hundred directions by now, and she's got a big head start. Without any place to begin, we won't be able to catch her anymore."

"I don't give up as easily as you," Manny spits, trying to pull away once again.

The other man pulls him back again and almost growls back at him, "Manny, even you've got to admit that it's over! She's gone, man."

Manny snarls back at him, then shakes his arm off and sheathes his knife. He turns away and walks back off to the clearing, kicking a bush on his way out and swearing. "Sonuva!"

The man waits until he's gone to breathe a long sigh of relief, and then turns back in her direction and looks. "I'm sorry...I hope you can find some help before...'fore you really do die..." He thinks.

He finally turns and follows Manny out with his head hung low. He might've saved her for the moment, but he still doesn't feel good about what he did.

***

Minutes, and then hours pass by where nothing moves, save for a few small insects and animals. Daylight slowly begins to turn to dusk, with the first few rays of orange light shining in the sky. The tranquilizer he'd laced his knife with had worked as advertised: she's been out for hours, and she'll be unconscious for hours longer. Somewhere in the middle of all the silence, footsteps start approaching her underbrush growth, getting steadily closer. A small man strolls through this part of the woods, about one hundred fifty-five centimeters short and wearing simple clothes underneath a very large, oversized robe. A few loose strands of his long red hair fall back into his eyes again, as they usually tend to do, and he brushes them aside with a hand thoughtlessly, but he stops dead in his tracks when he sees a small amber shape on the ground nearby.

He blinks a few times at it, then unfreezes and moves towards it carefully, not knowing what he should expect. He stoops low when he gets close and pushes a few branches aside, revealing her bloodied, sleeping form. He looks over her whole body, from her head to her toes and back again, whispering, "Oh, my..."

He bends in closer and inspects her wounds one by one, especially the bleeding hole in her chest. He whispers again, "Oh, no..."

Then he reaches into his robes and removes a bottle of liquid that he's saved for a very long time: a healing potion that he'd bought over a year ago. "I don't know if this'll even work...there's no magic anymore...but, man, I've gotta try," He thinks. He removes the cap and pours the liquid carefully over her chest, trying to douse it fully in the stuff. He sits back and watches her for a few seconds, waiting for something, anything to happen...