I had no idea what I could say. It was like someone had severed my ability of speech. I knew this couldn't be real. I knew I was dreaming. I knew it was impossible for someone so spirited, so compassionate, and so kind hearted to leave Earth. But I still felt an unbearable emotional pain tugging at my mind.
"What?" Lilya screeched, "This is it! This is what you take from us! This is the wrath of weakness, of being naive and increasingly vulnerable! Do you have anything to contribute Rosamaria?! Eleazar?!"
We all stood their in silence, trying to suppress our sorrow and come up with a solution.
"Dear God, do something!" Lilya screamed. And so I did. I walked over to Kasper's body and dragged him by the shoulders over to the kitchen table. Eleazar helped me place him on the table.
"What exactly happened?" I asked hastily.
Eleazar choked out, "It was so dark. Some animals were still out, and we were hunting with our bows. Kasper had a perfect shot, and he hit a young jaguar. He walked out to get it, and"- he paused, his perfect blue eyes looking haunted with the memory-"And then a large mother jaguar jumped out and attacked Kasper."
Tears now fell from Eleazar's eyes. And if I hadn't been so focused on Kasper, I would have noticed Lilya's weeping.
"So I carried him back here as fast as I could," Eleazar finished.
I swallowed, trying to remain composed. My tears could not heal any of Kasper's wounds.
I inspected his body. A large amount of skin on this left arm had beeen torn off, along with some of the muscle. Blood soaked through his khakis, and several deep clawmarks covered his face.
"Okay, um, I think that first we should clean the wounds?" I said.
Without any discussion or hesitation, Lilya fetched a bucket of cool water from the well that resided just outside the house. I grabbed a cloth sitting on the counter. Once it was wet, I dabbed at Kasper's wounds one by one. More blood rushed out, but Eleazar had another cloth which we was ripping in half to put pressure on the wounds.
His arm was the hardest to clean. Eleazar hovered over and tried to help, but we were both struggling.
"I'm running out of cloth," said Eleazar.
"Do you have anymore anywhere?" I asked.
"No."
"Lilya!" I barked. "Go get some large, dry, clean leaves! As many as you can! Go!"
She sprinted out and quickly brought back four or five leaves. She began wrapping them around Kasper's arm as Eleazar stripped Kasper of his khakis. I didn't have time to be squeamish.
His leg wounds were awful. There were bites and claw marks even deeper than the ones on his face. His muscles and joints were undoubtedly torn, and he was losing quite an amount of blood from his leg. I began cleaning it.
"We need more leaves!" I yelled. Lilya ran outside and came back in with several more.
"I don't suppose you have any painkillers?"
Eleazar and Lilya both shook their heads. Poor Kasper. Even if he made it through this, it would be hell.
Once all his wounds were cleaned and bandaged- or wrapped in our improvised bandages- we all stood back.
"What do we do now?" Eleazar asked.
"We wait for a miracle," I said.
