Dealing With Consequences

Chapter 2

        She looked around at the bodies surrounding her. No one was moving. 

        "Hello," she questioned into the air softly.

        The voice grew louder. Amara froze when she realized it was coming from behind her. Someone from the other side of the barrier was calling to her. She slowly turned around expecting to see the giant turtle hybrids that were slowly consuming their dead, but instead came upon a small pile of dead bodies. She examined each one as she determined which one could contain the voice. One of the beasts didn't even have a head. At the bottom of the pile, there was a portion of a man peeking out.

        "How did you get behind the barrier," Amara whispered as she approached the blue light barrier that separated the two enemies. Something didn't add up with Amara and she questioned how the scanners could have missed an obviously healthy male soldier. She skeptically glanced at him.

     "Help, I don't want to get eaten by the Loggerhead," he begged to Amara. This time he held out his hand and Amara could see the five fingers. She couldn't see his features well and his body was buried under the dead so she had difficulty deciding if he was human or Naih. Naih couldn't possibly look so human though. She had never seen anything about Naih being human in nature. They were beasts. He had to be human.

      She glanced over at the soldiers to see if any were available. They were busy carrying the wounded to the camp. She crept closer to the barrier where she groaned with indecision as she shifted on her feet. Should she alert the soldiers? Would that bring him to the attention of the Loggerhead? If she didn't do something quickly the Loggerheads would eat him. She glanced back at him and was caught in his icy-blue stare. They poured desperation into her and her body shivered in reaction. She looked away. The feeling was intense. She had to help. It was part of her oath after all. 

      Once again, she glanced around. She felt like a child assessing their chances of being caught before doing something wrong. She shook the feeling. Saving a life was always the right thing to do. She adjusted her body into a firm stance. She only worried a second that this could potentially break the treaty or she could be killed before Amara dismissed it from her mind.

     "Hold on," Amara stated confidently and traced a doorway in the barrier. He was lucky it was her father's barrier. She had figured out how to get through it without his detection when she was younger. Amara would never have imagined she would need it in such a situation. It opened up for her with a soft hiss and she crossed slowly into enemy territory.

      She toed her way cautiously to the pile the man was stuck under. Amara circled the pile and concluded the man was really stuck under one of the beasts, a large black furry thing. She pointed her finger allowing the dim blue glow to emerge and traced out a symbol. The body was encased in blue light. Nothing happened. The beast was too heavy to lift with her spirit alone.

      She frantically searched around for something to assist her fallen comrade. Amara caught sight of a Loggerhead two piles down and her heartbeat was in her ears. She dropped to the ground and hoped that the beast had not seen her. She spread out her hands and grabbed the first thing that felt useful without thinking what it was she grabbed.

       She tried to wedge it under the beast while staying hidden from the Loggerhead but quickly realized she would have to stand. It took all her arm strength to get the mystery item propped under the beast and most of her weight to shift it enough, along with her spirit, so the man could slip out. He was of no help while the beast was upon him.

    The man jumped up from the ground and grabbed Amara's arm faster than she could have processed the move. His touch was warm against her skin and for a second that is all she could think about.  He quickly pulled her back across the barrier to safety as Amara stumbled in her perplexed state. There were deep groves in the stones showing the drag path of her feet. He frantically gestured towards the hole in the wall and Amara snapped out of it and sealed the wall again by simply tracing the doorway backwards.

    She was breathing heavily when she turned to the man again. She smiled. She couldn't believe she just did that. She jeopardized everything and Amara was smiling about it. The thrill of adrenaline was quick to leave her though when she first caught glimpse of the distinct markings on his face. Small black intricate lines encircled themselves repeatedly under both eyes. There was a small black line from his forehead to the bridge of his nose. Amara cursed under her breath. She had just saved a Naih. A really tall one at that.

     He looked down at her and pleaded with his eyes. She couldn't believe it was possible for one to look so human. He reached towards her and she started to squeal with her arms up in defense. Quickly his hand covered her mouth keeping the noise from alerting the others.

  "Please, I mean you no harm. I will surrender to your soldiers if you desire. I just don't want to die that way," he reassured. Amara was shocked that he spoke so clearly her language and what confused her more was her heart quickened at the sound of his voice. It was deep and rich with a peculiar accent and it was causing Amara's body to react peculiarly. She placed her hand on her heart and stepped back. He looked down at her and frowned. "Are you alright?"

  He advanced toward her and grabbed her hand as if worried she would run. There was a brief moment where they stared into each other's eyes.  He turned first to look at the Loggerhead. It quickly devoured the beast he was trapped underneath.  Amara let out the breath she didn't know she was even holding as soon as he disconnected the eye contact.

   She shook with uncertainty as she pulled her hand away. Amara turned and walked around the Naih to tend to her last patient in the row as he continued to watch the Loggerhead. This was it. It was Amara's last straw. Her heart was pounding so hard she swears the entire crest could hear it and her body was reacting as if in shock. She was having a panic attack.

   She bent down to the last soldier and felt a faint pulse. From the raspy sound of his breathing, he wouldn't live for long if she didn't hurry. She quickly summoned the gurney taking extra care to notify intensive case with a symbol that blinked as she completed it. When he was on his way, she glanced down her row again. To add terror to the complex situation, a soldier was slowly meandering up her aisle.

   "Sit down," Amara ordered as she pushed the Naih to the ground. She grabbed a dirty blanket from nearby and threw it over the Naih's uniform. The Naih looked up at her with an expression that made Amara shrink back from him.

   She glanced back down the row and with her last bit of courage, knocked off his helmet that would easily indicate he was a Naih soldier. His dark hair that seemed to feather out from the top of his head flew up as if the helmet was the only thing keeping it from defying gravity. She skimmed over him quickly before she remembered the markings on his face.

   Amara wrapped a bandage around one eye to cover up the markings as best she could. She looked around for an option for under the left eye and cringed at the small puddle near her. She swiped her hand through a puddle of what she hoped was only blood, she forced herself not to think about it, and smudged it against his face. He pulled back in distaste at what she was doing. He was about to protest when his ears twitched. It was easy to detect the approaching officer's footprints in the rocky territory.

   "Officer Hendricks." She nodded to him as he looked her over. To him, she looked as if she was tending to the wounded not covering up treason.

   "Everything alright," he asked glancing around her to the soldier on the ground hunched in a blanket. His eyebrow rose in suspicion at the man's appearance. Amara leaned more to block the soldier's view and nodded.

   "Shock," she coldly stated. "He will be alright. He just needs to recover from the whole experience." Amara couldn't help but question if she was really talking about him or herself. The officer looked at her again and frowned.

    "Damn machines missed a perfectly healthy one," he spat. He was a fellow fan of keeping medics on the field instead of those dreadful robots. He turned to walk past Amara to help with the Naih, when a commotion a few rows over caught his attention. "Hey, careful! These are our men you are dealing with."

    Amara relax mentally with the temporary distraction. She shouldn't be happy that a soldier had fallen off a gurney and two soldiers were trying to throw him back on, but it was a relief to not be hanging along side this Naih for treason. He glanced back to Amara briefly.

"Amara, clean up your bodies and take that soldier to get checked out." He yelled as he ran over to assist the fallen soldier. "Idiots, the lot of you."