Summer Solstice

In Dreams

{I pulled my hand back and studied him for a moment. "Why would I hurt you?"}

He just shook his head 'no' at me, and continued to stare. I sat on the ground at his feet, and scooted back. I wondered if he was going into shock, or worse. He'd just been attacked by a bear, and now he was talking about me hurting him. I felt one warm tear roll down my cheek, and I wiped it quickly away.

I couldn't run for help, the snow was falling too thick, and it was so dark out that I would get lost taking one step out of the small building. The wind had picked up, so no one would hear me screaming out, and I couldn't take Konai with me because he was too badly injured.

I was so lost.

I didn't like not having options. The only thing I could do was sit there and wait for the storm to blow over, or for someone to notice the smoke coming out of the shacks chimney. And every minute we stayed there, was another minute that Konai was injured without getting help.

Very slowly, I slid my hand over to the wall and picked up a large chunk of wood that was propped against it. I leaned over carefully and laid it on top of the flames. With Konai's body between me and the fire, it didn't seem so scary. But I still didn't want to get any closer than I was right then.

He started coughing, then groaned and tried once more to roll into a ball next to the flames. He winced again and I leaned forward, my hand automatically reaching for him. His eyes darted to me and he just shook.

"I can't, I'm sorry... It's not you." He gasped once more, his eyes changing so quickly from brown to black, that I almost thought I'd imagined it. Then his eyes rolled backwards and his body went limp.

"Konai!"

I jumped up and leaned over him, feeling for a pulse. His heartbeat was erratic and he was so hot, he felt like he had a fever. He was also breathing rapidly, as if he couldn't get enough oxygen to his lungs.

It was a possibility that the scratches he'd gotten from the bear could be infected. That might have caused his fever and nervous behavior.

I turned his face towards the flames, surprised to see that only dirt marred his features. I suppose from across the room it could have looked worse. I pulled at the open gaps in his sleeves, but instead of wounds, he only had angry red welts on his arms where the bear had almost scratched him.

Maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought.

I unzipped his coat and unbuttoned his shirt, pulling at the neckline. He definitely needed to see a doctor, there was a huge wound across the base of his neck, like the bear had tried to bite a chunk out of him. I grabbed the first aid kit and unwound the small roll of gauze and pressed it against the wound. It wasn't bleeding badly, but it didn't look good.

I patted down the rest of him, wherever I could see holes in his coat, or where blood was seeping through the material of his shirt or jeans. The biggest and ugliest wound was in his left side, high up on his ribcage. It was bleeding slowly, but was obviously where the bear had done the most damage. I didn't have any more gauze, so I looked around for something I could used to pack the wound.

After a careful search of the building, I'd found nothing. I stared at the sleeve of my jacket for only a moment, then pulled off my coat and started ripping off chunks of material. I needed a new coat anyways.

I packed as much of it as I could against the wound, then tucked his shirt together to hold it in place. The remaining pieces of my coat weren't enough to wear for warmth, so I pulled the material into more strips and stuffed them on top of the rest of his wounds. He hadn't moved through all of my tending, and I was happy that I'd been able to do something to help him. After a few minutes though, I was freezing.

I stood and stared out the one small window. It was still snowing, and I could no longer see the lights from town. For a moment I thought the bear was still out there, I'd seen a pair of eyes out in the snow, black as coal. But they had been there one moment, and gone the next. I shivered again, but this time from fear. We were going to be stuck there a while, and I was getting colder every minute. I threw a few more large branches on the fire and tried to focus on anything else, but my thoughts were consumed by Konai.

I turned back to look at him, his injured body laying out beside the fire. He didn't look quite as miserable as he had been. His skin wasn't as pale, and his face wasn't contorted in pain. I felt the need to hold him, and I thought about snuggling up against his good side, but that was the side closest to the fire. I resigned myself to crawling up beside him, on his injured side, and resting my head on his stomach. I curled into a ball, wrapping one leg over his.

His body had stopped shaking, and his breathing was nice and even. Warmth radiated from every part of him, and I suddenly felt more tired than I ever had before. I was sure it had nothing to do with being sleepy, and everything to do with the stress from the events that had brought me to the small shack.

I fought back a yawn, and felt my eyelids growing heavier. I didn't want to sleep, I wanted to watch over Konai. It was so important to me that he was okay. HE was important to me.

I stared past his tattered coat sleeve and into fire, watching the small flames dance around. They seemed happy, the flames jumping and spinning around. I'd always thought of flames as being a horrible thing, but right now, they were saving us. The flames twirled, and as my mind drifted off, I thought I saw two figures dancing around in the flames. I remembered how Konai had danced with me at the Spring Festival, and how he'd never let me go. I was going to stay here, and never let him go.

A few moments later, I drifted off to sleep.

As I dreamed, the flames grew taller, wider, and the figure of a person took form in the center of the blaze. The person seemed familiar to me, and not. My mind knew that this was just a dream, it must have, because it wasn't frightening. The person seemed to be talking, but I couldn't understand anything, the only sound was like static sparking through the air. I could see lips form the word 'hello', and a fiery hand reached for mine.

I knew it wasn't threatening me, and I reached out to touch the bright flames. Her lips drew into a small smile as she took my hand in hers. Something tingled up my arm and into my chest, and for a moment, the flames took on a white hue, then blue. The blue flame wrapped around the orange, then exploded.

I jerked upright, realizing pins and needles were shooting up my arm. I'd slept on my arm wrong and had no feeling in my fingertips. I stretched and flexed my arm, trying to get the twinges of pain to go away, when early morning sunlight started to filter through the small frost covered window.

Daylight.

It was morning, or somewhere close to it. I turned to check on Konai, but he was gone. At first I couldn't believe the room was empty except for the small embers of the fire burning in the middle of the room. Snow had been thrown on the fire to put it out, and muddy footprints led to the door which was opened slightly.

I jumped up, not knowing who had been there, only that Konai was gone. I ran past the window and stopped. There, smudged into the frost by someone's finger, was one word.

'Maggie'.

I pulled open the door as far as possible and looked outside. There was only one pair of footprints in the snow, so it had to be Konai. And instead of the trail leading back up the slope, they traveled against the slope and down the hill, straight to Maggie's house.

If that was where he was headed, so was I.