SABIS the SURVIVOR

Chapter 7: Claris Finds Help

Chapter 7: Claris Finds Help

With surprising agility for an injured person, she moved into an adjacent passage while scanning her surroundings for additional dangers.

When she had proceeded a good distance away from her previous location, she opted to rinse her left hand wound with her canteen's water ration and she gulped the rest in one quick motion. She sat down on the ground with her legs crossed, spit on her palm, wrapped it up tightly with some extra material from the hem of her vest, and sighed.

Mother Earth, why had I not seen that eight-legged prey before it had attacked? Because it was hiding under a rock. Rocks can certainly be used for many things, she mused. Then a wave of nausea rolled over her. Ooh, right now I would relish the chance to crush that skitterer nibbler into earth paste!

To calm her nausea she looked away from her hand and studied the cavern walls. These cave wall glow-in-the-dark stones resemble the ones in the Hall of the Ancients, she thought.

She wondered if there was a connection between the glowing rocks in this underground and the ones in the Hall. What power did they have? What if she could remove one of the cave wall's glowing rocks and examine its properties? Or perhaps she could use their natural luminescence to search for the primordial plant cure in this refuge from SkyGod's domain.

Then she imagined a channel of water that was alive. Running as if it had legs and arms, it carved a path from the serene pool where she discovered that bundle of clothes, to the cavern walls. There, the emerald water pushed its way into the cracks and crevices where it combined with the sediments in the cavern walls and over time would form those glow rocks. Once the sediments had sopped up the water, the channel retreated into the pool and remained content with viewing its artistic rock sculptures from a short distance away.

Was she hallucinating? Could that bite on her hand have caused these mental images to have formed? Or was she simply exhausted from her journey? She rubbed her arms and legs with her hands and shook them out to wake herself from this dream-like state. She examined the rocky earth that surrounded her. Could she message the young man in the adjacent cave in a friendly manner so that he would not turn and fight? She wanted to talk to him instead of startling him.

She also wanted to know how he had survived for so long in SkyGod's domain. How had he navigated to this location? Had he viewed any animal or human life? Did he know of a more temperate region above ground that grew edible plants? She also wondered if he would find her attractive? She felt her face flush with this last thought and wondered if the spiny creature's bite had caused her an infection. While thoughts swirled around in her head, she failed to notice that her bloody left palm had imprinted one of the stones that she had leaned on while navigating through the narrow passage.

While she fiddled with her knapsack for some type of bandage, she inadvertently dropped another one of Eldris' surprise gifts─a small tribal drum, causing it to thud loudly against a stone shelf.

"Oh Mother Earth, what have I done?"

----------------------------

Sabis smelled something raw. He knew that he was not alone in the underground. His jawbone knife had been at the ready in his hand for so long that its shaft had bitten into the skin across his palm where he gripped it. He moved slowly and cautiously while in a crouch so that he made a smaller target. He listened for additional clues like breathing patterns and insect buzzing but heard nothing unusual. He looked for shadows in the dark and saw nothing but his own fear.

Then he recalled the time when he and his father had been foraging for rare gemstones.

------------------------------

"Sabis, crouch low like me so you can see under these rocks."

"Yes, Daddya. But if we turn over these rocks, then won't a snake attack us?"

"You have been reading too much for your own good, my son. Stay low to the ground next to me and breathe in courage. That's good. Exhale your fear and let Mother Earth absorb it. Now imagine that any snake or other creature that lives in the ground or under rocks will feel that fear and run or slither away."

----------------------------------

After crouching and inching his way forward for the time that a warrior can hold his or her breath underwater, he decided to breathe in the spirit of this place once again. He stretched out and gave his hips, knees and back some limbering. As he reached forward and down, he listened for the tribal boom that he had heard moments before. He remained quiet, listening to his heart and respiration.

"Was it my imagination or did I hear a drumbeat?" Sabis pondered.

On a whim and perhaps due to his serene and calming experience at the bottom of the emerald mineral pool, he decided to test the air in this passage by shouting out his name.

"I wonder how far the sound of my name will carry?"

If someone or something were to hear his call, then that would be okay. Sabis did not want to flee from danger. Rather, he wished to face it head-on, like his father Davis had taught him, and look it in the eye. So he shouted his name out loud. His voice echoed off of the ancient cave walls, so there could be no doubt that his name was heard within the underground passages that he explored with a poise that was beyond his young age.

--------------------------

Claris' blood continued to ooze and leak through the mossy tunic bandage. Her heart raced faster while her breathing became less effective. Her lips and nailbeds had changed from pink to light purple. She sat up against a wall while she recounted her basic survival training. But because her head swam with so many thoughts─of her Mother, her life back home, and her duty to her tribe, she could not focus on her next move.

She needed to stop the bleeding. A tourniquet could work but that would leave her arm ineffective. Her mind seemed slower than usual and her muscles felt sluggish. She drooled and started to see double.

"Did that spiny creature poison me?"

She slipped into a fog-like state. She saw visions of herself flying over the land in SkyGod's domain: The cold wind howled in her ears as it lifted her higher and higher above ground. From her vantage point, she could see over the snow-capped mountains, into the valley below, where streams and rivers flowed to the ocean. Suddenly, her vision dimmed.

Then a loud voice rang through the caves, stirring her from her daze, and alerting her to the presence of another person.

"That young man! Could he help me? Should I call him over?"

Her tongue had rolled back into her throat and she could barely swallow. So she could not form the first letter of his name, Sabis. Instead she concentrated her energies on making a sound to attract him.

"Catch bees with honey, fish with worms or snails, and boys with music and dance," she recalled her mother telling her when she turned sixteen. Sorry Mamya, but there is no way in Mother Earth's burning core that I can dance, she quietly apologized. She focused all of her will on raising her hand to tap on her tribal drum─it felt like she was lifting the largest boulder she could ever imagine. Nevertheless, with her remaining strength and her tenacious spirit, she managed to raise her right arm just high enough to let it fall with the force required to sound a loud boom.