My head felt like there was sand in every crevice, muddling any thought I could form. The pounding was so strong I couldn't tell if it was because the Earth was shaking or if it was because I was truly broken. My hands twitched. I felt something hard under my fingers. Hopefully I could manage to get up by myself. My eyes fought me as I tried to wrestle them open enough to see my surroundings. I finally was able to crack my eyelids and was greeted with darkness above me. My vision was compromised by something keeping my right eye from completely opening, though I was able to spot some stars in the night sky. There was no moon hanging in the sky to give me more light to see this night through. My arms brought themselves to my side and began pushing upwards until I was finally able to sit up.

My entire body felt like a worn out punching bag. Everything hurt and I could tell at least one of my ribs was fractured from the way breathing felt like a sin. I slowly pressed gently on my lower body to observe any worse injuries that would keep me from moving around. My knee was swollen three times the normal size and stung when I moved it, but other than that, black bruises and lacerations covered my body but nothing else to manage at that point. I pulled my good leg under me and tried to stand by pushing my weight onto the other leg. I was able to stand but as soon as I took a step forward, my knee felt like a block removed from a tower and it gave out from under me. I fell back towards the floor painfully ending up on my side. Knowing I could not get far on my knee being like that, I tore an already torn piece of my ruined shirt to use as a wrapping for my knee. I pulled it right behind my knee after wrapping it around once to keep my kneecap in place.

Trying it again, I found walking to be significantly easier with my new adjustment. My head spun and I stumbled because of my uneasiness. I had the nagging feeling that I was supposed to search for someone, but I couldn't fathom who. My head injury had to be a severe concussion and I dreaded finding out what else my damaged brain wouldn't be able to piece together.

I took in my surroundings of a darkened forest. I was in a modest clearing without anything to hinder the star light that gave way to a shadow world. There were lumps around the clearing, of what I couldn't be sure. They could very well have been tree stumps or sleeping animals, if I wasn't sure my presence would have scared the latter off. One of the lumps wasn't too far away and I made my way over to it to inspect.

Getting closer, I realized that it was a person. They were face down on the grass with their dark hair splayed around their body. That could not be a natural position to fall asleep in, I thought with a squeezing of my heart. I took a breath and put my hands around their further shoulder and pulled them towards me, to flip their body. I gasped when the chest and face rolled towards me. The eyes were closed and the face was distorted with agony while what had to be blood was both dried and still slowly inching itself down their face. Taking in a breath I pulled the rest of their body over so they were lying on their back on the ground. Their hatori was shredded and the person, obviously male by the build and chest shown through the tatters, was wounded immensely. A deep gash crossed the chest and what looked like deep puncture marks covered what appeared to be an arch going into the clothing starting from right under his chest. They were covered in blood, but seemed as if the bleeding had stopped from those wounds.

I took in the face and I had no idea who it possibly could have been. But, I knew that I knew him. Somehow. A painful clenching started attacking my heart as I observed him and his wounds. Tears pricked my eyes before I hastily wiped them away with the end of my sleeve. That was no time to begin crying, especially before I knew if he was truly dead. I held my breath as I knelt down, carefully, putting the weight on my good leg as I put my ear up against his mouth. There was barely any noise but as I placed my hand on his chest, I felt it move slightly, as if taking in a breath.

I shot upwards, both making my head throb and making me lose my balance so that I fell over the man. After I did so, a sharp but low growl reverberated from his chest. He was alive! And best of all, his stimuli were still able to be used to give responses. I picked myself up off of him and decided to help him. I wanted to do everything I could to ensure his safety from further harm. I needed to make sure he made it to morning. He had to. I had no clue as to why I knew that but I felt It in my bones that that was the mission I needed to set myself on.

I figured I needed to check out the other lumps in case I knew them as well before taking on the case of the injured man, I set off to inspect the handful that were around us. I came up to the first one and it looked like it was a deteriorating log. I shivered from the appearance as I hurried to check out the others.

They all seemed to be similar goo logs that had a horrible smell brought to my nose, wafted in by the night breeze. I was happy that none of the other lumps had turned out to be a person. I hurried back over to the man with renewed gusto to get him away from here. My skin was starting to crawl after seeing the lumps of log around us and I was not one to ignore my instincts. Was I?

I shook my head, forgetting the immense pain that would and did follow the action. Nothing about me mattered right now as long as I could help him. I reached him and tried to think of ways to get him away from here. The only plausible idea that came for me was for me to carry him on my back, more like dragging if I was going to be honest. But if I could get him to a place where I could be sure we weren't going to be attacked and I could look at his wounds under light, I know he would be in better shape. If we stayed here tonight I had no doubt the smell of blood would be a pull to many dangerous beasts that I could never fight off in my condition.

I reach down to start to roll the man towards me, so I could get better access to his arms. A quiet grunt emitted from his lips as I swung his arms around my shoulders. I used my bent, good knee to push myself back into a straight position while pulling the man's upper body up with me. I let out a huff as I realized I had my work cut out for me that night.

Eventually I was able to get him into a good enough position on my back to drag him onwards. After what must have been closed to two hours, filled with breathing points and short rests, I found a thick hill. There had to be some sort of cave where we could safely rest for the night. I forced out a breath as I started on again to get to the other side of the hill when a door appeared. There was a door, built into the hillside. This must have meant that there was someone who could help us!

I pushed myself to finish the journey and rapt on the thick, wooden door. After a moment I knocked again before concluding that at least for now, it was inhabited. I pulled on the handle and watched it swing open. There was the absolute minimum light filtering in from a small window closed to the top of the huts ceiling along with the light from the door. This was enough to notice a makeshift bed in the corner of the room, big enough for two. It looked like some type of stuffed mattress that was laid on the floor. I trigger over to it before laying the man as gently as I possibly could on his back onto the bed.

I looked around and saw what must have been a table of some kind and was amazing at finding an oil lamp. I twisted the knob on the side to get the textured wick to stand when it lit itself. I jumped back and stared. I squinted at the light that slightly blinded me and tried to find what made it ablaze.

After a moment I found nothing that I could make further use of so I increased the wick, making the flame dance larger and light up the room. I went to shut the door tight and slide the plank of wood through the door and the holders on either side of it built into the wall. At least there wouldn't be any unexpected visitors that night. I grabbed the lamp and searched around for cloth or water that could help me clean off the injured. Sitting further back on the table was a pitcher of water to our great luck along with a pair of glasses and bowls.

I poured water into the glasses so we would have enough drinking water before filling a bowl and carrying it over to the bed along with the lamp. I set them on the side table that jutted out from the wall. There was a basket of laundered items in the corner by the bed that I snatched up to use as gauze and wrappings. Whoever owned this hut was going to be upset when he found us in here, but it wasn't something I could worry about at the moment. I set off on stripping the wounded down to his undergarment hiding what was not meant to be seen by me I was sure. I cleaned his body of the dried blood gently, as to make sure it did not cause further blood loss by opening up the wounds again. The arch of gashes on his torso reminded me of what a child's bite mark looked like, if they somehow had razor sharp teeth anyway. I finished off by wrapping the wounds to the best of my ability to keep them clean.

The hardest to do was the head wound. The cleaning wasn't difficult but the wrapping made my heart cry as his facial features began twitching in pain. A whimper escaped his lips as I was tightening the wrapping. His eyes slowly opened enough to see. His gaze was glassy and it seemed like he could barely focus, but his eyes attached themselves to my face. His hand closest to me trembled as he tried to raise it to my face. I grabbed it and brought it to my cheek as his cheek moved in a way to resemble a smile before he fell unconscious once more.

That action only confirmed that he knew me as well as I did him. My head daring to split in two reminded me that I also needed to rest. I climbed onto the other side of the mattress, closest to the wall of the cave. My last act before succumbing to the pain and weariness was to shut off the lamp light. My arm falling to rest across the chest of the man that I hoped beyond prayers to still be alive in the morning.