Disclaimer: It's all Yuu Watase's.
Hikou
Chapter 2: Survival
Talia MT Ali
To his great dismay, he was not awakened by his mother in response to his screaming, to tell him it was all a horrible dream. There was only the feeling of a knife etching itself into his eye... oh Suzaku, his eye...
After the pain, the sound of rushing water entered his ears first, and then the sound of someone's belabored breathing. Houjun stirred, wondering why he was so stiff and tired and sore and hurting so badly. It was like his face had been ripped apart. Where his head was resting, the grass was coated in red and flecked with green. Trying not to move anything on his face for fear that the pain would explode out of his tenuous control, he raised his head to look at Hikou.
His oldest friend was almost bent double, still trying to purge the last of the liquid from his lungs. He cradled his hand - which looked terribly managed and bent out of shape, inciting a round of vague guilt in Houjun's mind. Hikou's clothes were torn almost to shred, but he was alive, thank Suzaku. He was alive and could be well given some time.
"H-Houjun?" Hikou asked, his breath sobby and erratic. "Are you okay? You're bleeding pretty bad."
"I think I'm okay. Head wounds always bleed really badly. It's probably just a scratch," He managed to say, scrabbling to his hands and knees. Several piles of vomit, and finally just sour-smelling fluid, were spewed nearby. Avoiding them carefully, he inspected Hikou through his one working eye. The other might have as well as been non-functional with the discordant images being produced there. He pushed aside the thought and the pain for a moment and knelt next to Hikou to look at his hand.
"At least one or two bones are broken, brother," Houjun said quietly, and looked up at his friend. Hikou looked vaguely sick and worried. "If we can get back to the village, the Healer will be able to set them right.
For a moment, Hikou's eyes glazed over as he looked towards the village. Then they came back to reality with a jolt, and he was terrified.
"Houj, the village... the flood..." Both young men swallowed as they looked uncertainly at the engorged river and felt the rain pounding on their backs. "We have to get back and help with the sandbagging. The dikes weren't built for this."
Terror seized Houjun as he realized Hikou was right. The river was swelling far beyond its bounds. There was no way that the village could stand up to that kind of pressure...
NO! He couldn't think that way. They had probably held out this long - at least this long! The village was well equipped for flash floods.
But this one came out of nowhere, his mind whispered. It must have begun raining upstream before quickly moving this way. He tried to push it away, feeling the first stirrings of desolation. No warning, no protection, no village.
"Yeah, come on," Houjun carefully pulled Hikou to his feet. A few shaky steps, and he stumbled into his friend. Somehow, Hikou stayed upright and steadied him, but he was so, so dizzy. If he could just sit down... if his face would stop throbbing...
"You need to stop that bleeding," Hikou announced, and let his injured friend down to sit on the grass. "You'll faint again if you don't stop it."
Looking down at his shirt, Houjun vaguely noticed that it was red, where it had been white before. That was a lot of blood. Hikou removed the remains of his shirt and wadded it up into a ball so he could press it to Houjun's face.
His nerves screamed as Hikou pressed on his wound. He saw black for long moments. When he came to again, he saw the round face of his oldest friend peering worriedly down at him like the moon come down from the heavens, surrounded by wriggling worms of stars and yellow and red blotches. With a jerky hand, Houjun took the impromptu bandage from Hikou and held it to his pounding face. Crimson blood soaked into the wet material.
His brown eye asked the other man for assistance in standing, and was rewarded with Hikou's good outstretched hand. Hikou tried to keep the worry and fear from his face, but Houjun saw and wondered what was the matter. The village...
As if in response to the thought, Hikou turned to walk in the appropriate direction. He was unresistingly pulled along. Trying to stay upright and conscious was really an incredible feat, he mused. Hikou cradled his mashed fingers against his chest and put his other arm around Houjun.
The cloth dripped away his blood as they stumbled on.
***
A/N: Read, enjoy and review! Now, I have a lot of this fanfic already written, if not edited… I find editing is a pain in the rear. However, nice reviews will make me feel warm and fuzzy, so I edit faster… hmm, was that a bribe? YES! ^_^
