All he felt was pain, he could not move because the sensation of his skin and muscle tissue ripping was far too intence for him to handle. Nearby, he heard a whimper, one all too familiar to him. He barely cracked an eye open to see Sasha still in a crippled heap. But a mysterious man loomed over her, a white clad man who concealed his face under a hood. He could not understand the fast yacking sounds which he figured to be Arabic. To him it at least sounded like the guy was trying to cough something up. Not that he understood the language. He never did.
His hand clenched into a fist and he started to crawl forward, only to cry out in pain as he came to the revelation that the knife was still imbedded in his upper ribcage. Choking on his breaths, he suppressed another pained noise from escaping and kept going. But sadly, the man had heard the first one and looked his way. In a matter of moments, he was kicked onto his back, which relieved his chest a little as nothing touched the handle of the knife anymore, and kneeled over him, studying him.
Demitri could see some of the details of his face, the grayish irises to some of the short brown hair to the silvery scar that parted the right corner of his lip (from his view it was left but for the man it was his right). Then the man's gaze came to the blade still stuck in him and appeared a little more sympathetic as opposed to his cool look he had only a second ago. He said something that he could not understand, and so gestured to it instead.
That could mean anything! Either 'do you want me to take this out?' 'can you pull it out?' or 'how'd this happen?' or even 'dude, when you die, can I have it?' He pointed to it and the hooded man nodded. Then he hesitantly nodded, unsure what he should think before the man clutched it's handle.
Now he's no genius, but he knew that pulling a knife from his chest, which was bleeding heavily already, would only make him loose even more blood even faster. Stammering he protested, "No! No! No! Leave it! Get me to a doctor or something! Just leave it for now!"
Apparently the hooded man got the message and drew away from the knife's wooden hilt. Then he gestured to Sasha, a curious look on his face.
"Look, she's... a friend..." Not that he could say she was his girlfriend and more after what had happened. "Please... save her. I don't care what happens to me, but just save her."
The hooded man blinked slowly and stood up again before pacing back to Sasha. Demitri watched as he pressed a cloth to a wound on her stomach then casted him a sorry look before picking her up in his arms and walking away with her. Somehow, his message got through to him and he understood what he wanted. He thanked god men thought so similar that they could understand despite these language barriars.
Soon he closed his eyes again, escaping his throbbing pain again. All he hoped was that where ever Sasha was, she was safe and well cared for.
He came to when he felt a pair of hands wrap under his arms and begin to drag him. Demitri blinked slowly as he saw the world pass him by slowly before he was set down against a wall. Then his view was obcured by the hooded man, he had returned. Now that he could see better, he reconized it to be night, the air was crisp and the stars shimmered in the black velvet of sky over their heads.
Then man took hold of the knife's handle, but this time Demitri was too far gone to protest. His body was growing numb and his mind beyond his higher thinking. In one swift pull, the blade was removed, and he saw blood stain his gray fleece crimson. But because of all the blood he lost already, he hardly felt more than a slight tug at his chest. Before anything else, a white cloth was then pressed to the wound and a long strip tied around his torso to keep it in place before he was lifted up and thrown over the man's shoulder.
The ground passed him by as he stared carelessly downwards. He caught glimpses of the man's boots as he ran, then he was thrown onto something. Since he could feel a twitch of muscle beneath him, he figured it was some sort of beast of burden. Though he knew not what. Before he could tell, they were moving again, with him slung over the back like a dead animal.
Though Demitri could not keep his vision from fading in and out, he kept trying to keep his thoughts straight. Who is this man? Why is he helping me and Sasha? Do I trust him? Will I see Sasha again? Is she alright? Is she safe? Did she die? He didn't know the answers. So he simply stopped asking himself them.
Soon the creature they were riding on stopped and he was pulled off. Dazed, he found it hard for him to even reconize it to be a horse, which was strange to him because he loved the animals.
It seemed like he was practically thrown upwards, even though he wasn't even removed from the man's shoulder as they ascended from the streets. Then after a few steps, the movement stopped and he imaged the man was taking a moment to think. As if he reached an obsitcle...
He murmered something to him in Arabic, and he distinctly reconized the apology in his tone. Before he knew it, he was falling, then he hit the ground hard. The air gone from his lungs as the sound of cracking filled his ears. But his senses were so far gone... he didn't feel the horrible agony he should have felt. Slowly, he closed his eyes to the sounds of sounds in Arabic, and a soft thud as the hooded man lowered himself in.
No... Demitri thought. If I somehow survive this, I'm getting things straight with Sasha... and I won't make my mistakes again...
And then darkness finally laid claim to his body, shutting down his mind and leaving him to listen distantly to the loud thumping of his heart fighting for life.
Consciousness dared to come to him, and the first thing he found himself feeling was pain of all things. Then he less quickly became aware of his uncomfortably dry throat, the throbbing all throughout his torso, the headach that pulsed against his skull with every beat of his heart, and how difficult it was breathing when white hot agony flared up every time he tried to inhale, resulting in feeling choked.
Distantly, he heard voices, but could not make them out. After shutting his eyes to sigh, and ignoring the pain enough to take in as much air as he could, he opened his eyes to find Sasha standing in the doorway. She slowly made her way across the room, holding her bandaged midsection before sitting on the edge of his bed. She took hold of his hand, stroking her delicate thumb over the back of his wide hand. He noticed how much warmer her fingers were than his, but he could not see how pale his usually decently tanned skin had become.
All he knew was how Sasha looked. He went over every last part of her, from her high and well defined cheekbones, to her long, full eyelashes, to her oval face, and finally to her dark brown and copper streaked hair, loosely curled and falling just around her shoulder blades. One strand in particular hung over her face after escaping from behind her ear, but not important enough to catch her green-streaked-gray gaze that remained focused on him.
He wanted to take in ever last bit of her feathers, admire her beauty at least one last time before he died.
Pulling his hand up shakily from his side, he rose it up to tuck that loose strand of hair behind her ear as the tips pinkened. Weakly, he pulled a smile, tasting a sort of metal hinted liquid in his mouth that he assumed was blood. His hand caressed her cheek, and she turned towards the palm to kiss it.
"I'm sorry, Demitri. This is all my fault." She whispered, a tear slipping away to roll down her face. "I never should have ran..."
"No..." He disagreed. "It's mine... I made you run... I never should... should have said that to you... I'm the one whose sorry... truly..."
"You'll make it, Demitri. Please. Don't die." She pleaded, holding onto his hand now. He took a deep uneven breath.
He tried to keep his smile despite his agony, his heart acking by the sight of her crying. "If I do... please... let me die loving you... and knowing that you care..."
She shuttered, "Because I do. And you'll live, so stop telling yourself that you won't."
He laid his head back and closed his eyes, letting his hand fall while he drifted off to the feeling of her stroking his hand with her thumb, and his heart still managing to beat.
Sasha didn't leave him for one moment. Much to the consern of the man who carried her back here and his friend. What was his name? Altiar? Alty-something? She wasn't sure. But she had started to pick up the language from her constant listening for the past week. She was learning how to pronounce the words so that she may talk to them some time.
All she could be thankful for at the moment, was the facts that she and Demitri were still allowed to stay in this place, and that her time working as a paramedic was finally paying off. Sadly, they apparently didn't have all the things she needed, so she improved. Salt worked well in keeping Demitri's wounds clean, and since he was asleep throughout most of it, he never truly complained. She splinted up the broken arm and did her best to wrap up his chest to keep him from straining the broken ribs further with breathing too deeply. For now, it seemed to work well.
In the other room she heard Altair say, "Al Mualim will not like hearing about these strangers."
"And whose fault is that? you brought them here!" His friend argued.
With a sigh, she took the bucket of water from the floor and poured some into Demitri's mouth, forcing him to swallow the liquid. He coughed a little and some of the liquid, deluted with some blood, dribbled out of the corner of his mouth. Sasha whipped it away with her sleeve, thinking about what was with these people.
Since they had not allowed her to leave the building, she was stuck consitering the options. Was she in another country? How could she have gotten there? All she knew was that she was stabbed and suddenly found herself here. It was strange.
Her thoughts were broken by a quiet knock on the door, and she turned her gaze up at the hooded man who dropped her boyfriend on stone floor and gave him the bulk of his internal injuries. "How is he?"
"'He' is fine." She responded curtly, turning away from him.
She felt his hand on her shoulder, and she shrugged it off as he said, "You don't need to be so bitter towards me. I saved you after all."
"And then dropped my... friend... on the stone floor." She retorted.
"I didn't come in here to argue with you." He stated. "All I was going to inform you of was that we will be taking you and your 'friend' to Masayf in two days. If your friend isn't able to move by then, then it might be best to end his misery."
She sat there stiffly, dwelling on those last words. Kill him? She couldn't do that. He needed her. She could save him. She refused to give up on Demitri. Silently, she sent a prayer for him to get better.