As the sun's first rays spattered the fecund soil of the jungle with light, chaos was ensuing below.
"We have to get them out of there!" Mamoru shouted, watching Ami's tent roll end over end as the screaming blind girl tried to claw her way out of a closed and locked tent. "All of our artifacts are in Ami's backpack! If any of them are damaged-!"
"Ami is the only one with the key and she's in there with her!" Rei was on one side of the tent trying to keep it from tipping sideways again with Mamoru on the other doing the same despite the violent rocking motions from within. "Ami are you okay in there?"
Alejandro poked his head out of his tent at the commotion, heavy eyelids betraying his unpleasant awakening.
"I'm fine! Rei you need to hum for her again, try to calm her down, she's panicking again and I can't hold her down by myself!"
Rei immediately began humming, although it was a bit strained as she grunted every few seconds when the force of the momentum from inside the tent.
"Oh screw this!" Mamoru said after a few seconds of ineffective crooning from Rei. He waited for another limb to push out of the tent before making a grab for it. Clinging to the arm through the rainproof tarp of the tent, he wrestled with the girl a minute. The girl shrieked and swore in her native tongue, but eventually lessened her efforts. "Finally. Ami got your key?"
"Got it! Unzipping now!" For a few moments nothing happened, but then the flap folded down to reveal Ami, the other girl, and the disaster that was once her sleeping space.
"Were any of the artifacts ruined?" Mamoru tried to peer around Ami to see whether or not he could determine the extent of the loss without releasing his hold on rebellious limb and even more rebellious guest.
"I don't think so, they're all wrapped and stored in the bag. Let me go through it." As Ami exited the tent with her backpack, Rei came around to help the blind girl out of the tent. As soon as she was outside, the girl squatted down in a very familiar position.
"Oh, that is rich. Is she really taking a piss right in the middle of-woah, okay." Mamoru turned away, but not before rolling Ami's tent back in the other direction. Rei took a few steps away from the girl when she saw the reason for all the fuss. When she finished, Rei gave her a wet cloth for her hands, helping her stand up and move away from the small puddle.
"Small miracle she hasn't killed herself yet through sheer stupidity," Mamoru raked a hand through his hair as he watched the blind woman stumble over her own hair.
"I'll need to check her over again to make sure she didn't undo any of the bandages during this," Ami unrolled the first artifact, sighing in visible relief when it was unharmed. "Mamoru, why don't you look through the rest of these to make sure they're intact while I go check on the girl?"
While Ami went to evaluate the girl, Mamoru took over the task. Ami found the girl sitting with Rei and Alejandro, Rei was holding the girl's hand and trying to get her to eat some bread.
"That's wonderful," she said, after a moment watching them, "She's really warming up to you. If this keeps up we might not have to restrain her tonight." Ami picked up the girl's free hand, rechecking the injuries. "She's making a great recovery too. I think once we get that larger wound in her abdomen closed off by a surgeon, she'll make a full mend." She grabbed a piece of bread for herself from the cooler, and some prepackaged diced mangos.
"Do you think someone did this to her- her eyes I mean?" Rei was trying to tip water into the girl's mouth but the girl kept shifting and it wound up spilling down her front.
"I don't know. It was too late when we returned last night to give her a visual exam, but I suppose now is as good a time as any." Shifting to sit in front of the girl, Ami reached up to hold her face steady while she searched for signs of trauma. She gasped in surprise.
"What, what es et?"
"I-" Ami cut herself off, holding up her finger in front of the girl's eyes. Slowly, she moved her finger from one side to the other, watching as the girl's pupils jerked from one side to the other. "She's not entirely blind! She's only motion blind."
"What does that mean, exactly?" Rei set down her water bottle, having finished her breakfast.
"It means she can see objects, but not movement. She can't see things like my hand moving in front of her, but she can see the rest of me since its stationary."
"Could someone have done that to her?" asked Rei.
"No. But yesterday I could have sworn... I guess I wasn't paying enough attention, since I was more focused on equalizing the pressure in her torso cavity." Ami lowered her head, feeling guilty for not having immediately performed a visual exam.
Ami took a bite of her fruit, washing it down with water as Mamoru wandered over. "Everything is fine, your bubblewrap may have saved us, Ami." Ami gave him a small smile.
The blind girl reached up to take the bottle from Rei, tipping it into her own mouth. She ran her hands up and down along the sides, and dropped the bottle in fright when the plastic bent under the pressure. Rei picked it up off the ground and handed it to her again. This time she held it upside down, mouth open expectantly, flinching away as the bottle crinkled again.
"We still have another two day's walk at least, if we head out now, before we make it back to the city." Rei stood up, stretching out. Instinctively the girl turned towards where Rei had been, rattling off a string of words. "Did you get a chance to look over the things she was saying yesterday, Ami?"
"I did, but I won't be able to translate them without some sort of key to work from. I don't have an alphabet or even a single word from this language to use as a starting point."
"I'm not carrying her again," Mamoru announced, crossing his arms over his chest. "She gave me enough abuse yesterday to last me through the rest of the week, thank you very much."
"You won't have to carry her, now that she has a more secure solution to the injury in her abdomen, she should be able to walk on her own, although she'll need someone to lean on and guide her. If we can keep her sedated-and I think Rei is the one she trusts the most-then we should be able to lead her with us as we walk."
"I'll find her a walking stick," Mamoru turned to scavenge the forest floor, breaking a branch in half and skinning its leaves off. He leaned on it, satisfied when it didn't break. "This should do."
"We can alternate being her guide today," Ami decided. "We'll start with Rei leading her, and switch off with who clears the path and who helps to lead her." Rei huffed but didn't say anything to the contrary.
"Lets get going then, it'll be a long day."
Alejandro and Mamoru packed up the tents while Ami and Rei practiced letting go of, and then picking up the girl's free hand to lead her about the camp area. After Ami was satisfied that she understood she was being guided, they gave her the walking stick and began their trek.
It wasn't five minutes into the journey before the blind girl decided that using the stick as a weapon was far more entertaining than using it as a crutch.
"Ouch!" Mamoru swore under his breath as she hit him in the side for the third time with the stick. The girl let out tiny pants of laughter, babbling a few words at him before whacking him again in the leg. Moving further ahead of her, he glanced over his shoulder to see her swinging the stick wildly in front of her, searching for something to hit. "Rei can you do something about her and that damn stick?"
Reaching out, Rei brought the girl's other hand back down to the ground, and tried to move the girl's shoulders so that the weight of her upper body was resting on the stick. Unfortunately, the girl didn't seem to understand that Rei wished her to lean on the stick, and instead fell forward onto her face.
"This is ridiculous," Rei said, helping the silver-haired girl up. "How are we suppose to guide a blind person through the middle of the jungle? She doesn't even know how to use a walking stick!"
Alejandro was currently at the head of the group, but he slowed down when he heard the conversation between them. Ami had her notepad clipped to her belt in case the girl said any new words, and she seemed overly fascinated by the behavior of the stranger. At least, Mamoru thought she was.
"At least she isn't fighting against us anymore," Ami said.
"Oh I beg to differ," Mamoru rubbed his sore thigh, where he could feel that the stick had left a mark.
"Should we take her walking stick away? She doesn't seem to be using it," Ami suggested.
"Yes, PLEASE," Mamoru snatched the stick, throwing it a few yards away. When he turned back, he could see tears welling up in the periwinkle blue eyes. As she began to cry, Mamoru's brows drew together in confusion. "Weren't her eyes colorless, Ami? When we first found her?"
"I didn't notice," she admitted. "I was preoccupied with the external injuries."
"They were white," Mamoru said, leaning in closer to get a better look, his jaw set. "I'm sure of it."
"Well who cares what color her eyes are if she can't see out of them," Rei said, hands akimbo.
"Like I said earlier, she is only partially blind. She can see shapes, just not movement. So technically she could navigate this place without aid, but she'd be unable to discern whether something was an animal or a tree if she encountered it alone," Ami explained.
"Her eyes were white," Mamoru repeated, only then remembering that she was still crying. Reaching down he grabbed a twig off the dirt, handing it to her. She hiccuped, but seemed to accept the replacement, giving him an experimental smack to the face with it.
"NOT THE FACE!" He cried, quickly backpedaling and reaching a hand up to check for damage. He gave an audible sigh when he found none.
"Such a baby," Rei shook her head, guiding the girl past him.
As they continued walking, Ami took it upon herself to begin attempting to educate the strange girl. She would point to a stationary object like a tree and repeat the word three times, before moving on to a different object. Every now and then, she would point to something and wait for the girl to speak. Much to everyone's surprise, sometimes she said the right word. Other times, she'd say a word nobody recognized, which Ami would immediately jot down.
"Es time to eswitsche," Alejandro said, moving to take the girl's hand. Rei gave a dramatic sigh, but stepped up to take point again.
As they continued onward, Mamoru and Rei joined in on the game of teaching the girl words, showing her flowers and leaves and applauding her when she'd guess the right name. While they continued this, Ami delved deeper into her notebook, attempting to decode the language based on the few words she'd gathered as keys.
"We should stop soon, to eat and rest," Ami put down her notepad, now almost full with words and symbols.
"I could use a break," Rei leaned backwards against a tree, sliding down it till she was sitting in the leaves of a plant.
"I'm famished," Mamoru picked up a piece of fruit of the ground. "This poisonous?"
"No," Rei said as she took the cooler out of her pack.
"The artifacts we found," Ami mentioned, as though it were an afterthought. "They didn't match any of the logosyllabic symbols from the Mayan antiquities in my pre-Colombian linguistics book."
"Then there is a good chance we've found something undiscovered," said Rei, swallowing a bite of another tuna sandwich.
"Lets not draw any conclusions yet. It could be from a local tribe, especially considering our friend here," Ami gave a pointed look to the strange girl, who was currently announcing the names of trees and plants, much to Alejandro's amusement. "I should redress her bandages."
"Why, didn't you do that this morning?"
"We had other things to worry about, like teaching her how to follow one of us. I haven't changed anything from yesterday and with the humidity out here and the fact none of us will have access to a shower until we reach the city, she'll need to have them redressed at least once a day."
"We should teach her how to cuss," Mamoru suggested. When Rei gave him a dirty look he rushed to defend himself, "What! It helps people cope with pain, its scientifically proven!"
"I wonder what her name is," Ami pondered, tapping her chin. "I'll see if I can figure it out while I'm cleaning her up again." Finishing up her own meal, Ami went over towards Alejandro and the girl, taking off her backpack as she did in preparation to find her medical kit.
"Leaf!" the girl exclaimed, pointing to a leaf on the ground.
"Very good," Ami praised with a smile, sitting down beside them. "I know you don't understand all this yet, but I'm going to look at your wounds again." Reaching out she took the girl's hand, holding it steady while she re-examined the wrappings on the girl's arm.
She felt her breath catch as she pulled off the first bandage from the girl's index finger. "What...?"
Beneath the dirty and bloodied bandage, there was only smooth flesh below, where yesterday her fingers had been so badly damaged by the roots of the tree that the muscle was exposed.
"Wout es et?" Alejandro asked, leaning in closer.
"Her hands " Ami caught herself, before she said anything else. The ramifications of what she'd just discovered could be devastating if they were true. "Oh I just, wasn't expecting her to heal so quickly," she bluffed, keeping the bandage close to the girl's had as she reached for sterile gauze.
She continued this tactic until she'd covered all of the superficial wounds from yesterday with clean gauze, even though only a few of the wounds still even existed. This girl's body was healing at at least ten times the normal rate, and Ami was beginning to question just how possible the impossible odds of this were. There was a chance that the location, in the middle of a mostly unexplored jungle, had helped give this girl's immune system an added boost that normal humans didn't have. But even with diet and good health, it still wouldn't allow a human to recover so quickly. This girl either had a genetic factor, or was-no, Ami shook the thought away. There was no way they'd come across an alien. It was absurd, and her logic-oriented mind dismissed the improbability. But was it any more likely than the reality she was facing?
She paused before moving to fix the final airtight bandage.
She hoped Alejandro wouldn't be paying enough attention while she put fresh bandages onto the wound to notice that the girl was no longer gasping for breath when she opened the sealing bandage.
Thinking better of it, Ami pulled back, as though she'd only been leaning in to inspect the hygiene. "That's it, she's all set." She announced, rolling up the used gauze and sealing it in a plastic bag. Alejandro gave her curious look, but didn't say anything.
This was a bigger finding than the pottery with its mysterious symbols. Everything was beginning to click into place, but Ami still felt like she was missing several pieces of the puzzle. Her mind raced with questions, but as she looked back at the blind girl, she realized she wouldn't be getting any answers anytime soon. At least, not until the language barrier was crossed.
Her mind set, Ami pulled her notebook free from its binding. She would finish unraveling the secrets of the language while they walked, using the game from earlier to try and glean words from the girl.
In her haste, she forgot to attempt to learn the girl's name.
AN: Chapter 4 and 5 will be up soon. Thanks for all the reviews, I've had a truly terrible day, and they made it a little bit better. Thank you to Mgray for beta-reading as well.