It became commonplace to see Cassy with Cliff after that. Often talking with each other, playing with each other long after others left. She even started joining him on his expeditions into the forest to hunt. She learnt hunting from Sara so that she could go with him when he started to go in alone. She learnt all that Sara taught Cliff so she could join him. Cliff began seeking her company for almost everything. Even when in town they would talk for long.

They would progressively hunt stronger animals in the forest and succeeded up until now with little to no effort often by him alone (he fought the stronger ones and she took those a little weaker). He got more and more confident and as he rounded his 12th birthday, he declared he would enter deeper than ever before in the forest. Cassy protested to this but her concerns were set aside by him. He confidently strode in the forest leaving Cassy behind who hurried to catch up to him.

As they went deeper in the forest, things got quiet. Too quiet. Cassy was spooked and tried to alert him but he brushed her off and strode on confident. Too confident even.

He came face to face with a huge tiger feasting on a similarly huge boar. He walked until he was just straight in front of the tiger and said, "I'm going to kill you." Challenging the nearly 7 times their size tiger which seems to have gotten his attention who up until now was ignoring the 2 puny humans in front of him.

Upon hearing the challenge, he looked up at the human in front of him for merely a second before scoffing (or making a sound akin to scoffing) and returning to his meal.

Seeing his challenge ignored and him being looked down upon enraged Cliff something fierce and he ran up to the tiger aiming a punch at its head. The tiger hearing his footfalls looked up and seeing the human running at himself, he jumped back neatly dodging the tiny fist aimed at him.

Seeing as the weakling had started a fight, the mighty beast moved fast enough to completely vanish from the eyes of his opponent and appeared behind Cliff.

Cliff seeing the tiger vanish widens his eyes and feeling danger moved to his right. He looked behind himself to see the tiger sitting back at his meal ignoring them. He suddenly felt something from his left side. He looked down but couldn't see anything wrong with himself until he saw the left side of chest.

His shirt was cleanly cut in the shape of a claw with 4 fingers. The 4 cuts bled profusely painting his white shirt crimson red as blood dripped down his shirt and left hand. he didn't register the blood and the pain flowing from his wound for he was in shock. He lifted his left hand to his shirt and some blood got on his hand. Feeling his hand was wet he brought it up to his face,

'Is that blood? I'm bleeding?'

He suddenly lost feeling in his hand and it fell to his side as a burning sensation made it through his shock. That burning soon turned to pain.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

All the pain that he was unconsciously ignoring came back like a tsunami and crashed into him eliciting a scream so loud that even the animals far-away stopped and looked towards its origins for a moment. Cliff slowly fell on his back bleeding profusely. He looked to the sky with blurry eyes as the loss of blood took its toll on his body.

'Ju-just one hit? That's all i-it took for me to lose? Am I really that weak?'

That last question was bouncing in his head as he fell unconscious unable to hear the screams of his companion.

POV CHANGE~ 15 MINUTES AGO

Cassy was worried. Cliff had been getting confident with every successful hunt and maybe he was getting too confident. She had tried to ignore the hurt she felt when her concerns and worries for him were just brushed off by him but it still hurt. It hurt her again when she tried to warn Cliff that the forest was too quiet and was brushed off again.

She froze when they came up to the tiger. She was scared. The tiger was several times their size and must be strong too.

"I'm going to kill you."

Hearing Cliff challenge the majestic beast, she froze once again. She was frozen as his attempted punch was dodged and a retaliatory swipe of the claws by the tiger was performed at speeds she couldn't see or react to at all.

She was frozen as the tiger looked at her for a moment then looked away seemingly deeming her a non-threat. She could barely muster enough courage to look back at Cliff and moved her gaze over from the tiger who had returned to enjoying his meal. She saw Cliff standing there seemingly in a daze looking at his hand.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Her head unfroze with his scream being able to process information again.

It was when he fell, that she saw his torso covered in blood. The blood had started pooling around his body by the time feeling returned to her legs. Now acutely aware of their trembling, her try at taking a step resulted in her nearly falling. She tried her best to walk and then run to Cliff as fast as she could.

It was only when she saw his wound did she scream his name.

"CLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!"

POV CHANGE~ PRESENT

Hearing 2 screams in such a short time, Sara, who was hunting at the time hurried off towards the origin hoping beyond hope it wasn't who she thought it was.

When she neared, she saw a huge boar carcass with tiger prints nearby. Going around the carcass she saw Cassy hunched over Cliff crying as a river of blood made its way out of cliff pooling like a lake near him.

'No-no nonononononononono… what did you do?'

She ran forward pushed Cassy off and took a look at Cliff. She saw a nearly completely red shirt with four clean cuts starting from the middle of his left pec (though it isn't developed much yet. Just needed a word to describe it.) going up to and just a little past the bone that connected his neck and shoulder. The deep cuts were oozing blood and fast. She needed to get him to medical attention 5 minutes ago.

Sara quickly yet gently picked him up, told Cassy to follow and moved towards the village as fast as she could go without having to leave Cassy behind. She ignored the crying girl doing her best to keep up with her as she tried her best to stop the blood flowing out with one arm.

Upon seeing Sara carrying a bloody boy and a crying Cassy following her a lot of the villagers looked at them curious as to what happened. The village doctor seeing the scene quickly ushered them to his clinic and got to work on Cliff's shoulder. He had to clean the wounds, stitch them up, use gauze and bandage it all up.

It took nearly an hour to do all this and stabilize Cliff's condition.

"He won't be waking up anytime soon. The amount of blood he's lost was too much. He'll wake up in 2 weeks max. The wounds though, they will scar." Saying this the doctor left Sara and Cassy alone in the room with the unconscious Cliff.

"What the hell were you thinking?! Why did you two go that deep in the forest?!" Sara roared rounding on Cassy.

Cassy explained in between sobs of what happened and how Cliff brushed her worries and concerns off. It took her half an hour to get through her tale given she was crying while telling.

'He was overconfident, dammit!' Sara realized. 'His head's flying in the clouds based on just hunting some of the beasts on this island. Does he not listen to his grandfather's stories or ignore them?! Doesn't matter! I'm going to teach him a lesson when he wakes up. I'll put him through hell!'