“Nayla!”

Everything trembled around her as someone said her name.

“Nayla!”

Two arms carried her. The girl was hugging someone's neck. The voice sounded familiar to her, but she did not recognize it. She did not remember who it was. She did not open her eyes; she was tired and everything hurt. She settled on that person's chest and let herself be carried away.

In that state of semi-consciousness, she sat isolated words from what the young man carrying her in his arms was saying.

“… out of self. There was no… You were part of it, but… the men paid us a lot of money for... for us… Sister, really… an idiot for having… You are special… I heard how they said… They came from far away… Some project transfer thing …”. Suddenly, there was an urgency in his voice. “High fever! … hurry… a bit…”

Nayla did not understand anything. The information was too scattered and made no sense. She did not have the strength to work on it either. That person kept saying something else, but she could not hear him anymore. She coughed. She was getting worse and worse. After an indefinite time, she noticed that they were leaving her on the ground, very carefully, and covering her with something. She settled down as best she could in that land full of roots and let herself be taken care of.

She had a restless sleep, unable to sleep for many minutes in a row. In one of those moments of insomnia, she could see the boy, shirtless, stacking firewood near where they were. She closed her eyes again with the feeling that she should know that boy. Later, the crackling of a small bonfire woke her. It was getting dark and everything seemed very strange to her. Her head was spinning. She coughed and the boy, realizing that she was awake, approached her.

“Are you already awake?”, he asked, crouching close to her, very kindly. “How are you?”

She did not answer. She tried to get up, but another coughing attack stopped her.

"You better not get up," he told her as he helped her stretch again. Then he showed her a handful of small, red fruits. “Look, I found some edible fruit. I also found water in a stream nearby, so when you finish eating, I will bring it to you so you can have a drink.”

The boy cared for her for two days, until the girl recovered almost completely. During that time, she noticed that she was in a clearing that was familiar to her, with a large dead tree on the ground.

On the morning of the second day, when Nayla was already feeling better, she woke up earlier than the boy. He had a restless sleep, on the other side of the embers of what had been the fire that had kept them warm during the night. She approached him and heard him mumble something in dreams.

"Nayla.. I am sorry… I did not want to… But our parents… Dead…"

The girl did not know why he knew her name, or who it was that had died, but she covered him with her T-shirt as he had been doing with it, sat down near his head and stroked his hair. She did not know why, but she did not like the way the boy was suffering, and she thought he might be reassured. After a few minutes, he went back to sleep.

Twenty minutes later, he woke up. He stretched his muscles and sat up, still half asleep.

"Oh, Nayla, you are awake!", he noticed the T-shirt and smiled at the girl. “Are you feeling better already?”, he touched her hair with his hand. “You made me suffer a lot. I am sorry… I am so sorry I left you alone the other day”, he confessed, after a short pause, visibly sorry. “I do not know what I was thinking about, everything happened so fast and…” He hugged her, taking Nayla by surprise. “I am sorry, I am so sorry!”, he moaned.

The girl, a little undecided, returned the hug. After the boy calmed down, she went to get some more food.

The day passed calmly, without shocks. When they were getting ready to go to sleep, the boy told her that now that a few days had passed since the assault, it must have been safe to return to the village, so they would go there the next day to see if they could find some food or some survivor who could help them get home. Shortly afterwards, Nayla fell asleep in a restless dream full of faces she did not recognize.