(Warning: Cringey Content, Trauma, Dark Thoughts, Mentioning of Wounds caused by fall)
(Previously: I cough up a mouthful of blood only remembering the warmth of a dream but not exactly what it was about, I feel better though. That is, my heart does, but my body feels very, very broken.
“See, it's alive. I told you. Let's go.” A very heavily accented and somewhat gravely voice says near me.
Right above me a new softer voice asks, “Are you alive?” I look straight up and feel a smile twitch in the corner of my mouth before passing out.)
You know when you wake up slowly and peacefully and you’re able to feel and hear things before you’re fully awake, well I feel myself being lowered into a body of water. The arms underneath me keep me just above the surface and I start to feel a warmth building in my shattered bones. My spine straightens and the fatal damage fixes itself impossibly fast and painlessly like it was nothing. I’m so tired. I also feel thirsty and opening my mouth to take a deep breath I try to swallow a little water right afterwards. “Woah there, try not to drown.” The soft accented voice chuckles, lifting me higher.
“Sanftesherz…I can’t believe you’re touching it.” The other harsh voiced stranger worries.
“Kalkstein.” The sweeter voiced one says harshly. “I have already broken the rules, I’m not going to listen to anything other than how I can help the Fremder.”
The one name Kal-something worries, angrily grumbling under his breath, “You should probably feed it.” He says finally.
“Him, and what? I don’t know if he can digest the same things as us. What if I accidentally poison him?”
“Well you should have thought about that before bringing a human here!” There’s a moment of silence.
Then San sighs and whispers, “Kal you’re my best friend, you’re the only one I can trust and you should know I couldn’t leave anything broken and dying like that.”
Kal comes closer looking down at me I’m assuming because of the following comment. “At least it’s face looks better now.”
“His!” San corrects again and then whispers, “Is it kind of creepy how similar he looks to us?” I’m fully awake now if you don’t count the hunger and exhaustion distracting me. From the way they’re talking I wonder if these boys have been isolated from other human beings, and rules? They’re not allowed to be around strangers?’ I groan and try to sit up. The boy holding me moves quickly, almost dropping me in the water with how fast he sat me down and jumped back. I’m startled by the sudden movement and silence and a strange tingle of danger tickles the back of my neck as I sit limply in the shallow pool, mostly because I don’t even have the strength to lift my head. Water laps against my chest. In the silence I can hear their panicked breathing. I stay limp, regulating my breathing, listening. Finally one of them whispers, “Did we overreact to him stirring?”
Kal’s obvious voice laughs, “I thought you weren’t scared of him? You dropped him like he bit you.”
“I was worried he might.” San defends, “he might think I was the one that hurt him and react violently.” They watch me quietly for a little while longer.
“What do you mean he looks kind of like us,” Kal finally breaks the silence since it was bothering him. “He looks nothing like us, his skin is all wrong and he doesn’t even have horns.” I stiffen.
“Shh, I think he’s waking up.” San whispers. I can’t decide whether to keep faking it or try to at least figure out what they were talking about. I groan again as thinking makes my head start throbbing. I try to lift my arm but it doesn’t really respond. I try to move my other and when it doesn’t respond either I start thinking the worst. I gasp, panicking and try to bend my knees or wiggle my toes, ‘No, no, no!’
“Ca, calm down you’re going to need a while longer in the water before you’re as good as new.” Sanftes says from far away.
“A, am I paraylized?” I tremble.
“No.” San says firmly, “unless you were before the fall, were you?”
“N, no.” I say carefully. “Wh, who are you? How is the water helping me? I should be dead. Oh my god, I was almost murdered. My step-mother just tried to murder me.” I say everything as my mind processes it and choke a little at the end, stopping myself before I start crying. Mostly because I was starting to feel pain with each breath. I strain to lift my arm then when it hurts let it go limp again and just tremble, then the tremors of fear become that of rage. ‘How dare she? What was her reasoning again? Because I got all my father’s love and attention? What a psychopath!’
I can tell I’m being watched and struggle to control my heavy breathing but between the pain, fear, and anger I give up. Letting out a little growl, I grit my teeth and try to force my head up, it works.
The boys communicate silently, “You were…made to fall on purpose?” San asks me to clarify.
I shiver in pain, it’s bearable but just barely, “Yeah. Will you tell me what state you found me in?” I manage to arch my back before going completely limp again, the pain fades. I note, “This should be impossible.”
“I think you will have to believe in a lot of new things soon,” San chuckles nervously. “You may not want to know what you looked like when I found you, but you were really lucky.”
“Yeah if you count all that destruction he caused as luck.”
“Shh.” San hisses. I feel a prickle again at the noise. “You fell for a long time, and when the sheer drop started turning into a slope you were struck against moss growing on the side of it, then you tumbled and rolled down, hitting all the ledges and making a lot of crunching noises,” his voice reflects his wince, “B, but luckily that meant you were practically covered in moss and it kept you alive long enough to fall straight into a patch of it, you would have died if you landed even a foot to the left. But the moss saved you."
I flinch as a flash of memory comes back to me, the initial strike of my shoulder and side against stone, yeah the cliff very gradually became a slope but the downward motion was still brought to an abrupt stop before gravity had me start rolling. I struck my head, I remember, ironically the smell of moss and stone.
“The…moss really heals that fast?” I ask. ‘I don’t know if I was ready to accept healing moss yet, like why wouldn’t we have started farming it or something?’
“The moss works fastest when put in open wounds, yes.” The sweeter sounding one says from behind me, having circled around slowly while talking.
“And you were split open all over the place.” Kal gags unhelpfully. I wince.
“Kal don’t be a Kopf blockieren!” San exclaims irritated.
“That’s…German.” I say finally recognizing it.
“Oh?” San and Kal speak simultaneously. “Do you understand what we’re saying?”
“No,” I reply honestly, “I just finally recognized your accents.”
I listen as they whisper frantically again, something is off about their accents. It's like how a specific area, when isolated from the rest, has its own personalized version of the same language. “Do you…live in this cave?” I ask.
They shut up, looking at me, the directions of their voices change, “We don’t have to tell you anything.” Kal says.
“Yes,” San says over him. “Not just us-”
Kal must have covered San’s mouth because there’s a muffled protest, “San! You saved his life, let’s leave him at the closest entrance and pretend this never happened. He can’t know about us, please let me protect you San,” Kal’s voice breaks a little. “I don’t want to see you banished.”
“I can promise you I won’t say anything if that makes you feel better, no one will believe me anyway.” I say.
“That’s what the last one said,” Kal growls.
I sigh, going limp, “Or I could stay here forever with you and you’d never have to worry about the secret getting out.”
“Would you really do that?!” San manages to get out excitedly before he’s muffled again.
“That’s…not a bad idea actually,” Kal thinks out loud, “but it’s still not possible. No Menschen allowed. We aren’t even supposed to be talking to you, if we’re seen-” He whines to San.
“Fine.” San gasps getting away from Kal, “You win, we’ll return him to his kind. And no one ever has to know.” Kal relaxes so much I actually hear it. “But he can’t even move on his own yet, so we’re going to need to hide him somewhere where he can heal.” San finishes quietly yet firmly.
Kal silently agrees I guess because the next thing I know I’m being lifted. The second I leave the body of water the pain returns more than I can bear silently, “Crap, put him back down!” Kal orders over my screams and the next thing I know I’m underwater. I gasp as San pulls my head back above water.
“I’m sorry,” he sounds shaken. I can’t respond, I’m just glad he’s holding my head up since I don’t have the strength to.
“Do you think anyone heard that?” Kal worries quietly.
“I think we should hurry, but within the water.” San says, sounding like he was looking around. They pull me silently between them, keeping my head high above the water and resting against San’s shoulder. At one point I can feel them free swimming. If I wasn’t worried about them dumping me and letting me drown, I’d actually find this nice. “This way,” San whispers, “I see a cave up ahead. After a long minute I feel my limp feet scrape against stone again. I breathe out a little in relief. My face is lifted from San’s shoulder and I’m laid almost completely flat on my side while they whisper their plans out loud. “We can make a little pool if we can find a dip.” San starts.
“I’ll bring as much moss as I can to build a nest so that way he doesn't have to be wet, he might get cold.”
“Aw you care.” San teases.
“Only because you do,” Kal grumbles. But he almost immediately proves himself wrong by moving the sopping wet hair out of my face. “Can you see?” He asks warily. ‘Like it was a loaded question.’
“I think it's too dim right here to see anything.” San answers, “You don’t have to worry about him seeing us.” Kal relaxes.
“Hey…mensch.” He says to me I’m assuming. “What’s your name?” I honestly laugh. ‘It’s so weird how all of this seems like a crazy dream but being asked my name… made it real.’
“Ray.” I croak remembering all of today if it was still today, maybe it was yesterday but I had just freaking found hope, and possible a boyfriend and themfriend? That sounded funny, if I made it out of here I’d ask Sarah if they’d be called that.
“That was a lot of emotions.” San says. “You laughed and now you look like you’re going to cry.”
“I’ve already cried enough for today.” I croak.
“Do you have limits? I always cry when I feel it, it’s normal.” San says.
“Well it’s normal but maybe not as much as you do it, you teared up over some especially pretty moss earlier,” Kal teases and they have a brief scuffle where San pounces over my head onto him. They’re giggling softly so I can tell it’s light hearted.
“Ha!” San exclaims, triumphing over his best friend I guess, who’s breathing heavily but still laughing a little. “Anyway,” San says, “You’ve gone through a lot, if you don’t want to talk about it now that’s fine, but you’ll need to deal with the trauma eventually. And Kal and I are the best for that.”
“You guys sound…very mature.” I ask tentatively.
They miss the implied question and San answers, “Thank you, you seem mature too.” I just smile softly and let it go. ‘I hope I don’t get them in trouble though, they seem to honestly be good at heart.
“What did you mean by 'you could be banished?” I ask, accidentally killing the mood.
“Not here,” Kal whispers. “Wait till we have you hidden.” They get back to work quickly and silently. ‘I didn’t mean to make it awkward, even worse I think I made them scared.’ At one point they’re both gone at the same time, one inside the cave making a “nest” and the other scavenging food I may or may not be able to eat. I feel the air and listen to the cave, it sounds different from when I was getting the tour through the dark zone. There’s lots of life. It smells different too, less heavy in a way. Which was weird since I kind of expected it to be heavier down here, I did fall a long way.
I shake my head to not relive the trauma and try to think about something else. I just have flashes of “today”, I find myself really wanting to be squished between Sarah and Kris again. ‘What if by the time I get back up there, they’re not interested in me anymore? What would I do? No way I’d move back in with that monster. I wish I could warn my dad but considering that love is blind, oh the irony, there’s no way I could convince him.’ I let out a shuddering breath, ‘And I’m not allowed to stay down here either.’ Dark thoughts start swirling and I find myself once again regretting surviving the car accident, there’s no place for me here, I don’t belong here.’
“You smell really bad.” Kal says suddenly, making me jump.
“S, sorry? It’s not like I have access to my deodorant right now.”
“No I mean your…” he seems to catch himself. “You have a really bad aura about you right now, you were thinking bad things, right?” I don’t deny it and tentatively trying to lift my shoulders realize I can move a little albeit super shakily. “I know because sometimes I feel the same way and think dark thoughts too. I try to keep them to myself and hidden but it makes things worse,” he taps his chest it sounds like, “inside, but San can tell, I can’t hide it from him, sometimes we talk and sometimes we just sit silently and he’s just there but it’s the knowing that helps, and” He stops struggling to put it in words, “I want you to know you’re not alone. We’re here until we return you home, to listen or just sit silently.”
“I thought you didn’t like me.” I say softly.
“I don’t like San being in danger. You are not dangerous on purpose, I understand this now. I will not let San be hurt, understand?”
I’m quiet for a second, “Yeah.”
He makes a content noise and then says, even softer, “If you earn it I won’t let you get hurt either.” Then embarrassed he says something gruffly in a different language and walks away. I try to make sense of it but it just seems like, once again, them being nice because they care.
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