Hey, Sonny, darling. Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you… I opened my eyes and saw her bending over me, worried but beautiful beyond belief. With her eyes open she kissed me fully on the mouth and it tasted like heaven. Her hair touched my cheek and I felt I was sinking into a nest of feathers. She leaned closer and I caught her scent; she smelled of flowers and sunshine, like a fresh summer’s day. I love you, I said and she smiled.

‘You okay?’ Carl shook me awake. He was hovering over me looking concerned so I muttered something about a bad dream and he didn’t delve into it; said he couldn’t move without aggravating the wound and wanted me to check it, which I did. It looked bad, infected and kind of putrid but I didn’t want to frighten him so I said it looked okay. I also told him I thought he’d be good to travel tomorrow. I didn’t know if he believed me but he did look relieved when I said the wound would heal in its own good time. For now Carl was still in pain and would have no doubt found it very difficult to walk any distance, so we decided to stay put, right here, for the time being. We only moved a few meters back under the very bush the hog came from. The bush had a good leaf cover, which we hoped might come in handy for later, when it rained. The sky, overcast with plenty of clouds near us, was definitely looking hopeful for rain so we moved under the bush to make sure we didn’t get soaked and freeze at night.

We waited a few hours, watching the sky and not saying much. There was no point in talking, in wasting what little energy we had left. Carl slept some and I worried; about his wound, about tomorrow, about another wild pig attack. It was unpleasant staying awake but I couldn’t go back to sleep as exhausted as I was. I kept looking at the pig. It lay there looking pitiful, kind of deflated but I remembered how ferocious it had been when alive so I didn’t waste my time feeling sorry for it. I did notice that it was a sow, which was lucky for Carl ‘cause he only got bit; had this been a boar Carl would have been in a much worse shape ‘cause boars are meaner and have big tusks. Still, the sow was a hideous creature, ugly and not at all cute like that little piglet we caught which, it now occurred to me, might have been somehow responsible for the sow’s attack. It might even have been its mummy that tracked us down, in which case there might be a litter of orphaned piggies somewhere close by with maybe another sow in charge. The thought of this made me even more worried as I didn’t fancy having to deal with another grown pig out for revenge.

When Carl woke up I told him my theory, about the piglet and the sow and the possibility of another one coming by. He said not to worry; he’d take care of it if and when… I got the feeling that Carl had other things on his mind right now and I wasn’t helping.

It didn’t rain until much later in the afternoon. By that time we’d drunk some of the pig’s blood and ate some of its meat from its neck where the chain had cut the skin and where I was able to tear off a few strips of meat. Hungry as we were it wasn’t easy going down. Carl could hardly eat at all; he wasn’t feeling well and truth be told, neither was I. I felt light-headed and queasy in my gut and Carl looked like he was getting a fever. He was complaining of thirst even though we’d drunk plenty of blood. Then all of a sudden he vomited and passed out, and I knew we were in deep trouble; I knew it was only a matter of time until we both died.