Chapter Two - Guardian

“C’mon, stay alive, stay with me…” The young girl said, trudging through the wet, rough ground of the island forest. She was trying desperately to find the cave her and Kira found for refuge earlier, but it had seemed she was walking in circles, through endless clumps of trees and brush. The whole struggle was making her frustrated, especially carrying the boy in her arms, head drooping helplessly over her arms. She glanced down at his slightly mangled body ever once in a while, to make sure he was still as he was, barely clinging to life.

The wind had gentled, but just slightly and was still gusting around the two, pushing against her exhausted body in all directions, tormenting her. She wished so badly she would reach the cave already, set down the poor boy and care for him as she rested as well. But she was still stuck in the hard part, carrying the helpless body back to safe refuge.

Overhead the only sound was the harsh wind gusting around, and the only sight was the immense darkness of the clouds as they passed by quickly. There were no animals around her as far as she could tell, and she was grateful she wasn’t running into those island wolves again. She truly was, being her body wasn’t up to another dominance struggle, as well as she having something to protect…no matter what the cost.

“Ugh…K-Kira! Kira! Can you hear me!?” Lily yelled as loud as her tired voice could manage, but the wind and rain only drowned it out, and she heard no response. She silently cursed to herself and trudged on, trying to follow familiar looking vegetation, but she was still almost completely lost. The only thing she relied on was moving inland, away from the open, harsh beaches. She continued to glance down at the boy in her arms. He was still limp in her, head dangling which scared her. Any sudden force and his neck could snap. She didn’t want anything else to happen to him, no matter what. Plus, this was a horrible place to die, and she wasn’t going to allow his soul to be swept away from this world any time soon. Or hers for that matter.

She could feel it. Feel it in her joints, limbs, her entire body. She was losing a lot of energy by the minute, and her legs started to shake under the weight, as well as the pure exhaustion. What she put herself through earlier to drive that pack of wolves away took a lot out of her, and she wished now that she didn’t so she would have had more strength now. But then again, she barely managed to get those wolves turning tail away from the boy. If she wasn’t enraged like that, she couldn’t imagine what would have happened to the boy, including herself. The world is cruel like that. It’s a hard world, and when caught in the worst of the worst, you have to give it your all, and even more to survive, and to save others.

Finally, as she started to pant from the heavy lifting, she widened her eyes lightly at the site of the rock formation in the hill. It was the cave, and it was familiar to her to the pebble, save for a small flame burning near the entrance. Lily sighed with relief as she quickly yet carefully made her way through the bush and trees to the mouth of the cave. Her heart was racing, and she wanted desperately to get to safety, which was within her grasp. As soon as she was within feet of the mouth, she opened her mouth and yelled with the rest of the voice she had and called out to her companion.

“Kira! K-Kira, help me!” This time she heard, and the young girl crouching by the fire turned her head to find her friend holding something in her arms, her herself seemingly drooping in her tired stance.

Kira shot up immediately and rushed to the mouth of the cave, while Lily slowly walked inside toward the welcoming fire, beckoning her to come. Kira ran to her side before skidding to a halt and staring at the mass in her arms. Her eyes were wide with shock as well as caution before quickly helping Lily over to the fire, as well as the torn up boy.

As Lily got close to the fire, she crouched on her knees and as gently as she could, laid the boy down onto the rock floor, warmed by the open flame. Kira kept a good foot away from the boy, staring down at him, his torn up body. Lily barely noticed Kira’s presence and leaned over the boy, putting a finger or two on his neck, feeling for a pulse again. There still was, just barely, and she sighed again in relief from the reassurance.

“This boy has a strong will to live…oh god, I’m glad I got to him in time.” Lily said softly, yet aloud enough for Kira to hear. Kira crouched gently near Lily and stared at the boy even more, not touching him.

“Who is he? Where did he come from Lily?” She asked the girl. Lily shook her head and kept close to the boy below her, running a hand across his wet cheek, a trickle of blood running down it from his head wound. She knew she should take a closer look at his head, but she didn’t know what to do at the moment. She couldn’t even see it through all his blonde hair, slightly stained with his own blood.

“I don’t know, I heard snarls and, there were wolves around him…h-he was laying on the beach, helpless, and the wolves were…” Her voice trailed off as the thoughts came back to her, those gory thoughts of carnage and a torn up body, or what would have been left by the wolves. “A-all I know, is that he needed help…and I saved him.” Lily said after a few seconds of clearing her mind. Kira stared at him before getting on her knees and putting a finger on his neck, checking his pulse like Lily did. She nodded and stared at him through a slight frown.

“He’s alive, and he’ll make it, but it’s going to be iffy. We need to keep him warm, keep him out of this storm. And we need to clean him up to, or he’ll bleed to death.” Kira said, taking charge. Lily glanced up at her taken aback from her taking initiative, but quickly nodded in understanding and moved away a little for her to take over things. Kira got closer to the boy and looked him over. As far as she could tell, the boy had a flesh wound to the head which was still bleeding out, scratches on his legs arms and torso, as well as a slight gash on his right arm, which was also bleeding out. She needed to work fast in order to save him from bleeding out, and immediately worked on finding the wound on his head. She ran her fingers through his hair on his scalp till she felt the wetness and applied pressure to the spot, hoping to stop the bleeding. She motioned for Lily to run outside quickly and get a couple of the biggest leaves she could find on the trees and come back. And so she did, in a minute she returned with her hands clutching dozens of leaves. Kira thanked her and placed the leaf on the boys head like a bandage.

After taking care of his head, she moved her attention to the gash on his arm. It wasn’t deep, so she didn’t have difficulty cleaning that up either. She tied the giant tropic leaf around his arm over the gash, thinking the leaf was clean enough to not cause any infection.

After the major wounds were cleaned up and on their way to a slow healing, Kira sighed and looked him over once again, inspecting her handiwork. Besides the numerous small scratches over his body, he was cleaned and bandaged up. He was going to be alright, and Lily was already smiling. She was so happy that the boy was saved, she was almost crying, but her eyes would not let her. Her body was exhausted from the perilous night, and she was more then happy to collapse next to the boy and pass out. But she wanted to stay awake. There was still a deep desire to protect this boy, and those island wolves never left her thoughts.

“He’s going to be alright, but me and you need to have a talk Lily.” Kira said, almost angered but sincere in her voice. Lily nodded a little hesitantly and followed her away from the boy to the mouth of the cave. Kira glanced back to the boy, sound asleep on the rock floor before looking back into Lily’s eyes. “I want you to keep a close eye on that boy.” She said finally, turning Lily’s fearful thoughts into clouds of confusion.

“W-what? Why?” Lily questioned, wanting answers that Kira knew. Kira sighed and put a hand on her hip, motioning her other hand to the boy.

“I don’t know about that boy, the moment I laid eyes on him I had this gut feeling. We don’t even know who he is, we can’t trust him, not yet.” She said, seriousness in her tone. Lily could hardly believe what she was telling her. She, herself put both her hands on her hips and glared at Kira.

“What are you talking about? Can’t you see this boy is torn up and completely helpless? Why would you believe he would be a threat when his own life is in danger?” Lily protested. Her tone growing slightly angered by the minute. Kira sighed and dropped her hands to her sides before crossing them.

“I still have a gut feeling about him…I don’t know what, but I just don’t want to put my trust in him. We should stay with him till morning, then we need to get on our way, whether he is still a sleep or not.” At this, Lily gaped and she threw her hands to her sides.

“You’re saying we should leave him here? Abandon, him? We can’t just do that, something could happen! What if he doesn’t wake up long after we’re gone? What if those wolves happen to come back and find him helpless again without me there to protect him? What then!?” Lily yelled, almost growled. Her protective side was kicking in again, and she could feel herself becoming angered at Kira, which Kira had noticed and sighed softly again.

“Alright…alright, alright, we wont leave him here.” She finally said, which immediately calmed Lily down. Kira glanced at the rock floor, and then at the sleeping boy before glancing back up at Lily again. “We’ll stay with him till he wakes up, introduce ourselves, help him out as best we can, then we’re out of here, got it?” Lily was happy with her terms, and knew that was as happy as she was gonna get from her so she quickly nodded, her tail wagging softly behind her.

Lily gave Kira a thankful look before turning and walking back over to the boy, gently kneeling by his side and gazing at him curiously, running a hand over his cheek. She wanted to know so much about him. What his name was, where he came from, how he ended up here of all places. She was very interested in his appearance however. She kept on gazing at his furry ears, noticing the shape, color and floppiness. She giggled happily when she realized what kind of a hybrid he was. A Golden Retriever. Of course, there were regular Golden Retrievers as well as other, numerous animal species. But the Humans living on the planet were hybrids, mostly having all Human body features save for their ears and tails.

Lily couldn’t help it any longer. She moved a hand up the boys cheek till it came in contact with his floppy ear. She played with it gently, giggling from the texture and its movement. It made her smile wide until Kira walked up behind her, causing Lily to immediately remove her hand from the boy. She blushed, slightly embarrassed and kept to herself till Kira walked around her to the other side of the fire, sitting down and leaning against the wall of the cave. Lily looked at her get comfortable before catching on. She gazed down at the boy once more before slowly moving onto her side and leaning her body onto the floor next to him. She kept close, but didn’t touch him, in fear of what Kira would say, or how the boy would react to a stranger girl clinging to him in a cave.

Lily smiled gently as she gazed upon the boy sleeping soundly next to her. She could tell from his deep breaths and calm eye movement. He was dreaming, and from the look it was pretty happy. Before long, Lily glanced upon his leaf bandages, already turning red from the wounds on his body and her heart sank slightly. She gazed at his bandages before speaking up to Kira.

“Are you sure he’ll be alright Kira?” Lily spoke quietly, as to now accidentally awake the sleeping teen next to her. Kira nodded and kept still, but turned her glance to the boy next to her friend and stared at him wary like.

“He’ll be alright… I saved your butt from that piranha bite, didn’t I? I know how to save people.” Kira said, making a slight attempt at humor. Lily didn’t laugh though, she just cringed at the memories coming back to her and moved her hand down to her left leg, rubbing the scar where the fish took a little chunk off her. The accident happened a few months ago while she was swimming in a river on an island they had stopped at to rest. She didn’t know the river was filled with man-eating fish, or else she would have taken her chances in the ocean.

“Ouch…yeah, I don’t doubt your skills. Thanks for helping him Kira.” Lily said sincerely with a small smile. Kira just nodded and slouched in her position but kept on staring at the boy, thinking he’ll jump up and attack or try to take advantage of them. That was one of the last things any of them would think a guy, especially a boy his age would do to a couple of girls, but, the girls learned to expect anything in this world, and if the boy got up and tried to take advantage of her or Lily, he was going to get another gash in his head that matched the first.

But as the night went on, Kira become extremely tired of constantly watching the boy and found herself dozing off, until she ultimately passed out after closing her eyes for a second or two. Lily noticed this and didn’t care. Kira deserved rest, just as much as Lily did, but Lily was determined to stay up with the boy till sunrise. She wasn’t going to let a single thing in this world hurt him until he was back up on his own feet. For the rest of the night, Lily stayed close to the boy, like the mother protecting her cub, she never ventured away. She never lost sight of something that she felt so attached to and determined to protect and keep safe.

A/N: Stay tuned!

This chapter was written by Mikey - www . Learn2bend . deviantart . com

-Kya and Mikey