~~~Superstes~~~UNDERGOING MAJOR EDITING

The road to recovery

As a small child, Neteyam used to wonder what if felt like to be shot. He would watch his father use his rifle, and he would hear the sound of the bullets ricocheting off the trees. After a while, Neteyam realized those bullets were capable of hitting people. 

Maybe even Neteyam himself. 

Years later, he experienced the flashing, burning pain of metal shooting through his chest, and he felt the oxygen escaping his body as the bullet exited his back. 

Getting shot felt like what Neteyam assumed it felt like, only worse. 

Every morning, he would wake up and be pushed to the floor again by Norm or his father, forced into going to sleep. They were the most boring days Neteyam had ever gone through. He couldn't even get any sleep, because Norm would wake him up hourly to take medicine and 'rate his pain' on a scale of one to ten. 

Neteyam was constantly in pain. His back ached like crazy, and when he breathed, his lungs acted like a broken machine, scraping across his sternum and causing him to wheeze violently each time he laughed or coughed. He was just sickly overall. There was an unwavering fever inside him since he woke up, and he was always choking on the substance in his chest. His body radiated heat, despite shivering frequently from the cold. 

Neytiri crouched before Neteyam as if she were in a hunting position. She casted him the stink-eye every few seconds as she stirred a cooking pot, before finally speaking. "Your eyes are so dull." She noted, "Please try and be happy, Neteyam." 

Neteyam glanced up after chopping the vegetables and throwing them into the steaming concoction of food. "I do not like being useless." He grumbled, taking the second batch of fruit and slicing it into cubes. 

Neytiri's expression softened, and her tail flicked. "You are helping me right now, and that is not useless. Being helpful does not always involve fighting and hunting." 

She was right. However, sitting inside the mauri and cooking wasn't his ideal day. Maybe that made him selfish, but he just wasn't used to it, and he longed to be outside with his siblings. Part of him felt missing when he didn't watch over Lo'ak or Tuk--it didn't feel normal. 

Neteyam kept quiet and kept his head down. At this point, he wanted to reveal some level of stubbornness to his parents, but they'd already been through so much and Neteyam didn't wish to put them under more stress. 

                                                                                              ~~~   

That night, Neteyam struggled for hours trying not to wake his family by coughing. He made weak attempts to suppress the violent wheezing, trying to keep down whatever was in his chest wanting to come up, but that only caused the next bouts of hacking to be more ferocious, and unbearably painful. 

Through watery eyes Neteyam saw his family. His father and mother slept cuddled against each other, on the far end of the mauri. The kids slept inside a separate expanse, shielded by fabric curtains that held the barrier between their hammocks and the main part of the mauri. 

Laying in the net next to him, Lo'ak slept like a starfish, tongue out and drooling. 

Coughing again, Neteyam climbed out of his hammock, hopping onto the ground with light feet and a graceful landing. He crept out of the mauri as he smothered the wheezing gags, this time knowing his life depended on it. If his parents woke up to find him sneak out, he would be grounded for life. Neteyam didn't want to lose their trust.