Rift

Chapter 16: Soothing body and mind

After telling the others about what happened back at the hillside with Celara and that she was about to rejoin us after catching her breath, we were waiting for her to come back in the little clearing on top of the hill where we took a break.

I took advantage of the wait to have a bite, since I didn't have the chance before as I was looking for someone on our trail. The culprit turned out to be none other than someone from Celara's world who was apparently interested in her, or rather, her death. If she was right, though, and everything suggested that she was, someone else was controlling her assailant, and I wondered if she had at least a clue of who the responsible might be.

I watched the others while munching on some of what many would consider junk food, but to me it was like most of the regular meals that I used to have until recently. After he found out about the attack, Lemmy turned pale, as if wanting to flaunt his guilt for having doubted her good faith. Evelyn looked to be the most worried one about Celara's safety, and even suggested to go back where I left her to be sure that she was really fine. I eventually managed to convince her to let her be for the time being, so as not to give her the impression that she had to hurry up. The others looked to be generally relieved, maybe for her safety, but more probably for the fact that who was following us was found and that the matter had already been settled.

Since she wasn't yet coming back, I decided to pick up where I left off with cleaning the knife using a clean cloth and some drinking water from the bottle that I kept in my bag. We could afford to waste potable water, unlike food, because we used to travel alongside a small river. We kept ourselves not so far away that it was difficult or too time-consuming to go gathering water, but not so close that it might lead us to run into an ambush, as a river bank might be considered a good place to set up one.

I was still polishing the blade when we heard some noises coming towards us from the sporadic yet sizeable vegetation growing around this area. It didn't take long for the person who was making them to show up. Naturally, it was Celara, whose eyes were surprisingly normal, and not at all as red as I would have expected. Not only the eyes, but her gaze itself looked to be more determined than before.

Her clothes were tidier than a few minutes ago, she had shook the dust off them but didn't do anything for the blood stains and the cuts derived from the battle. I agree with her choice to keep them like that, as a meaningful display to the others, Lemmy in particular, to eliminate any doubts about her, if any were still left. Of course, the fact that she got attacked by a monster wouldn't rule out any possible theories that they might have regarding her, but this view was sure to draw a little compassion, and compassion doesn't get along too well with suspiciousness.

The others gathered around her, asking for details about the attack and making sure that she was actually fine. They even helped her sit down, and Evelyn began to clean up her injuries as best as she could. I was curious about them, and even though I was sure that she had left them as they were, I wondered if she was capable of actually doing anything on the matter, like speeding up their recovery rate or straight-out healing them.

I sheathed the knife and put the other stuff back inside the bag before joining everyone else.

"Chris, why did you leave her there and didn't help her come back?" Evelyn asked without interrupting what she was doing.

"I thought that she was fine, and that you guys might worry if we wasted time and you didn't see us coming back" I lied, because it sounded way better than telling them that she was mourning and that probably neither of us wanted me to stay there.

"It's fine, Evelyn. I'm just dirty, but I'm in perfectly good shape, we can resume the journey whenever you want" Celara cut in, taking the damp cloth that Evelyn was using and standing up before wiping the blood with it.