Cupid's Arrow

March 30, Last Breath

March 30

It's been a while since I have written, it's been a while since I have been able to write. Today is the first day that I have been awake, truly awake, in over a week. It's been a couple weeks since Scott ran completely out of his medicines. We had been working our way towards home. The morning started simple. Scott and I were leaving the village, we had all our gear packed. Then we were attacked. The lookouts sounded warning. The women and children quickly fled to the center of the village. The warriors ran, spears in hand to protect, Scott ran with them. The hunters were split in two, half ran to help the warriors, the other half stayed to protect the families. I was torn, I had never witnessed a battle, never been a part of one, I could have run to the families and stayed there, but my heart was pulling me in the other direction. I still had the last five bullets for my pistol. I had saved them, kept them locked away for the greatest of emergencies. This had to count as an emergency. I quickly pulled them out and ran to where I heard the fighting. It looked like a bloodbath to me. The attackers had painted their faces with blood, they looked savage. I knelt, I had to take careful aim, my friends were also out there, fighting for their families, I didn't want to hit any of them. The first shot went wild. I hit the ground at the feet of one of the attackers. He looked frantically around as my second shot took him straight in the chest. I was down to three, I needed to choose my shots wisely. The next shot I took was for a man that looked completely gone in bloodlust, he was surrounded by those he had killed both of his kind and our village. I fired, I killed him. Two shots left, one shot went into a man who was about to strike down a young boy from the village, barely even old enough to classify as a hunter, I killed this man too. There was one shot left, that when I saw Scott, he had fallen, not even thirty feet in front of me. Two men were rushing towards him, another was already standing over him. "No!" I jumped to my feet and took aim as I moved towards him, the man who was going to stab him with the spear fell to the side, a look of surprise on his face as my bullet stole his life. Scott was still down though and the other two men were still coming towards him. I beat them there... I had no more bullets.

I did have the spear from the man I killed. I lifted it, pulling it in so that the point was facing them. It was ridiculous and I knew it, I didn't know how to use it any more than I knew how to weave and we'd proven my skill or lack thereof. Scott was waking up behind me, I felt him stirring, heard him telling me to get away, but it was too late. The men were there, I felt the hot bite of the spearhead hit my side, I swung mine wide, in a last-ditch effort, I missed and I fell to the ground. I had failed, not only had I failed my mission, I failed to even save my mark so that someone else might take my place. The fire lanced up my side, the spear still attached to me. I watched as Scott fought, the man whose spear was in my side fell first, the second took a little longer. I watched them dance around each other, thrusting spears in and pulling away before Scott finally killed him as well.

He came to my side, crying. "You fool! You never should have done that! You could have died, you could still die! I don't have any more medicines with me, nothing to fight infection! Damn you!" I watched as tears slipped down his face, a weak cough made its way out of my chest, "Couldn't watch you die." I didn't have any more air. It hurt to breathe in, it hurt to move. Other warriors arrived at his side. My vision was getting blurry, I watched as the chief pulled Scott up and shook him, I couldn't hear what he had said. I felt hands on my legs and arms, pinning me down. It didn't matter anymore, I was dying, I had saved him though. I had saved Scott. My heart was at peace because I was accepting it, I think I loved him. The world was dimming out, getting fuzzier, my vision was black around the edges and was slowly fading in, the last face that I saw was Scott's. This was the end. I was so tired. I would welcome the end.