Bitten

Hey, Its Ribbon

Chapter 3

I ran until I physically couldn't run anymore. Then I walked until my feet wanted to bleed. But, I continued on.

Day became night and night became day. I was too afraid to be tired. I was too dehydrated to think.

The sun was at full blast, and I just wished that someone would turn it down, I was dripping sweat from my head to my toe. The grief wind stired up the wispy sand my clothing were overwhelmingly hot and sticky. The stiff, dry desert breeze blew sand into my eyes and made my hair stiff with salt. My tongue feels as if it was coated in fur and my lips were chapped and dry.

I'd do anything for a cold glass of water.

Each step I took became smaller and smaller until I couldn't even register if I had made any progress. It was getting harder to keep my eyes open and my vision does becoming dimmer and dimmer until complete darkness overtook me and I lost the battle with gravity.

As I lay dying in the blistering Sun my mind wondered to a coin, old and covered in dirt, the engravings worn and the head of the king so tarnished as to be stolen from view. I held it in my left hand, watching the mud dirty. I held it so close to my face the coin had the aroma of stale blood. I turned to my right hand and in the palm was a new spring leaf, crowned by a perfect sphere of dew, reflecting an image of my face, softened and relaxed. When I turned back to the coin, the image of the king had freed himself and journeyed over to the leaf, igniting the growth of strong roots and new foliage that reached for the sunlight, robust, virescent. And when my brain had reached overload. Everything in my mind became black I felt my heart slowing down my blood ran thick.

This was it.

Until it wasn't.

I felt shade cover my body.

A cloud?

No.

Clouds don't cradle people. I didn't have the strength to open my eyes but I felt my body being moved and something cold with pressed against my lips.

Was this heaven?

"Try and drink", a soft but powerful voice cood in my ear. "You're safe now".

I wanted to open my mouth I wanted whatever was in there I just didn't have the strength. And I guess my mystery saviour knew that because the next thing I knew cold water was being pushed into my body. My body eagerly locked up every last drop and as I tried to open my mouth to receive more I felt an unfamiliar softness against them.

It felt good.

And for a moment it was gone before the pressure came back colder and more delicious than before. I felt life being pushed back into my dead body. I could finally open my eyes to see what was happening.

Lips.

Beautiful, soft water giving lips were on mine. Has the man pulled back I stared up into his eyes were more than plain old green. They were the green the brings the earth back to life after an unforgiving cold. The green that revives grass from the harsh conditions of winter. The green that, even in the darkest times can be that light that shows you the way home. The beacon of hope in the dreariest of days. He had tousled dark brown hair, which was thick and lustrous. His face had all the softness of a child but the structure of a man. "Where did you come from?"

I could register the question but I was still too weak to talk or do anything really. I guess he could sense that and press a metal canteen to my lips. At least now I could drink. I greedily gobble down as much as I could before he pulled why the only thing keeping me alive,"Slow down. You'll be sick if you keep that up".