Healing the Broken

The whinny of the horse pierced the air. I shot up from the ground off my palette that Arjun had given me to sleep on. A sun was slowly peaking from beneath this world. Arjun was already on his feet, he had gathered his bow and arrows and slid on his stomach toward the edge of the boulder to peer down. He waved for me to crawl near him. I reluctantly crawled toward him, frightful of what I might see. As I peered over, my stomach dropped. A yellow scaly creature tore into the horse’s neck with its large fangs.
“Do you know what it is?” he readied is bow.
“I call them garrs,” I said, my stomach in my throat. “besides knowing that they’re carnivores, that’s all.”
“Can they climb,” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. I could hear my own fear weaving through my words.
The beast began sniffing around. It reminded me of a crocodile except it had a round body and it stood on two feet like a gorilla. Its claw were extremely long at least six inches. The horse’s corpse lied on the ground, its red flesh bare to the world, blood flooded under it like a pond. I was in between vomiting and panicking. I breathe in and out slowly to keep myself from hyperventilating. It began sniffing the boulder, flung its head and darted its eye toward us, they were blood-shot. Softly snarling, it showed its gleaming fangs, blood still dripping down them.
It dug its claws into the cracks and fissure of the boulder and began climbing. It was ascending fast. Arjun steady his arrow on his bow and shot. It flung for the creature but the arrow sprang off against the garr’s scales. Only the flesh of its belly was unprotected by scales but that part of the beast’s body was pressed up against the boulder.
“Get back,” Arjun warned me. “I can’t see its vulnerable part, and I might not be able to aim for it until it is upon me so get as far back as you can.”
Trembling, I backed away like he said toward the opposite edge of the boulder. I watched as he squinted and concentrated on shooting the gar. He shot twice and each time I could hear the arrows reverting off the scales of the gar. Arjun jumped to his feet and took a couple steps backwards. The gar quickly scurried over the boulder and slowly approach him, it stood on its hind legs. Arjun shot at it but it moved swiftly, and the arrow sailed through the empty air. The beast crouched down and rapidly crawled towards Arjun. This creature was not dim-witted, it knew Arjun was trying to kill it and that’s why it was taking slow measures to attack him.
I ran toward Arjun’s bags of things. If I didn’t do something fast he was going to die. I found what I was looking for — the bottle of liquid. Good, it was made from glass and there were two more. The Garr screamed. It was cringing in pain. Arjun had succeed in penetrating its eye with an arrow; that would give me some time. I pulled out the two rocks and shredded the wood. I rapidly slammed and rubbed the rocks together over the shredded wood as Arjun had done until flames sparked. The beast was furious, it snarled at him, approaching fast. The fire caught, and I knew after that I could keep it flaming. I blew on the shredded wood and it flared. I grabbed the first bottle and threw it at the Garr and it turn toward me.
“Over here,” I yelled at it. It ignored me, and continued for Arjun who was slowly reaching the edge of the boulder.
“Stop ignoring me,” I grabbed the other two bottles, carefully stuffing the holes with burning wood. I ran close to the garr, throwing the bottle at it, the first bottle of burning wood blew out before it could reach the garr. The garr swiped its razor claws out at Arjun, slicing into his shirt and flesh. This was the last bottle, I had to be careful so I rolled the bottle toward the beast. When it was close enough, I grabbed the rock and threw it at the glass bottle. Aiming wasn’t a problem for me, Kye had taught me how to spear fish when I was younger. The glass shattered and the fire inflamed the liquid, engulfing the garr that was cover in it. It whirled out of control, screaming and hurling in every direction until it toppled off the boulder.
I peered down at the vicious beast, it was dead now. It was still in flames but it wasn’t moving. Its cries had finished tormenting the air. Arjun walk up beside me to witness the death of the beast, himself. The blood of his wound was seeping through his shirt. My hands were trembling, I was feeling nauseous and feeble. I fell to my knees.
Arjun kneeled beside me. “You’re weakening, you need to eat.”
“I’m not eating that creature,” I said. “if you want, you can have it for breakfast.”
He smiled and for the first time I actually saw him even with the gash running down his chest. I had looked at him before but I only saw the mask. This time the mask wasn’t distracting me. He had hassle eyes and curly dark-brown hair. His skin tone was tan and there were no blemishes amongst his skin. But that is not all I saw, I saw that he was relieved and grateful to be alive.
“We’ll find fruit or something else here,” he said.
After Arjun wrapped his wound and gathered his bags, he gently lowered me on the rope to the ground. A bit disturb after the Garr attack us, I tried not to let dread seep into my mind when I realized I was on surface again, vulnerable to more fierce beasts. I began swinging my head back and forth, making sure nothing was stalking me in the trees or brushes ready to strike at any moment. I jumped as Arjun slid down behind me.
His eyes met mine, and this time he didn’t ridicule my reaction. Sympathy showed in his eyes and he nodded his head toward me, acknowledging that he understood my anxiety and paranoia.
“If we can’t find the stone today we’ll find a safer place than this one, I’ve was mistaken to think this would keep us secure from the monsters that live here.”
When we walked by the horse, Arjun stopped and knelt down beside it. His eyes glisten with remorse as he stroked the mane of the horse that was not drenched in blood. “Sorry Chispa,” I could barely hear him say, his soft whisper was full of so much pain that it stunned me. After a few minutes, he rose and shamelessly walked passed me. “let’s go.”
I silently followed behind him for several minutes, I could tell he was trying to resist his distress. I had once lost a horse I cared for deeply. His named was Fuzz, he was originally Danj but when she died, Kye allowed me to keep him. When Fuzz died from a poisonous snack bit— I couldn’t heal in time because I hadn’t yet began collecting enchanted herbs from the enchant forest—I isolated myself for three days and cried myself to asleep. Kye tried to cheer me up, but I had lost a best friend.
As we continued to walk, a sweet smell invaded my nose and my stomach began to growl. I took a deep whiff of the air to make sure my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me because I was lacking food.
“Do you smell watermelon,” I asked Arjun, hoping he could smell it too, and I wasn’t being deceived by my own senses.
He nodded. “It’s near.”
So it hadn’t been my imagination. We approached a dense area full of trees. These trees were similar to the ones in the enchanted forest except instead of having leaves, these trees consist of extending purple vines that produce yellow star-shape fruit. Many of them had fallen to the ground. In the enchanted forest, the fruit was still yellow, but it was round and grew from the branches. The smell of the fruit was similar as well but this fruit smell was heavily stronger. I was beginning to think, the enchant forest, being that it was the threshold of worlds, maybe it animals, elements, organism, and plants were a combination of the worlds.
I pulled one of the peculiar fruits from the tree and braced myself to bite into it.
“Wait,” Arjun urged, concern in his eyes. “how do know it’s not poisonous?”
“I believe they have a relation with same fruits in the enchanted forest,” I said, convincing myself they were similar to archet fruit in the enchanted forest.
Archet fruit was one of the sweetest berries but it had its flaws. It had an intoxication after effect in which a person would find themselves dazed and hallucinating, but it usually only lasted about a minute. I decided that I could sacrifice a moment saneness to keep myself from starving.
“You believe,” unsure about my theory.
“Yes,” I said and bit into the skin of the Archet fruit. The fruit was heavenly delicious; sweeter than I thought it would be. As I continued to eat more, I could feel my body lift from the ground. My head began to swirl and my vision blurred.
I opened my eyes to find Arjun hovering, he looked puzzle. I couldn’t remember how much time had passed but I knew time had gone by. My head felt as if I had breathe in water through my nose and every time, I attempted to move my head, it felt as if it was dragging down my whole body.
“How long was I out?” I asked Arjun.
“About an hour,” he said. “but you weren’t exactly out.”
An hour, archet fruit affect had never lasted that long. This fruit was stronger than I thought.
“What do you mean,” I suddenly asked, frightful of what had happen.
“Such as you cried, asked me strange questions, and you tried to get me to take off my mask,” he said sitting on a large rock.
I shook my head, embarrassed. “What did I ask you?”
He gave me a sad smile and shook his head in a shameful manner. “You don’t want to know.”
I strain myself to remember but nothing came to mind.
“Please, what did I ask you, why did I want to take off your mask. What did you say?” I asked, hoping I didn’t reveal anything private.
“Everyone wants to know what’s beneath the mask,” He shrugged. “You asked questions, but I didn’t answer them. I knew you weren’t coherent.”
I stared at him, ashamed and puzzled.
“You want to know, don’t you?” he asked, knowing I was curious.
“Although I am curious,” I said. “it is not my place to know. Not everything secret is meant to be revealed.”
He nodded his head. “Then I must tell you, because I know one of your secrets and I feel oblige to share mine.”
What did he know? What had I revealed?
“As a child I had a rare and terrible disease, “he began. “it consumed the right side of my face. The disease spared the rested of my body. The pain was excruciating but not as excruciating as when my mother abandon me,” his eyes filled up with moist.
Remorse build up inside me, because I knew that pain except my mother had died when I was very young, she didn’t abandon me.
“What else did I tell you,” I asked, anxiously and sat up. For what I learned from Arjun, he followed an eye for an eye moral so knowing he had shared a personal secret with me meant my secret must have been just as personal.
“You cried,” he said. “you were apologizing for causing a person to die.”
Pain throb in my chest. That person was Danj. I had tried not to blame myself for Danj’s death but in the depth of my soul the guilt rage inside of me. I had hidden it well from myself, but I forgotten Archet fruit had a way in revealing things within people. Sometimes, things they didn’t even know they were trying to keep concealed.
“Who was she?” he asked. “you said she should have been in the place you are now. That you should have died. That maybe she could have saved everyone.”
“She was a brave soldier,” I said. “She loved me enough to die rescuing me. I had made a terrible mistake in giving the last of the vixa, an enchanted healing fruit, to a dying woman with two children who tried to kill us. If I had kept it, I could have save her.”
“Is that why you want to go to the enchanted forest, to heal your face,” I asked.
He shook his head. “I want to find my mother, some said after she abandon me, she changed her named and went to live in the enchanted forest.”
Part of what he was saying sounded familiar. “How do know she abandon you?”
“Because she left me, when I was sick, with an elderly woman and never returned,” Anger emitted from his voice. “once the elderly woman died, I was on my own to fend for myself.”
“Arjun could your mother see visions,” I asked.
He didn’t speak, he stared at me quizzically, wondering how I knew.
“Arjun,” I spoke as remorseful tears filled my eyes. “your mother didn’t abandon you. She died protecting me.”
He look at me confused and hurt.
“She wanted—“ I was interrupted.
A heavy metal net fell over us. Part of it slammed down on me causing pain to surge through my head.
“Are you hurt,” Arjun asked, lifting the metal chain off of me and looked around. “I don’t see anyone.”
The moment he said that the metal net closed in under us and pulled us up, smashing Arjun and I into each other. Hoarse snorting echoed through the trees. Five figures slid down the purple vines. They weren’t taller than five feet but their bodies were bulky and were a green-grayish. None of them had noses just two slits to breathe through. Their eyes were black and beady and their ears, mouths, and hands were larger than any human’s. They had a mouth full of a hundred tiny razor sharp teeth.
Goblins! I remembered Kye would tell me stories about them, along with all the other mystical creatures. They were known to cleverly kidnap children and devour them, but they were not a myth.
As I looked down, I noticed one was wearing a queron stone around its neck.