Jia Li felt depression roll over her mind and body, blocking out everything else. She’d never seen someone who was dead in the past, and even if she had, it probably would have only been in a casket after they’d been ‘prepared’ for services. There was so much blood, and it was everywhere, even all over her. It was so disturbing, but at the moment, she felt too sad to care that her clothes and skin were coated in Jack’s blood.
The dryad should have been faster. She should have just stolen the bat instead of trying to entice those guys to let her buy it from them. Better yet, she shouldn’t have run away at all. She should have popped right out of the tree and started throwing punches and kicking. In light of someone dying to help her, being a pacifist didn’t really seem important any more. Pacifism wouldn’t have saved Jack’s life.
Suddenly, too quickly for her to register what was happening, Jack shot up, and his head collided with hers. A cry left her lips as pain seared through her skull, and she fell back, away from the cause of the pain. Her heart began pounding rapidly again once her mind made the realization that Jack had moved of his own accord. He wasn’t dead!
She was so happy that even his glare couldn’t dim it, but the blood on which he gurgled did mar her joy. He was alive, but he was still hurt. Worry filled her features. He needed to go to a hospital, but she didn’t have her phone, and she was afraid to leave his side. Then he rolled over and began retching horribly. It really scared her, and she had no idea what to do. They didn’t exactly teach people how to handle these kinds of situations in school unless you were a med student. Her hand moved to his back, gently rubbing it, as if to help him coax out whatever blood he was vomiting.
This was all so strange. He was alive, but there had been so much blood. She hadn’t been able to find a pulse only moments earlier, and now he was lively enough to even glare at her! Then he finished, and he turned back around. She removed her hand from his back.
Jia Li’s green eyes were wide when he said he was sure he’d die “this time.” What did that mean? She just listened quietly as he muttered to himself about his flask, but his eyes turned to her, and he looked incredibly unhappy to see her. He had told her not to come back, after all.
“I couldn’t just leave you! Those guys were dangerous, and I could have helped. How are you still alive after that?” She asked, ignoring his quip about burning down the trees on campus. The dryad was still pretty shocked about the whole thing. She was definitely glad he wasn’t dead, but she didn’t know anyone who could survive losing so much blood. “We need to get you to a hospital. Do you have a phone?”