Alisson watched Bela with growing concern. She could see her eyes doing that thing they did right before she crashed. She had already seen it happen three times that afternoon.
The human simply waited for the inevitable. She could see Bela's body beginning to sway gently, her words coming out slightly more slurred than usual. This was no longer just pain. This was someone, literally, on the verge of collapsing.
Alisson tried to predict when it would happen, she truly did, but when Bela suddenly fell forward onto her, the human let out a low grunt.
How was this possible? How could someone so thin weigh so much?
She gasped, trying to recover her breath as she placed her hands on Bela's shoulders. With a shove fueled by brute force, Alisson tried to push her off.
She could feel her muscles trembling with the effort. Heat coursed through her arms from how hard she was trying and failing. Sure, she wasn't alone anymore... She had Bela. That was easy to say, but the truth was that seeing Bela like this only hurt more.
She was grateful that she was alive, of course. But she couldn't even stay awake for five minutes straight. That hurt more than anything else: seeing someone who had once been so regal reduced to this.
Eventually, Alisson managed to lay Bela back down on the bed, using the full strength of her body to push her onto the mattress. The blonde barely moved. She looked completely knocked out.
It was night when Bela woke up.
The shadows painted the cabin in muted darkness, and Alisson sat nearby with a knife in hand. There was blood everywhere; on her hands, on her clothes... Even on her cheeks, damp with tears that had run all the way down to her chin.
The hunt? The poor animal no longer had any skin. Several important cuts of meat were missing as well, removed together with the hide earlier.
Alisson didn't know how to hunt. She didn't know how to skin animals. She didn't know how to survive. She was doing the best she could.
She jumped when Bela suddenly sat up.
With a sharp hiss, she spun around and stared at her, eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights. Letting out a breath, she dropped the knife onto the table and hurried over to Bela, who was now buried beneath even more layers.
One blanket. Two blankets. Three blankets. Even old, dusty clothes Alisson had found in the cabin's wardrobes: coats, jackets, anything that might help retain the blonde's body heat.
โโโโโโ โ Are you okay? โ โ she asked, approaching the bed. Alisson didn't even bother removing the blankets so Bela could get up and eat. Instead, she brought the food to her.
There were two plates: one with raw meat and another with meat lightly cooked, barely seared by the fire to trick her own brain into accepting it. The fire wasn't good for much, and Alisson had to find one way or another to keep herself alive.
With the plate of raw meat resting on her lap, the human picked up a piece with her hand and brought it toward Bela.
โโโโโโ โ Eat. You have to eat. โ โ She ordered, practically pushing the piece toward Bela's mouth. It looked like she was trying to choke her, but in reality, she was simply desperate to see her get better.