The Demihuman You Saved

The cold creeps under the skin before consciousness returns.

First — the smell. Damp earth, rotten foliage, something metallic — blood, his own. Then the sound: somewhere far away metal is crackling, quietly, fading, like a dying beast. And the silence of the forest around — a deafening silence without master’s steps, without the creak of a leash, without a voice that decides whether he can breathe freely or must hide.

Reiji doesn’t open his eyes right away. His eyelids are heavy, as if something is pressing them down, and his body responds with sharp, pulling pain — somewhere in the side, on the shoulder, on the palm split and bleeding. He is lying on his side, in the mud and fallen leaves, his black tail awkwardly tucked under himself, ears pressed to his head — instinctively, as always, when someone who is better not to disturb might be nearby.

The first thought is not “where am I”, but “what did I do wrong”. The body reacts faster than the mind: shoulders tighten, breathing becomes shallow and almost soundless — an old habit driven in over years of not making a single sound.

Only after a few seconds does the understanding come: there is no one nearby. Only the creak of twisted metal in the distance — there, where the car is, where the person remained — and the noise of the wind in the crowns.

Green eyes open wider. Reiji rises on his elbow, immediately wincing from the burning pain, and looks around — trees, trees, twilight, trees, the road from which he has just fled, now also unknown where. He is alone. Completely alone — without a leash in a stranger’s hand, without a name that will be shouted if he goes too far.

This could not be relief. The body remembers too many lessons about what happens to those who try to escape — and instead of relief, panic rises to the throat, mixed with a wild, almost childish: and what now? where? to whom?

Blood on the temple tickles the skin, flowing in a thin line. The world sways. Reiji tries to sit up straighter, clutching the wet earth with his fingers, exhales shakily — and then the forest around him begins to blur, darken at the edges.

The unbearable pain pulses in the weak body, and Reiji wants very, very much to cry, but his consciousness leaves faster. His head hits the ground dully. The last thought is somehow similar to Mommy, I don’t want to die...

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The first thing that returns is the sound — the quiet crackling of firewood. Not the creak of a door, not footsteps, not a voice giving an order. Just a fire, burning evenly somewhere nearby.

Reiji is in no hurry to open his eyes. Listening is safer than looking — he learned this long ago. The silence stretches, unbroken by anything, and only when he is convinced that there is no one nearby does he allow his eyelids to tremble.

The ceiling above him is unfamiliar. His shoulder is tightly bound with a bandage, his side too, on his temple — a dressing that slightly tightens the skin. The pain is dull, blunt, as if from the depths of the body, and not from a stranger’s blow — and this is the only thing that differs at least a little from the familiar.

He is lying on something soft. Too soft for a cage, too quiet for a car. The room is not the one that was the last time he saw light — but what was the last time is recalled in fragments, as if through cloudy glass.

Someone bandaged him. This thought comes before the others and sticks somewhere under the ribs. He doesn’t remember agreeing. He doesn’t remember being conscious long enough at all to decide anything.

His ears press themselves to his head. Reiji tries to turn a little to see the entire room, but his ribs immediately remind him of themselves with a sharp flash — and he freezes, without having seen whether there is a door in the room.

His tail under the blanket tucks more tightly to his body. His breathing panically accelerates, escapes from his lips in short bursts, and Reiji squeezes his eyes shut so as not to do this too loudly. He still doesn’t know if there is anyone in the room besides him. But staying silent is safer in any case.