Something cold and foreign was touching her ,slowly and deliberately running up her thigh. “I don't like this” she thought and the feeling went away. Then another, something, began to move about her. This something she new, she could feel: the warmth of breath, the rough of a mans hands unbuttoning her dress, the pressure of muscular legs pressed against hers. “The beast survived and found us,” she thought. Screaming she swings wildly into the night. Her fists make contact and the man surprised falls back from the girl. Scrambling to her feet she backs herself against a tree. She looks to her right to see if the boy had past in the night. The boy was gone, He abandoned me! She thought tears filling her eyes. “How did you do that?” the man asked his voice cool and dark. “You should not have been able to wake up.” he starts toward her. “You shouldn't have been able to hit me.” he kneels to pick up a small club that the girl had kept by her through the night. Stupid! she thinks knowing that she had forgotten the weapon. “No matter,” he continues coldly “its more fun when you know whats going on. Its more...” he pauses looking back toward the campfire. “energetic.” A smile begins to form on the mans face as he continues toward the girl. “Come now why do you look so afraid?” the man readies the club.
The shadow, born of the fire moved, quickly toward the man and the girl. Nothing moved as it moved no sound came from the form. It barreled toward the man ,absorbing the club in its formless mass. The man yelps as his arm breaks and begins to bleed. Nursing his arm the man falls away from the mass moving as quick as his legs would carry him. “How?” he whimpers looking at the mass that now slowly moves toward him. “This isn't right!” the man yells. “You couldn't have!” looking down at his waste the man notices a small blood stain, not his, on his pants. The man lunges at the form hitting it around the middle they fall back into the campfire. The man screams in pain as his clothes catch fire, but he has what he went for. His body becomes smoke, and moves quickly into the dawn. The other form slowly walks from the fire becoming solid as it reaches the girl. “My name is Saladin” the boy says “it was my fathers name” . Saladin's body collapses onto the soft ground, sound asleep, his breath slow and rhythmic. The sun breaks over the horizon and a new day begins.
The young woman sat staring at Saladin long after the sun rose. What had happened? What did she see? The last four days had been a blur of fire, blood, and death. She hadn't given herself time to think of who or what she was traveling with. She thought she had seen this boy Saladin with his father before the massacre but the more she thought the more she realized that she had only heard the man mention his son. She never actually saw the man or the boy! A small shiver ran up the girls spine at the thought. He came out of no where that night too! She remembers, He saved me from that horrible savage in the town. But I only saw fire around me! Did he come from the flame then too?! She begins to move away from the thing named Saladin trying to calm herself but not believing her on good senses. He saved my life---twice! What is he. Regaining control over her body she gathers up things to catch breakfast from a nearby stream. Maybe the cool quick moving water would help her clear her mind.
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