A Bloody Mouth - Tales from Nowardo #2

Jarek barely survived his encounter with the Kukuruza. The first thing he did was lying down. His heart was still pounding. He had to calm down. He had to think. “I have lost everything today.”, he muttered to himself, “my armoured suit and even my grandfather’s knife. What will become of me now?” It was a painful loss. Almost as painful as his broken leg and scratched face. “Stop this!”, he yelled at himself,” I can mourn my losses when I am in safety. I didn’t survive the vines to lay down and die now.” He repressed his thoughts about his past and his probable future. If he couldn’t focus right know there would be no possible future. “Step one”, he said to himself, “check pockets.” He had to use his left hand because his right hand was still burning from the Kukuruza juice. Three Kukuruza bars, a bottle of water and a bottle of Kwirza, fermented Kukuruza juice, were all his pockets revealed. The Kwirza was exactly what he needed right now. He drank the bottle in one go. “Step two”, he said to himself again, “treat the wounds.” He couldn’t repair the broken leg, but the Kwirza would take care of that. What he could and must do, was bandage his open wounds. He didn’t have any bandages, so he had to use his clothes. Sadly, he was too weak right now to rip off a piece of his shirt, so he had to improvise. As a child, Jarek was bullied for his sharp canine teeth. The other children called him “the Vampire”. For the first time in his life, he was happy to have them. By using his teeth he could finally rip off parts of cloth from his shirt to treat his wounds temporarily. Slowly he felt warm in his body. His pain became weaker and weaker. The Kwirza worked. But the effect would fade around three hours later and then he would without a doubt just collapse and die if no one would help him. It would be tight, but he could reach home. He couldn’t lose any more time, so he began to walk straight in the direction of his home, the bunker#4. Nowardo was a couple of bunkers connected by huge caves. The only light was provided either by fire or Kukuruzas. Luckily the drops of juice that landed on Jarek's hand were still glowing, so he had a bit of light as he progressed through the caves. During the walk, he thought about the phrase that probably saved his life: “I will not die today”. He doesn’t know where it came from. It just appeared in his head. A lot of people would have accepted their faith, but not Jarek. His parents taught him always to fight for a better life as his ancestors did. “Did the ancestors gave up, when the white light came? No, they fought for their freedom. And what did they do, when everyone lost their hope. Gave up? No, they had built Nowardo and made sure we, their descendants could live in freedom.”, they lectured him when he said he just couldn’t solve a math question. It was a bit excessive in retrospect, but he has more grateful than ever now. He looked forward to seeing them when he comes home.

After two hours of walking and some easier climbing, Jarek was almost there. “I knew it. I will not die today; I just have to turn right and…” He didn’t finish the thought because he was standing in front of three flesh-eating Okapis. 

Normally you could frighten them by acting crazy, but he was too surprised to think of something crazy. Before he could react, they had encircled him in the wide intersection. He heard a lot of hoofbeats around him, but the echo made it hard for him to recognize where it came from. He turned in a circle in the hope to react to an attack. The okapi to his left jumped into the air and was about to ram his teeth into Jarek's neck. He noticed him in the last moment and put his glowing hand into the Okapis mouth before the impact put them both on the ground. The beast was lying on his chest and it still had Jareks hand in its mouth. Out of reflex he grabbed the neck of the beast and bit its throat with all his strength. It worked. His vampire-teeth penetrated the skin of the beast. He tasted the blood in his mouth. It was metallic, but also kind of sweet. Jarek was disgusted by himself, but he resisted the urge to let go. “I will not die today”, he thought again and pulled with his teeth as strong as he could. He heard a ripping sound. The flesh-eating Okapi screamed out of pain, so Jarek pulled again. This time it was a cracking sound. More and more blood ran into Jareks mouth. Despite the disgust he felt for himself, he started to like the taste. The third time he pulled, he ripped something out. He didn’t know enough about anatomy to know what exactly, but he was certain it was something vital. Just now he noticed the fear in the dying eyes. He flung the dead body aside and stood up. Would Jarek survive another attack? He wasn’t sure, but he would certainly try. To his relief, the remaining Okapis were running away. Jarek wasn’t sure if he wanted to feel proud of what he did, but he had to do it to survive. Unfortunately, the Okapis ran into the direction of bunker#4. He had terrified them now, but they could come back. As much as he wanted to go home right now, his best choice was to turn left instead of right. The only place he could reach now was bunker#3. That was not a good place. The people there had a different feeling of morale. Some other bunkers called them even “Bandits”. They attacked and robbed people from other bunkers in the caves and had once even tried to conquer bunker#2. There was something like a fragile truce between his bunker and bunker#4, so they shouldn’t kill him, but he wasn’t sure about this. However, he was sure, that the Okapis would kill him and that he had to reach a “save” place in the next half an hour or he would collapse and never stand up again. He changed his plan and turned left in direction of bunker#3. 

What will happen when Jarek reach bunker#3? What will they do with him? What do you think will happen next? Please share your thoughts in the comments, on twitter or however you can reach me. I will try to release a new story every Monday.

Thank you very much for your thoughts on the last part. I tried to implement them and I hope you are all entertained by how the story progresses. The story would be completely different (and probably) not as exciting without your input. 

Here you can read the first part of the story.
Here you can read the next part of the story.

Here you can read all the stories.