>"Clever girl."
>Kyouko beams. "I said we're going to get you better, and that's what we're going to do! Let's go!"
>It is a strange feeling, being carried in the arms of another like this. Once, you think you would have felt embarrassed by it, too prideful to depend on anyone else so completely. Perhaps it's surrender. Perhaps you're simply too far gone now, too desperate to care. But rather than feeling shame, the sensation of Kyouko's arms beneath you is... comforting, like a blanket against a bitter wind.
>Your eyes, half-lidded, rest across her face. There is a fierce determination there, yet also brightness, despite everything ? it is the look of someone utterly convinced that what they're doing is important. That it
matters.
>And she's doing it for
you.
>You try to voice your thanks, but your tongue feels too heavy to move. Instead, you drift asleep to the sound of the brush rustling beneath her feet.
>The hours pass, or maybe days, or even weeks ? it is impossible for you to tell the difference any more. Kyouko sets you down occasionally to eat or stretch or to reexamine the map. The passage of time is so muddled to you now that you cannot be sure she's sleeping at all, though you're starting to have doubts. It has been dark and light and dark again, and still you have not seen her idle for a moment.
>Her appetite is more voracious than ever, all but inhaling a loaf of bread and pining wistfully for seconds. The best you can manage in the same length of time is a single cracker and a few nibbles of cheese and even that is unpalatable to you now.
>Kyouko smiles at you when she lifts you in her arms again. She always smiles. Even when the sweat starts dripping from her face, she smiles. For a moment, you are struck with a profound sadness that there is no color left in your world. The green of her eyes was so vivid....
>You awaken to the splash of raindrops against your face, each a tiny moment's respite from the furnace that burns beneath your skin. It is dawn, or maybe sunset, a line of murky light shrouded thickly beneath clouds. The world is oddly quiet around you, leaves dancing silently upon the wind. Where did all the birds go? You can feel yourself rising, a sea of treetops receding slowly into the distance below. One of Kyouko's sleeves is slick with mud, though you don't remember falling.
>Your breath comes in rasps now. The air is too raw and there's never enough of it; even in the rain, your lungs feel like a desert.
>"We're getting close," Kyouko says. That's what she always says now. You don't know if you can trust it anymore, but it's all you have.
>You try to nod, try to speak; even this is no more than a hoarse whisper, too quiet to hear. Your hand fumbles blindly for hers, eventually finds it, feels the fingers still holding you firmly. You squeeze. Hopefully that's answer enough.
>There is a long pause, and then you hear her call your name. Once. Twice. Her voice seems distant, somehow unsteady.
>...has the rain stopped?