I stopped following the rest of the group and stayed behind to watch the girl. I felt a new emotion in that moment I had never felt before. pity. I pitied the girl but there was nothing I could do to help her. The neirik never attacked their brethren but I felt certain that would change if I attempted to take their prey away from them. I could do nothing and if I could I stood nothing to gain. Or at least I did until one of the neirik ripped the girl's bag off her body and flung it out of the pile. Conveniently right where I was.

I ran to catch the bag before it hit the ground and when I did I cradled it in my arms like a precious treasure. It was a small bag that had a strap, one that was now ripped, that would normally wrap around a dwarves chest and let the bag hang on their hip. I greedily felt around inside the bag to feel my prize and was rewarded with three large glass vials that felt warm to the touch. I wasn't completely sure what they were but I had a strong feeling that they were the miracle drinks I had seen the dwarves use before. They were the main reason I saw so few prepared groups die because when they were injured they would drink something and their wounds would be healed. Many dwarves also had the habit of then throwing the used container at their enemies so I had had the chance to examine the remains of the bottles. For that reason I was sure that I now had three miracles to work with.

I hesitated for a moment. The item I truly wanted from this dwarf was the book I had seen her hold when she used the words of power. I was certain that it and the power she displayed were connected. My hesitation cleared and I gripped the bag to my chest with my good hand and dove into the dog pile over the girl.

Getting to the girl was the easy part as I used my shoulders to shove neirik out of the way with force and aggression that they didn’t replicate in return. The problems began when I reached the girl because I couldn't find the book. I refused to drop the bag I had with me, rendering me unable to feel out the book on the girl's body. I growled in frustration as I focused on only my hearing in a hope I could somehow find the book. In that moment I saw with a clarity I had never before as the soundwave traced a small opening under the girl to reveal she was laying on the book I wanted. I sighed, a habit I'd picked up from the dwarfs, before shoulder checking my way closer to the girl. I could hear the slight painful gasp of air that informed me she was still alive as I barreled into the neirik on top of her to take his place.

I stared into the girl's eyes and she stared back at me with more pain and fear than I had ever seen before. Somehow despite not being able to see I knew we were making eye contact. Somehow her emotions came through to me so clearly in that moment. There was desperation in her every action as she tried to thrash or move her limbs in any way but she couldn't. I could feel her desire to live oozing out of her and I forgot for a moment why I had even entered the pile. I don't know what made me do it but I dropped the bag on her chest and used my good arm and what remained of my stump to wrap my much larger body around the dwarf.

I felt the neirik continued to pile on top of me and while many seemed confused and only sat there almost waiting their turn others began to bite and claw at my back to get to the prey I denied them. I ignored them as I stared into the girls eyes that were now filled with confusion. I used my teeth to grab the bag on her chest and managed to shake out one of the vials that luckily rolled to her left arm. Her right arm, the one that had been originally attacked, had been further mangled and where the thumb had been barely hanging on before the same could now be said of her entire hand. A thin strip of flesh barely connected the hand to her wrist and it was clear she couldnt use it. It was odd but in that moment I felt a strange sense of kinship with the dwarf. We had both lost that hand now after all.

The girl limply grasped the vial with her left hand and slowly drew it to her face. The confusion remained in her eyes but now they also shone with the light of determination. After what felt like ages where the attacks on my body grew more and more intense over time the girl finally got the bottle to her mouth. She gripped the cork with her teeth and tried to pull it out. And tired. And tried. I watched what little hope she had managed to kindle and her eyes got snuffed out as she let go of the cork and limply held the bottle over her face. I growled again and she looked up at me as my face drew closer and closer towards hers. Fear began to dominate her eyes and she unconsciously gripped the bottle with all the strength she had left. Which is probably the only reason it worked when I gripped the cork with my teeth and pulled it off the bottle.

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The liquid within spilled out over the girl's face going into her eyes, nose, and mouth while some just covered her skin. Surprisingly even what landed on her skin slowly soaked into her and the effects were instantaneous. Life returned to her eyes as the wounds covering her body began to close. I turned my head to look at her right arm only to be shocked that instead of reattaching the hand the liquid seems to have finished severing it at the wrist and closed the wound with fresh skin. I guess even miracles have their limits.

As life returned to the girl we made eye contact again and I could see her confusion return but it was drowned out by the relief that flooded in. We simply stared at each other for a long time. I fear I may have been trapped there forever locked into her eyes if I didn't feel a neirik latch onto my shoulder above my stump and yank my weak side back letting another neirik’s head worm under my body towards the dwarf. She started back before her eyes hardened and she grabbed a dagger I never noticed on her body and swung up and into the eye of the incoming neirik. She left the dagger there as she turned and made eye contact with me again.

I felt myself tense in preparation to try my damndest to leap away from the dwarf when she grabbed the dagger again. Even if I had saved her life I didn't trust her to spare the life of one of the creatures that had almost killed her. However instead of grabbing the dagger she began to move the body of the neirik with her one good hand and shoved him into the space under my stump to reinforce the wall I had created around her. She looked at me again and I almost recoiled in shock to see a confused trust shining in her eyes.

I was lost again in her eyes even as I felt the wounds on my back grow larger as more claws and teeth attempted to destroy the object keeping them from their prey. More and more frequently neirik would manage to get a head or arms past my body but the girl didn't hesitate to use her wickedly sharp dagger to either kill or maim the attacker, depending only on whether it was a head or arm that broke though. She would then use the body of her prey to create more and more walls between her and the other attackers. While the girls' situations continued to improve inversely, mine began to grow more and more problematic.

I felt weak now and I was being more supported by the wall of limbs and bodies the girl had erected around me than my own strength. It was a curious sensation that filled me when I realized I could truly die here. I don't believe that up until this point I knew that I could die. Even when I lost my hand I felt only fear of more pain not of death. Strangely, even in this moment I wasn't afraid to die. I was almost anticipating it. I had never been able to put a name to the emotion I would feel as I waited outside that large silent door for the next group of dwarves but in this moment I understood. I was bored. I was bored of my life of waiting.

I loved the experience of learning new things but the joy I felt in those moments only made the dull moment of waiting in perfect darkness and near perfect silence all the more painful. I wonder now when I stopped enjoying being alive, or if I ever did. I felt like I disconnected from myself at this moment and began watching the unfolding events as an apathetic outsider.

I watched as the neirik continued to tear at my flesh. I swear I could see my heart beating in my chest though a gaping wound that had been burrowed into my back. I don't know when but one neirik had torn off my left leg in order to get to the girl beneath me. She wasn't looking good anymore. The neirik that had managed to bypass me had left deep bleeding wounds at any point of her body that they could reach. I realized then how foolish I had been. Not only had I not saved her but I was just going to end up killing myself for nothing. I felt… bemused.

It was funny to me. I had long since come to the logical conclusion that I was neirik but always refused in my heart to accept it. I didn't want to be a neirik I wanted to be one of the dwarves. I wanted to be let in on the beautiful conversations they would have. I wanted to be let in on their victories and their sorrows. I didn't want to be alone. and now I would die. But I wouldn't be alone. The irony of finally feeling connected with someone as I died… I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I didn't know if I was capable of either. I don't know what the sound that came out of me was at that moment. It could have been both or neither for all I knew.

All I knew was that I let out a pathetic sound as I hung my head and rested it above the girls' own and waited to die.