This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL
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Special thank to Voroni
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In a flash, I was back to my cave. I was actually surprised at how close it was from where the incident happened. Still holding the small inanimate body in my arms, I rushed into my cave and laid her onto my bed. It was only a pile of grass but it would have to do for now.
The next thing to do was to quickly get to my backpack hidden under the giant rock and pull my first aid kit out of it. In this small satchel, was a bit of everything and anything. Vitamins, pills of all kinds, needles and thread, disinfectant, bandages and the list just went on and on.
The next thing to do was to boil some water in a big clay pot I had made a few days back and put some clean cloth into it. To prevent infection, I needed to made sure that everything had been properly sterilized in boiling water, the needle and thread included.
Once everything was ready, I gathered everything and rushed back into the cave where the little woman was still unconscious. The first thing to do was to make sure that my body was no longer under the influence of dokari. These little purple people seemed so weak that I feared the possibility of accidentally injuring her with my overly powerful body.
Next up was to inspect her body and look for any injuries I could have missed, and make sure to treat the most serious ones first. She had bruises everywhere, which were unimportant. She also had a small gash on her forehead but the most serious injury by far was on her thigh. Of course, I was worried about her having a concussion or some type of brain damage, but the wound on her thigh was what seemed the most critical to me.
On the outside of her left thigh was a big open wound which bled a lot, but not enough to indicate that an artery had been ruptured. After closer inspection, I finally managed to confirm that no artery had been severed, which was very reassuring. Maybe she could survive this ordeal if she was lucky enough.
Having confirmed her visible injuries, I now needed to verify is she had fractured bones. As I laid my hands on her soft body, I couldn't help but feel nervous. She seemed so little and fragile that I felt like a giant monster beside her. Compared to her, I definitely was a giant.
I inspected her arms, neck, gulp* chest... I made sure to be very gentle and not accidentally break her ribs, but eventually confirmed that she had no apparent fractures other than her legs. Actually, she had most likely fallen on her feet, which explained her worryingly swollen left ankle.
I wasn't sure if it was a fracture or a simple sprain, but it had already begun to turn different shades of yellow and purple. This was highly worrying since I had no idea how to deal with fractures. I could immobilize her leg, but if the bones were fractured, they could potentially repair themselves back together incorrectly, which would make her a cripple for life.
Camille had also talked about something called 'compartment syndrome': Which is a severe swelling after a fracture that can put so much pressure on the blood vessels that not enough blood can get to the muscles around the fracture. The decreased blood supply can cause the muscles around the fracture to die, which can lead to long-term disability. Compartment syndrome usually occurs only after a severe injury.
If she was lucky and it was only a sprain, then she could walk normally again in a few weeks. It all depended on whether she was lucky or not. Not wasting anymore time, I quickly began to wash her open wounds with the sterilized water and cloths.
I cleaned the wounds the best I could, making sure no debris or other foreign agents could create infections and complicate the healing process, then applied disinfectant. She was very lucky to be unconscious, because this part would have been painful as hell for her if she hadn't been knocked out.
I was finally at the suturing part of the job, but I was nervous. I had only seen Camille do that a few times and knew that if I messed it up, she would end up stuck with a nasty looking scar on her beautiful thigh for the rest of her life. Since she was a woman, I assumed this was something she wouldn't want to happen.
First, I carefully opened the gash while sponging the blood with a clean piece of cloth, and took a look at the damage. No artery, no tendons had been severed either, but the muscle had been cut into quite deep. Seemed like I would have to suture the muscle first, but I was freaking out. I am not a goddamned surgeon.
Luckily though, I knew that for an internal suture like this one, I would need absorbable thread. This type of thread would eventually disintegrate and naturally disappear without needing to be removed. As you could imagine, I had no intention of cutting her leg open again to remove the sutures later.
I grabbed the right thread, and went to work. It was not really difficult to do, but to do it cleanly was different. I had little to no idea about what I was doing, but I needed to at least try to save her life. Keeping that in mind, I pressed on until everything was finally closed back up.
I cleaned the wound one last time before admiring my work for a few minutes. Then, I placed some bandages over it, to protect against bacteria and germs that were probably rampant in a cave like mine. I then proceeded to clean her other wounds which were a lot less serious but still needed some attention and disinfecting.
A wound on her lower back also needed a few stitches to properly heal, which I cleanly did. Once all the wounds were taken care of, I changed the water, boiled it with the rags in it, then used them to clean her body. I obviously avoided to touch anything my conscience told me not to, and didn't take her skirt or loincloth off.
If I did, she would most likely think I abused her in her sleep or something. Burned out, I sat near the campfire and lit a cigarette. I wasn't smoking much these days since I was worried about running out. If I smoked only one per day, I could hopefully last a few more weeks.
Hypnotized by my little glowing stick friend, I was lost in thought about what had just happened. She was still breathing, but she had taken a serious beating. Should I bring her back to her tribe in case she was living her last days? Unless they had some kind of antibiotics, sending her away was almost a death sentence. Or maybe she would end up needing an amputation.
I stared at her a bit more, finished my coffin nail and went through my first aid kit. I needed to make her eat some meds, but I doubted that simply putting it in her mouth while she was unconscious would work. The mouth to mouth technique from mangas was the stupidest thing I had ever seen, so my only option was force feeding.
I took a piece of rubber tubing from the medkit, and a big syringe meant for that purpose. Since she was so small, she didn't need a very high dose of medication so I split the pills in four. One fourth of a morphine pill, one fourth of antibiotics and a half dose of sleeping pill. I didn't want her to wake up, freak out and pop her stitches out.
I knew very well what her reaction would be after seeing me for the first time and didn't want to risk it. I took the small pieces of pills, put them in the syringe with a bit of water and walked up to my patient. I gently opened her mouth, delicately inserted the tube and made sure no air was being blown through the tube.
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If I had felt air, it would have meant that I had entered the respiratory tract instead of the digestive one. Doing it in the wrong hole here could potentially kill her by asphyxia. Once the tube was in place down her throat, I plugged the syringe in the extremity and gently forced the meds and water down.
I would maybe have to feed her that way for a while if she never wakes up. Hopefully she wouldn't go into a coma. With that done, I cleaned and sterilized everything in boiling water before packing everything up. Then, I went to my giant rock, lifted it and exposed my bag.
Seemed like there were no creatures strong enough to threaten me around here, so I increased the size of the hole and placed almost everything in it. My necklace, armour, sword, sniper, everything except my t-shirt, pants, socks, combat boots, Rambo knife and pistol.
After placing the rock back over the hole, I quickly went to work by making a proper, raised off the ground, bed by using flexible roots as cordage to weave something like a net or a hammock held by a wooden frame. I then padded the mattress with dry grass and weaved a small straw pillow.
It would have been better if I had an animal pelt underneath the grass but I hadn't seen many big animals so far. If I ever came across that hyena bear again, I would make a blanket out of it. Feeling like she was out of danger, I made myself another bed which I positioned not too far away from hers.
The next three days ended up being spent gathering wood and maintaining the fire while regularly feeding her more meds, water and some fruit puree. Toward the end of the third day, I learned something I didn't know. It would seem that if unconscious people are being fed, they will continue to have regular bowel movements.
What I am saying is that the little woman had defecated in her sleep, soiling her panties and bed. A pungent smell of excrement was floating all over the cave and couldn't be ignored. I felt guilty for stripping her, but if I didn't, she could develop rashes and infections.
Not only that, but the smell was intolerable so I took her skirt and loincloth off, cleaned them in the creek and hung them to dry. Next, I took some clean humid cloth and washed her entire body from front to back. She was a patient and I couldn't afford to be squeamish or feel guilty about it, so I did what needed to be done.
Doing that allowed me to confirm that she wasn't a kid despite her small stature. It also allowed me to confirm that everything down there looked exactly the same as women from my world. I then washed the cave floor where the liquid diarrhea had leaked through the bed, changed the bedding and laid her back on a layer of freshly picked grass.
Since she was now totally naked, I took one of my t-shirts from my bag and put it on her. She was so small, that a medium sized shirt looked like a small dress on her. I then made sure to maintain the fire and not let it die out. Knowing that she could wake up at any moment, I was anxious and kept trying to think of a way to prevent her from panicking at the sight of me.
After thinking back on my encounter with the masked man, an idea came to me. A mask was obviously the best solution. Since masks could also be scary, I needed one without any features, just like the one worn by the mysterious black masked man.
I took a piece of wood and began to carve it to fit my face. Inspiring myself from the one worn by my mysterious benefactor, I made a simple looking mask and used charcoal from the fire to paint it black. That way, my face should disappear in the dark and make it easier for her to look at me.
On the fourth morning, I tried my luck at fishing in the creek. I had been surprised to see something that looked like a fish while cleaning the girl's underwear the day before and really wanted to catch and eat one. I was already getting sick of my diet of fruits and dried meat at this point and really wanted some fresh meat. Since there didn't seem to be any red blooded creatures around, I was hoping fish would still taste the same as on earth.
I took some hooks and fishing lines from my backpack and turned some rocks around until I found something that looked like bait. After finding a bunch of what looked like slugs, I placed one at the end of my hook and threw the line in the water, hoping for a delicious meal.
The hook had barely even had time to touch the water, but a fish was already wrestling at the other end of the line. I was an experienced fisherman so I had experienced this before, but it was a really rare occurrence which usually indicated that the fish population in the river was healthy and rarely visited by other fishermen.
Worried that what I had hooked could potentially be a dangerous poisonous creature, I took a few steps back and pulled it out of the water. At first glance, this thing was exactly like the fish on earth, but I went on ahead and identified it to be safe.
Ekunay fish:
The ekunay fish is a species of freshwater fish usually found in small rivers. This species of fish can be found in the jungles of the central and south continent, but has also been artificially introduced in some lakes and rivers where the climate allowed its survival. Typical lengths of the ekunay fish vary from 25 to 65 cm (9.8 to 25.6 in), and weights from 0.3 to 3 kg (0.66 to 6.61 lb). Very tasty with ukhong and other vegetables, this fish is part of the diet of most carnivorous creatures as well as the natives of this world.
Highly excited by my catch, I immediately pulled my knife out and began to scrape the scales off of its body, cut its belly open and removed the guts and various organs. Once that was done, I then cut off two fillets and went back to the cave and grilled it over the fire.
As I was carefully overlooking the fish cooking process, a faint noise then attracted my attention. “Hmmmm” Seemed like the young woman was slowly waking up. Panicking, I quickly put on my mask and continued to cook my fish while keeping a close eye on her.
Maybe it was the smell of freshly cooked fish that was slowly waking her up, but I needed to prevent her from panicking at all cost. Popping her stitches out now could ruin all the healing she had went through thus far. I rapidly prepared one of the fillet with some nuts and fruits, placed them on a big leaf as plate and set it aside for her since she seemed to be slowly waking up.
I ate my portion of the fish while keeping a close eye on the girl who was gradually becoming more and more conscious. Eventually, she opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling for a while, then her eyes got attracted to the fire burning near her.
As for me, I was hiding deeper in the cave, shrouded in darkness. The girl then tried to get up but only managed to sit on her bed due to the pain in her leg. She curiously looked around, then instantly noticed that she was wearing something she had never seen before.
I had tried to put her loincloth back on as well as I could but having never tried something like that before, had ended up only rolling it around her waist. Anyway, my shirt was hiding all that needed to be hidden. The little woman tugged on the shirt, curiously inspecting the fabric it was made of.