The breath was knocked clean from my chest as we slammed into the ground. I sucked in hard as the arms of the giant man fell away from me, resulting in a violent coughing fit. I whipped my head around as the monster above once again screeched down at me. Tears distorted my vision as I watched the heads of the second and third peered over the edge. They looked around the lip to the canyon, one even jumping cleanly across to examine the other side.

They seemed to communicate back and forth in short, high pitched squeals and barks. The sun reflected brilliantly off their scales, an odd dichotomy to the terror they instilled in me. Despite their best efforts, they seemed unable to find a way down, and after many long minutes departed. The blue one was the last to leave, staring directly at me as its lips slowly pulled back into a snarl. As if angered it had to let me go. As if it was memorizing my face. I shuddered at the thought.

It was only after they were gone that I finally looked at the man who had carried me away from them. He was truly enormous. Despite laying there, it was clear he stood close to a yard taller than me. I was short by most standards, but this did not explain such an extreme difference. His shoulders had to easily be over a yard wide, and his legs were nearly twice my own girth. What was even more unbelievable, was he had appeared short next to the other giants he had fought.

I had barely reached the waist of the one that had held me to the side of the fight. How was that even possible? I had met many tall men in the CEF, but none had ever truly towered above me to such a comical degree. His right side had been split open in the duel, and the flesh around it was slowly developing a veiny texture, colored a deep and angry violet. The blood seemed unwilling to clot even where it sat on the ground. His brow was drenched in sweat, and his breathing came in short, labored bursts.

He had clearly been poisoned. What type it was, however, was completely unclear. I had never even heard of a poison that could cause the strange affliction to his skin. But what could I do about it? So little was known about the flora of the mainland that we received no training outside recognizing plants to avoid contact with.

Is there anything I can do for him?

But that thought raised a different question. Should I do anything for him? Who was he, and how did he come to find me? I remember the Cinereous falling out of the sky after it was damaged, and next thing I knew I woke up slung over this man's shoulder. Had he been saving me? Had he captured me? Perhaps he had caused the crash.

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A pained moan escaped his lips. Regardless of how we came to be in each other's company, he had saved me from the creatures that had chased us, and he had shielded me from the fall into the canyon we now sat inside. For now, that was enough reason to attempt helping him.

I looked around his body and discovered a sack underneath his right hip, now covered with blood. But even after placing my feet against his side, being careful to avoid his wound, I was unable to free it from beneath him. I would have to roll him over. But that quickly proved to be impossible. How much did this behemoth weigh?

But looking at him I remembered seeing him drop part of the armor he wore. Perhaps there was a way I could remove more? After several seconds of digging and searching in the gaps between the plates, I found a series of latches linking them all together. Slowly, I managed to drop one plate after another until, finally, I lifted away the section over his chest. Even without the armor, his size was astonishing. But now, perhaps, I would be able to roll him over and access the bag. I could only pray that whatever I found inside would be of use.

I struggled for several seconds before finally settling on pulling him over onto his side via his arm. With his wounded side now facing up, I could see the full extent of the damage. The purple tinged flesh wrapped fully around his side, from nearly over his kidney, to a few inches short of his bellybutton. The fresh blood continued to leak slowly from it, making me worry that he might bleed out.

I was shocked at what I found inside the bag. Flashlights, smoke grenades, fully loaded magazines, a radio and three CEF medical pouches. This was unsettling. He must have taken them off the other members of my flight. Why would he be collecting this stuff? He clearly didn’t have a gun of his own, so the magazines were completely useless to him. While he seemed to have a weapon taking advantage of some sort of engineering, the others he had spoken with seemed to be little more than oversized cavemen. No signs they used any sort of technology.

But was now a time to be worried about who or what he was? I didn’t have many options available to me. Even if I could find my way out of this canyon on my own, did I have any hope of survival on my own? If the creatures we had just escaped from were any indication, I doubted my chances. So that left only one option. Tend to his wound and pray he would wake.

I set about cleaning the opening to his cut, doing my best to hold my thoughts at bay.