Once Dean realized the state of that boy, he ran immediately after him, crouching beside him and looking at his eyes.
"H-Hey, what's going on? Are you still awake? Who the hell did this to you!?" The boy was desperate. The last time he saw someone so hurt before was when he witnessed the slaughtering happening on Refuge Sarah during the Dread's raid.
Seein the boy so harmed like that remembered him of that time when he was forced to see all those people being eaten alive. Those were the most traumatic moments of his life.
Dean felt so much the impact of that situation, that a sharp pain appeared in his chest and he teared up.
"Please... take me out... They are coming." The hurt boy said in a weak and low voice.
"Can you say to me exactly who did this to you?" Dean put his hand on his shoulder, trying to find any hint of life or will inside the boy's eyes, but he couldn't find anything.
"Hey, are you hearing me at all? What's going on?"
The boy was mumbling incoherent things in response, which Dean couldn't understand at all. His mind was crumbling at that point, maybe even more destroyed than his body.
Dean gritted his teeth once he saw the state that the boy was in.
'For how long is he like this? Why didn't he just crawled to get out of this place? Also, the people who got him beaten like this must have had personal issues of some sort, because they didn't steal the horses. They got here just to harm him. There must be a reason for these things and I will surely find it out. I am pretty sure that he is a member of our group, though. Rick won't get any happy when he sees what happened to him!'
Deciding to ask more questions to the boy once they left that stable and went outside, Dean put the seal on the horses and then walked them off the stable. He put the weak body of the boy on top of one of them, hoping that he would hold on firm enough at least to bear a walk in the horse.
Dean needed to be discreet there, and now even more. The problem wasn't just be caught off guard with those four horses, but also with a kid in that physical and psychological state. People could end up mistaking things and he would get in a lot of trouble.
Since they were in the middle hours of the night, people would still last some time to wake up. The usual for them to wake up was 6 am and forth. The reason for this was because the last three or four hours of the night had low activity of the Dreads as well, which helped to keep their productivity, even though it was still quite dangerous.
Dean was a bit anxious to be walking out of Refuge Oslan alone at that time. Dreads were common to appear at that hour and he didn't want to enter in a battle against a strong monster and get beaten just like that boy.
'Oh, right! A Dread could have done it with him as well. An explanation for them not to eat the horses could be because they don't have too much "Chaos" within their bodies, so they weren't worth the risk and time. But that's just a guess. These horses are enhanced with "Willpower", after all, and it is still a quite nourishing meal for a Dread to become stronger.'
After some minutes of walking, Dean finally stopped. He looked back to the refuge he just left and measured the distance. It seemed that it was enough not to be noticed at night.
Since it was so dark and his heart was beating like crazy, Dean didn't feel sleepy, even though he had been sleeping less than necessary those last six whole nights. He didn't enjoy any breaks as well.
After patrolling for a while, making sure that no one could ever see them even if they went out of their houses, he decided to rest for a while and go talk with that boy again.
He was still curious about him and he needed to be sure that he didn't do a mistake and took the wrong guy with him.
'An interesting plot twist would be if he was the real robber and the other member just gave him a lesson.' While thinking about good plots for stories, he took the boy from the horse's back, lying him on the ground.
Dean took some water and gave it to him, which he drunk in seconds.
'Hey, he didn't drink water for how long? That's amazing... He kept on going even in such a situation. Admirable, but still saddening.'
The next thing that Dean did was to give him some food. He had some ration. It was something that he had been eating these days. It didn't taste so bad, but it wasn't better than his mother's cook.
The boy also ate all that ration as if it was a meal of a five-star restaurant.
"Hey, boy..." Dean crouched in front of him, looking into his eyes. They were somewhat more alive than before and raised once he heard Dean's approach.
"I am Dean. I am here just to help you, ok? What's your name?"
"Sure. My name is Paul." His voice, of course, was still quite weak and hoarse, but he was at least talking.
"Ok, ok. Paul is a neat name. You have about the same age as me, I suppose, so we can understand each other very well, right?"
Paul nodded.
He was a boy with a circular face and had freckles on it. His skin was tanned and covered in purplish bruises. He had chocolate-colored eyes and dark brown short hair, very short. His height was about Dean's, but he was five centimeters shorter; he had 170 centimeters of height.
"Paul, I need you to answer something to me. Who are the people who did this to you?" Dean stared at him with a gentle look, but, before he could answer, Paul gasped, widening his eyes.