What stares back at me, is a dwarf. A bearded short and stout dwarf. A... dwarf... It takes me almost a full minute for my brain to comprehend this. A Dwarf is a... warrior? Dwarves haven't been warriors for over a hundred years. We have a disadvantage in combat due to our short stature, why would a youth such as this one put their life on the line for it?
And speaking of life... "Why was I on the battlefield?" these words escape my mouth. Or what I thought was my mouth, a high pitched yet gruff voice escapes my lips as confusion follows at my voice. Why do I sound like this; is it because of my wounds or another reason? The voice is both abnormal to me, but also "familiar" to me. Instead of it being familiar to me. It was rather; familiar to my body instead, as if it was instinctual is the best way I could put it.
Even though I never heard it before, I tune it out as if I heard it for my whole life. The name I heard before also had the same effect, "Jander" was it? No... Are they confusing me with someone else?
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alvin's point of view:
"Jander, Jander! Get up Jander!" I keep shouting Jander's name as I run, he suddenly just pulled me down into the brushel and passed out right in front of me. Gave me a huge shock he did, my heartrate is still very high and I am exhausted, but for Jander I keep running, and running.
My entire body is very heavy, as if I was wearing drenched clothing. I am tired from my wounds, but I can't afford to stop, not for me, not for Jander. I run and run and run until I am able to see a city in the distance, a large yellow wall fills my view. As quickly as it came, I go... My eyes are too heavy to keep open, and my body is exhausted.
I can't keep going like this... I begin to feel acceleration on my body, and a warm feeling as I succumb... I was so close, yet so far at the same time. I begin to fade out.
~8 Hours Later~
I jolt up and begin to panic once more; "Jander! Where is Jander?!" I immediately call out for Jander after realizing I'm in a medical centre. I hear heavy irregular breathing from the left of me. I turn over on the mat and see a white screen blocking my vision of the next mat over. I reach my arm towards it to part it from the wall and I see the familiar face of my comrade, Jander. I breathe a sigh of relief that he is here with me after I passed out in front of the town.
I hear footsteps from the outside of the room, and I quickly get up and start shifting positions before somehow ending up in a salute when a person enters. The person is an elf wearing a black robe and a spiked mask carrying a large bucket of tools, I assume this is the medic that will be tending to us.
"Stand easy soldier." The elf says while placing the bucket down and grabbing a roll of cloth. They force me onto the mat and kneel down before observing me. "Someone bandaged your wounds, not well though. This will hurt a bit, feel free to scream." and I was confused with what she was saying before I suddenly yelped as the pressure was removed from my wounds.
An unbearable pain came across my body as they applied new cloth to my wounds, it was as if they were holding a firestone to my wounds and burning them. I don't want to seem like a wuss and scream so instead of screaming I just let out a loud grating sound and a low growl.
"Many people are like you when they get this. They want to scream because it is searing their wounds, they said. But this is just a new application medicine the siren in the north created." The elf started to tell a tale to me while getting lost in thought, "The person who creates most of the medicinal products in this centre is called the Siren of the North, they are a witch which creates concoctions based off of herbs that grow in the mountains. We still get reports of a mysterious singing coming from the mountains but that's just her singing while picking up herbs."
I lightly shove her and she ends her story short. "Oops, haha. Well a cloth is now covering your wounds, it'll stop burning in a few minutes. Now the person next to you, I'm assuming they are your friend due to your screaming earlier? I'll start on their wounds next." The elf approached Jander's mat, kneeled down, pulled out a new cloth then worked on covering his wounds.
I sat down next to his mat and began to cry "silently" because of the state of his body and how much pain he must be in currently. I kept repeating "Jander... Jander... Jander..." over and over just sitting next to him until suddenly... His eyes open and he's just staring at me, he doesn't seem in pain at all? Does he not feel the pain from the burning? Did I make it too late, did I ruin his body??? WILL HE NEVER BE ABLE TO FEEL AGAIN?
I start crying harder repeating quietly that I was sorry until I can just hear, "Why was I on the battlefield?"