Learning the Ways of the Night from the Wolf - Chapter 5 - Altruism

‘Why isn’t it moving?’

But contrary to Tina’s overwhelming terror, the large creature merely panted, doing nothing more. It had seemed to try to rise, but as though the effort was too much, it couldn’t move as it wished.

‘…..’

Tina held her breath and watched the creature before her.

After a little more time passed, Tina realized that the dark creature was far smaller than she had first believed.

Had she seen it wrong before?

What had looked as massive as a great boulder now appeared no larger than a dresser. For a moment, Tina briefly wondered, ‘Did it shrink on its own?’, but she had never held much conviction in her own judgments and quickly let the thought go.

“It looks like a puppy.”

Tina murmured in a small voice, watching the gray fur tremble faintly. The little creature appeared to be injured, just like her. It couldn’t even open its eyes and merely panted. and more than anything, its leg must have been hurt. It couldn’t put any weight on its right foot.

‘Was it abandoned by its pack?’

Tina studied the creature before her with a gaze touched by curiosity. Before she knew it, the fear and tension from moments ago had faded entirely.

Then, with her guard lowered, Tina reached out unconsciously toward the creature…

“Grrr.”

The little creature bared its teeth in warning. At the same time, its eyes which closed all this while snapped open, revealing fierce red irises that burned with a fierce light.

Tina pulled her outstretched hand back at the growled warning. Yet somehow, she found she could hold the creature’s gaze without flinching.

The small creature glaring at her now appeared to have already poured the very last of its strength into that display of wariness. It didn’t seem to have enough left to do her any real harm.

“…..”

Tina held its gaze in silence. The beast’s red, gleaming eyes and the razor-edged tension radiating from it. Surely those eyes couldn’t feel what she felt, and yet there was an odd sense of kinship settling over her.

“You’re scared too, aren’t you.”

Tina spoke at the end of a long silence. She didn’t think the creature could understand her words, but they came out as naturally as breathing.

And it might have been her imagination, but Tina felt the tension drain from the creature’s red eyes at her words. Perhaps, she thought, it too sensed that strange kinship.

But that was as far as it went. The red eyes that had seemed to grant her their gaze, watching her with a look almost gentle, began to drift shut once more. At the same time, its breathing slowed, and Tina knew without having to think.

The light of life was fading.

“No.”

Tina moved as if by instinct. Agonizing pain surged from her injured left leg, but she could not stop her body from pushing forward. She crawled to the creature teetering on the edge of death and laid her hand upon it.

“No. No, don’t—”

The body heat that reached her through the contact was far too cold. Tina, gripped by panic, repeated the word “no” repeatedly. The fear that had briefly receded was tightening around her throat once more.

Tina stretched out her arms and pulled the small creature close. Then she wrapped the ball of fur, which felt even smaller now than before, maybe from the cold, in her thin clothes as best she could.

She didn’t know where this altruism had come from, when she herself had just fallen off a cliff in the middle of a winter blizzard.

But she couldn’t just leave it. She couldn’t let this child, wounded and abandoned by its family, just like her, close its eyes alone.

“It’s okay. I’ll save you.”

Tina said, hugging the bundle of fur tight against her chest. Her lips trembled from the cold, but somehow the promise to save it came out in a voice that was perfectly clear.

Tina wanted to save this small creature. Just as she herself longed to be rescued, she wanted to give this child hope.

“It’ll be all right.”

From the creature she held close, she could feel a slow heartbeat.

Slower than a human’s, but steady and unmistakable through her skin, a rhythmic pulse. To Tina, that pulse felt like permission. Like an answer the small creature was giving her.

“I’ll stay with you.”

In the driving snow, Tina repeated the words like a prayer.

It was much later when the fog blanketing the winter mountain had gradually lifted and the late sun finally showed its face that Tina opened her eyes again.

“Found her! She’s over here!”

Someone shouted down into the crevice, and the cliff top, which had known nothing but the howl of wind, erupted with noise.