HERALD, lucas gabriel

Erika clasped her hands over her mouth as she watched him getting hurt by the monster. An immediate rush of guilt went through her as the orange color of his clothes turned into a shade of scarlet – very fast at that. Part of her of course thought that it was her fault that he got got. She was the one who distracted him unintentionally after all but she wasn't really aware of that until after the fight. ''I-'' she stammered, her voice cracking while her eyes watched him coming closer to her. ''You-'' she tried to say something but failed once again, slightly shocked by his sudden change of appearance. What once was a beautiful face was now covered in bruises, cuts, scratches and blood.

She gasped as he suddenly dropped to his knees and she did the same. Listening to her words a memory hidden at the back of her mind slowly started to crawl to the front – then it made click. First she was wondering what he meant as he said it was her, but now she realized what he meant. She finally recognized his face. The slightly curled blonde haire that was always longer than others, the blue eyes that shone like diamonds, but in her memory he wasn't the tall teenager he was now, no, he was a small kid, perhaps about her age. Even though the memory was still kind of fuzzy she knew why this whole scenario seemed so familiar – it had happened before.

Her expression softened as she smiled back at him, hands nervously hovering above the wounded boy. She moved towards him, snapping out of the memory that played before her eyes. Her brown eyes widened in shock as she realized how much blood he was losing, how much of that scarlet liquid was already coating the earthy ground. ''What to do. . .'' she mumbled anxiously, trying to move his head carefully. She remembered that the chimera was not just highly dangerous because of it's fire breathing abilities but also because it was poisonous and by the time now it must have already spread a lot. The poison was what worried her the most, not the injuries on his body. The damage done was too much for her to handle. How could she possibly deal with all this by herself? She might be able to heal the majority of wounds but what would she do about the poison? There was no nectar or ambrosia she could use, nothing that could help her except for. . .the herbs. Erika quickly took them out of her bag, or rather just dumped the content on the ground. She picked the ones that could help out and ripped them into tiny pieces. The realization that it wouldn't help in time came after that and she just threw the herbs away.

She took a deep breath to calm herself down. Panicing in a situation like that was not going to help her, definitely not. Her attention drifted back to him, dark eyes hovering above the angry red wounds that were visible under the ripped camp shirt. ''Don't you die on me!'' she half-yelled at him, her voice louder than usual but still calm although she couldn't hide the sob that followed. ''Don't-'' she wanted to repeat what she just said but couldn't bring herself to it as another sob followed. She did not want him to die because of her, because he saved her life – the life of a fool. It was her fault for going into the forest too late and getting lost, he shouldn't have to pay for it. Erika shook her head, her long, brown hair wipping at her face.

The image of her mother lying on the ground in the forest with poison running through her veins popped into her mind. She then closed her eyes and gulped, her throat suddenly feeling dry. But the image was visible behind the eyelids as it played over and over again. The moment as she could feel the warmth leaving her mother's body, any life left just went poof, the sadness that washed over her as she finally passed away after going through agony. . .all those memories suddenly rushed back to her. The daughter of Apollo was able to hold back her tears, nevertheless she had to wipe her eyes with the sleeve of her now dirty jacket to get rid of the tears that made her vision blurry.

She placed her hands on his chest where the most fatal wound was located at, her hands immediately covered with the warm liquid. Once again she took a deep but shaky breath, head turning towards his face. ''You're not allowed to die, understand?'' she told him with a sad smirk before turning her head back to focus on the wound. Closing her eyes she kind of spaced out while trying to concentrate. She started humming the hymn she always used when healing someone. The wound beneath glowed in a faint but bright light while she was healing it – or at least trying to. With every wound that started to close up and fix itself energy drained from the petit girls body. Erika blinked as the tiredness started to set in but clenched her teeth to fight the urge. Giving up was no option at that moment. He saved her life twice so the least she could do was to save his life.

Even though he was still lying in a puddle of blood she was pretty sure that the bleeding had stopped at last. Her vision started to get blurry as if tears started to gather in her eyes but she knew better, it weren't tears – it was just the tired body of hers after using up pretty much all of her energy to fix him up. She was glad that she was blessed with the ability to heal people, she was grateful to her father that he had gifted her with it. However, it was quite exhausting for the daughter of Apollo. Even though she had trained for a few years now and was quite good at it, she never had to deal with such a big damage. But she couldn't let go of him. Sure, they fought a lot and he was a jerk but he was just like the others – a living person who needed her help.

A smile flashed across her face as she looked at him, the blurry image of the blonde in front of her eyes. She quickly picked up a bunch of herbs from earlier and stuffed them ruthlessly into his mouth before finally passing out.