Chapitre 10: She Saved The CEO

"Khalil stop!" Amaya's commanding voice was heard above the gurgling sound of the waterfalls. She emerged from the water in her birth suit and sped towards the man lying in the shallow part of the river.

"Khalil, let's get him out of the water!"

"Kong, get my clothes from the other side and bring them here." She made a sound similar to that of the apes. Kong climbed a tree, grabbed a vine and swung his body to the other side of the river to fetch Amaya's clothes and bring them back here in a matter of two minutes.

Amaya hurriedly got into her clothes. She checked the pulse of the man and found it to be weak. She pressed the back of her hand on the unbandaged part of his forehead.

"He has a high fever. Kong, help me to place him at Khalil's back. We need to take him back to our house so I can treat his wounds." Amaya said with urgency.

Khalil growled in disapproval. First, his master prevented him from having his fill of the prey, and now she wanted that thing put on his back.

Amaya growled back at him, and he cowered. He obediently lowered his body so the man could be placed on his back easily.

Amaya took out the Swiss pocket knife her father had handed down to her. She cut three vines approximately a meter long and tied them around the tiger and the man's body. When she was sure that the man was securely fastened, she gave Khalil the go signal to run back to the shore.

She whistled before she climbed a tree, found a vine, and started swinging from tree to tree to follow Khalil and Kong. When she saw a blur of white below her, she somersaulted and landed on the ground. She whistled again, and soon Strata was in front of her. She climbed on her back, and they caught up with Khalil.

Kala and Cirrus died one after the other a year after her father's death. Kala gave birth to three cubs. She released the other two while she kept Khalil because she looked exactly like Kala. Similarly, Cirrus also died, and Amaya raised another wolf pup to accompany her. The pup was a female, so she named her Strata instead of Stratus. She was two years old, while Khalil was three.

It took them thirty minutes to reach the house.

"Khalil, bring him to Daddy's room." The tiger obeyed despite his dissatisfaction.

Amaya tidied the bed before commanding Khalil to move closer. She noticed that a black thing was strapped to his back. Amaya cut the vines. With difficulty, she removed the strapped item. She then asked Kong to help her move the man to the bed.

The man almost fell to the floor because Kong released his hold over him too early.

"You're getting old, Kong. You're becoming weak." Amaya scolded him. He foolishly grinned at her, showing her his yellowish teeth.

Amaya hurried out of the backyard and went to the garden. She took the leaves of the milagrosa and pounded them on a wooden bowl with a wood pestle until the sap started to leak out. She entered the storage room and opened a huge chest filled with cotton.

A few years ago, her father discovered that cotton plants grew abundantly on the other side of the island. They would go there once a year to harvest the flowers. They also replaced the filling of the pillows and mattresses with cotton, as that was softer and fluffier than the flower of the kapok tree. When her period started, her father meticulously weaved her an undergarment from abaca fiber and compressed cotton into a rectangular pad, which was used to absorb the blood that came out of her once a month.

Amaya sighed as she closed the storage room. The house was filled with her father's memories.

She took a wooden bowl, filled it with water, and hurried back to her father's room. She studied the man lying on her father's bed. He seemed to be the same height as her father, but his skin color was paler. His hair was not black like her father's, but gold.

Amaya untied the piece of cloth tied around his forehead to see a big wound that was still bleeding. The white cloth was stained with blood but soft to the touch. She gently wiped his face with cotton that she dipped in water to remove the blood that was caked on his forehead. His eyes and the right side of his face were swollen, and he looked very ugly.

Amaya squeezed the leaves over his wound until the green sap started to drip over his wound. She then covered the wound with a leaf. She moved to his thigh, where the white cloth was tied around it. She untied the cloth, and she found a layer of cloth soaked with blood. The blood was fresh. When she removed the finely woven cloth, she saw a big, rugged wound on his thigh, and the blood continued to ooze from it. She picked up a lot of milagrosa leaves from the bowl, squeezed out the sap from them, and let those drip over the hole in his thigh. She covered it with a lot of pounded leaves.

Amaya checked the man's body and arms. There were a lot of cuts and red spots on his chest and abdomen area and on his arms. He might have fallen or caught himself in thorny bushes. He was wearing a white upper garment that has no opening in the middle and has long sleeves that covered his wrists. She could no longer guess the original color of the upper garment.

She needed to remove the upper garment but did not know how. Her garments were fastened together by tying hemp strings. She pondered and noticed the shiny round objects lining up the front of the upper garment. She held one of them and yanked it hard. The shiny object was removed from the garment and pressed between Amaya's thumb and forefinger. Amaya studied it briefly before glancing at the upper garment. She saw that there was now a slit on the garment.

"So that's how it is being done." She smiled.