Dreamland

With Spartacius now being dragged out of the pit by Alice, the Lynx could finally put Cala down.

“Heal her!” - exclaimed the Lynx as soon as Cala was on the ground, but White Flower was already bowing over Cala, healing her.

She raised her eyes and spoke with a trembling voice:

“Strange, her feet are back; however, some wounds do not heal. Can it be...?"

Tina froze. Can it be that she died? That was what White Flower did not dare to ask.

"You think that she died during the heal?" - whispered the Lynx as if not daring to say it aloud, then shook his giant head - "No. I was watching her. The feet did regrow whilst the scars stayed. There must be something else in play here. She is still alive."

"Her heart is not beating," - said White Flower - "She might be alive but will die soon."

The Lynx shook his head:

"Not if you keep healing her."

White Flower swallowed, looking down at the amalgam of worms that were feeding on Cala's body. She turned to Tina.

"Help me, keep those worms away from my hand!"

She placed her hand on Cala's shoulder, momentarily free of wolshi, took a deep breath, and healed Cala again.

Tina watched the happening, careful not to step on any of the many worms that were wiggling all over the place, trying to find a better way to suck on Cala's body. How was she supposed to help the fairy? As one worm moved towards the fairy's ethereal hand, she grabbed it with a small cry and threw it away.

"Yaii! It bit me!" - exclaimed Tina, outraged

"Kill them!" - said the Lynx, not bothering to raise his head.

White Flower took a deep breath continuing to heal Cala. She could hear no heartbeat from Cala, but looking at the Lynx, she nodded:

"I can keep her... alive for some time."

She wanted to say 'in this status', but then she corrected herself. Sometimes people do not want to accept that healing cannot bring people back from the dead. She never expected her friend the Lynx to be one of those. He must have gotten very near to Cala in the short time.

She retired her hand, avoiding the bite of a wolshi, then put her hand in another place, healing Cala again.

As if guessing her thoughts, the Lynx made a small cut on Cala's arm with one of his claws. The cut healed instantly. He exclaimed victoriously:

"See?"

White Flower nodded. Yes, Cala's body was still technically alive, but if her heart was not going to start beating soon, then... She blasted one aggressive wolshi with a fire spell, then started healing again.

White Flower sighed and closed her eyes to feel her mana. She bit her lip angrily. She shouldn't have used her mana to blast the wolshi. Yes, with her deep mana pool and her fast mana recovery, she could keep the healing up for a while. But what about then?

She settled finally to grasp one of Cala's hands and heal through it. It was easier this way to keep the worms away.

Finally, Spartacius and Alice joined them.

Spartacius watched them inquiringly. A shiver passed through his spine.

Cala was lying on her back in a pool of blood and strange oozy liquids, with her hands and feet apart, being almost completely covered with a teeming population of smaller and bigger wolshi. Those snail-like creatures had various colors, mostly dark brown to black or even violet, with hard, elastic, and lubricated skin. You could see no eyes to them, only one round mouth on the lower side of their head, with several concentric circles of sharp teeth.

Cala's armor was almost completely corroded, with only small irrelevant patches remaining from it, revealing her tainted, tortured skin when not covered by the wolshi.

The arrow was still sticking out from her torso, keeping her body tense on one side, her right shoulder partly in the air. With blood continuing to pour out from her wound, being almost immediately sucked up by those worms in a feeding frenzy, the sloshing, slithering worms competing for the best places to feed.

Spartacius felt nauseated only at the sight of it. How was Tina enduring it?

As White Flower's healing was replenishing the blood in Cala's body, the blood puddle under her was expanding much more than what one human could have bled. They were practically walking in her blood.

"What's happening?" - wondered Spartacius.

The Lynx did not answer. He was picking up worms one by one with his claws cutting them into pieces, others covering almost instantly the freed place.

“We need to clean the wolshi from her! Alice, the arrow!”

White Flower pushed some wolshi that were trying to climb on Cala's hand away and continued healing.

“Is she not dead?” - wondered a horrified Tina.

When the Lynx answered, he could not hide some anger from his voice:

“No. We tested that she heals from wounds. As long as White Flower keeps healing her, she lives!”

Picking up a bigger wolshi, Spartacius wondered:

“But the wound at the eye does not heal. Neither those on her neck and torso?”

The wolshi in his hand turned suddenly, with surprising vivacity, and bit him. He screamed, shell-shocked. With an expert movement, Alice decapitated the small beast, brown ooze spreading from it over Spartacius' face, hand, and shirt. Tina watched the spreading ooze and had to run away to throw up.

The Lynx answered undisturbed:

"That must be something else. We tested, and she heals from fresh wounds."

Tina came back, sweeping her face with the back of her hand, and grasped another wolshi. The small, seven centimeters snail turned and bit her finger. She screamed and panicked, and a flame erupted from her hand, exploding the small beast in her face. She snorted, started spitting, cleaned her face from the brown ooze, and then took the next wolshi throwing it away before it managed to bite her, then blasted it.

She turned towards the cavern's entry where the giant wolshi was still struggling. It screamed a pained wail as if it would have felt the death of those small beasts. It was no longer trying to break in by force but was looking for another entry and came back regularly to check on them.

“What is that beast?”

The Lynx looked for a moment to the entry, then back to Cala.

“An evolved wolshi. He wants to protect his offspring. When inside him, these small beasts are infused by his magic and are exactly as hard as he is. Here they are weak. It takes time for them to evolve.”

Tina shook her head:

“No. It is not possible. I've seen wolshi before. These small beasts here, these are wolshi; that must be something else!”

The Lynx sighed.

“It is one. It evolved, like the tree that Cala told us that she found in that ghost's mansion. Normal wolshi can endanger small rodents, birds, and maybe some cats, but that one evolved, probably during the magic storm. It feels that we would be adequate food for its offspring and would very much like to get us. That might help some of them to evolve too.”

He turned to watch, satisfied that Cala's arrow was finally removed.

“See? The arrow's wound is healed. She is alive. Clean all those damn wolshi that are eating her alive!”

Alice put her ear near Cala's face:

“But why is she not breathing?”

White Flower raised a brow:

“Probably because of the wolshi that moves in her throat? I can feel at least one inside there! Look, do you see how it moves?”

The Lynx snarled:

“Remove it!”

Spartacius turned away and ran, but after a couple of steps, he started vomiting. Tina sighed, watching him with pity, then continued her work, eliminating the small beasts.

Alice raised her head to look at the Lynx:

“How?”

The Lynx shrugged.

“Cut what needs to be cut; White Flower heals anyhow, but please, be careful with the cuts."

As if he needed to say that! Alice nodded.

"Sure!"

She took a deep breath and started cutting.

The Lynx turned to White Flower:

"Give her a couple of moments to remove that, or don't heal the cut only when needed. How long can you keep up your healing?"

She grinned, cleaning the sweat from her brows with the back of her hand:

"About one hour, then I am done. I could lower the heal cadence, then I could keep doing it longer!”

"Until I fall!" but she did not say that.

“No, that is too risky. Keep on healing at the current pace. We need to have her start breathing before. Can you scan for any more wolshi?”

“Yes, there are more! Everywhere where they could get in. One is inside her ear!”

“Can you kill it with spells? Fire? Heat? Ice?”

“I would also fry part of her, but I can heal that!”

“Do that. Kill them all and heal her, again and again! What can be cut out, let Alice cut them out.”

After some fifteen minutes of work, they had turned her on all sides and cleaned all the beasts. Tina raised her head and looked at the Lynx:

“She is cleaned now, but she is still not breathing. What do we do?”

White Flower sighed as she had not dared to ask the question, but she was starting to feel exhausted.

The Lynx looked at Spartacius:

“What did she do there in the market when she revived Alice?”

Spartacius raised his shoulders.

“I do not know; I was in jail!”

Alice mumbled:

“I... I remember that she kissed me. Do you think this would help? Should I kiss her?”

Spartacius shook his head, and his eyes lightened up:

“No, no! She must have blown air into your lungs. She probably did CPR on you!”

“CPR?” - wondered the Lynx.

“Cardiopulmonary resuscitation. That is a revival method that is used in the real world. You help the lungs and the heart to fulfill their function until they restart working, or else the person truly dies.”

The Lynx looked worried but also with hope at him:

“Do you know how this works? Can you show us what to do?”

“Sure! About 100 chest compressions per minute, at about every 30 compressions, you need to blow air into her lungs. You can blow air through her mouth or her nose. Like this!”

He did that; he even blew air into her lungs, even if the image of the wolshi moving inside her throat came back to his mind. His face was green, but he still did it.

After two minutes, he was tired and let Alice do it. After another fifteen minutes, sweat ran down Alice's brow, but Cala was still not breathing.

White Flower was starting to feel defeated. She shook her head and spoke tiredly:

“I don't have much mana left" - she took a deep breath - "I think we are missing something. A bird had described it differently to me. She told me that she had done something else, like hurting her with a tool, something that strained her body!”

They all turned to look at her whilst Alice continued her work. The Lynx's eyes brightened when looking at her.

White Flower continued trying to make sense of that bird's story:

“Can it be that Cala had hit Alice on the sides with something sharp, here and here, and then Alice's body was bent, like this!?” - she pushed her breast in front, bending her back. Spartacius exclaimed, surprised:

“Oh! That must be some electroshock! Really? I don't know where she could have had such a device from?”

“You mean a device to make an electrical shock?”

“Yes. It helps restart the heart.”

White Flower turned to the Lynx:

“I could do that. I do not need a device. Should I try?”

The Lynx nodded:

“Do that!”

She put her hands on Cala's sides, and an electric shock forced a muscular contraction. Her torso raised and then fell back to the ground. White Flower nodded:

"Yes, something like this..."

They looked at each other hopeful, but the Lynx shook his head.

“Nothing! I hear nothing.”

Spartacius wondered:

“Try again. Stronger! It's what they always say in those films...”

Another, more powerful shock pushed Cala's chest up. The Lynx grinned happily even before her back landed back on the earth.

“Yes! I can hear her heart!”

Cala coughed and spat an oozy liquid. She opened her eyes and started to whine.

White Flower fell into the bloody mess, almost knock-out.