Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 271: Do You Want To Die?

Chapter 271: Do You Want To Die?

Bin An Sha carried me outside of the giant camping store and found the first tree he could to set me down under.

He opened his mouth a few times as I connected to the energy surrounding me. However, at the end of the day, he chose not to yell at me, something that I greatly appreciated at that moment.

The time would come when we were in a safe place, and the guys would start yelling at me, but right now, what I needed to do was heal myself.

"Well, that was dumb," said Rip as he leaned against the tree. His massive thighs were beside my head, and I took the opportunity to rest on him as the energy continued to flow inside of me.

I was happy that I had progressed enough that I was no longer worried about accidentally taking the life force from one of my guys because this was a pretty perfect moment.

The birds chirped overhead, and a gentle wind blew, caressing my face with invisible fingers. It wasn’t until the sound of a crow calling out that the scene was somewhat disturbed.

"Are you yelling at me too, Hei?" I asked as the snake on my arm completely came out of my skin and started coiling itself around the trunk of the tree. "Wait, snakes can climb?" I continued, dumbfounded.

"Yes, Hei is yelling at you. Yes, snakes can climb, and yes, they can eat annoying crows that disturb their owner’s peace," answered Bin An Sha as he went to sit on the other side of me, his back against a tree. "But he has a point. You shouldn’t have done that."

"I know," I sighed, hoping that I wouldn’t have to deal with this conversation just yet. But my health was being restored more and more with every passing second, the change more than obvious. "But I would like to point out that my plan would have worked out if she wasn’t a dead woman walking."

"And the EMP never would have happened if someone hadn’t pressed a single button. You can’t leave things up to chance. While you can plan for most things, you can’t plan for someone else’s level of stupidity," grunted Rip.

"Don’t worry, I won’t," I replied with a nod of my head. "But now that we have had this conversation, and I am very sorry and have promised never to do it again... can you just tell the others to skip the lecture?"

"Ha! You wish," chuckled Bin An Sha as he picked up a rock and started throwing it up and down, catching it absentmindedly. "I won’t take away the guy’s pleasure at watching you squirm."

"Mind you... there are a lot of other ways I wouldn’t mind making you squirm," added Rip, a hungry look on his face. "I am... not settled... about what happened."

"I understand. Honestly, I wanted to see how close to death I could get and still heal myself," I admitted. Hindsight being 20/20, that was a stupid thing for me to say.

Rage coursed through the men on either side of me, even though nothing really showed the emotion on the outside.

"I’m sorry," said Rip, his Country E accent becoming more and more apparent. It was hot, but this was not the time to be turned on by an accent. "Did you just say that you wanted to see how close to death you could get?"

"Well—" I stared, looking at Bin An Sha for help. Mistake number three for today. He was no help at all.

"I saw you," said the other doctor as he looked down at me. His face was completely devoid of emotions, but that almost made it worse. "You were on death’s door then. In fact, there were more than a few times that I thought I wouldn’t be enough to save you. Do you have any idea what that did to me? To have just found you, only to wonder if I was enough to save you?"

I swallowed, not knowing how to respond to that statement. I don’t really remember what I was like when I was first freed, but I do remember the pain.

"I’m sorry," I murmured softly. Picking at the edges of my fingernails, I tried to think about what I could say to make it better. But nothing came to me.

I think that Camp Hell gave me a disassociated feeling when it came to death. Scratch that; I know it did. I had faced death time and again. I had prayed for it every night, and every time, I was denied it.

Hell, I had dies once... shot in the face in my first life and still death didn’t seem to want me.

I was watching a shark documentary one time in Toronto, and the victim was walking down the beach at sunset. He was missing his right arm, and the shark almost managed to kill him by biting the limb off. If someone hadn’t known first aid and cut off the bleeding, he would have.

I remember him saying that the worst thing that he experienced wasn’t the attack itself... it was walking down the same beach a few weeks later and seeing his arm in the surf. The shark spat it out, and nothing was willing to eat it.

That was how I felt about death. It wasn’t that I was scared of death or anything like that... but to know that he spat me back out and wouldn’t even grant me the peace of eternal sleep was what got to me most.

"I might have to talk to Ye Yao Zu," I admitted with a long sigh. I had been blocking out most of what happened to me since I woke up in this world, and I think it has done more harm than good.

"Do you want to die?" asked Rip. His voice was soft as he reached down and pressed a hand against the cheek that wasn’t against his thigh. "Is that it?"

I took a moment to think about his question... I wouldn’t debase it by giving a knee jerk answer. The man deserved the truth... he more than deserved it.