Chapter 385: Red Alert

Arian had been doing fairly well. Sara was helping him train, mostly teaching him basic defensive manoeuvres to make sure he could hold his own. She kept telling him he was getting stronger, but he took that with a massive grain of salt. After everything that had happened, stumbling into a Panther village with absolutely no memories, getting robbed by the village's crazy lady, and almost getting assaulted... She viewed him as being as fragile as spun glass.It truly was not that bad, though! Sure, he forgot his past, but that also meant he forgot any painful memories attached to it. Ignorance was bliss, as far as he was concerned. He was completely fine.

Still, she aggressively encouraged him and threw a mini-celebration for every small achievement, which made his face turn violently red with embarrassment every single time. "You dodged that perfectly!" she would cheer, even if he had mostly just tripped backwards and avoided getting hit by sheer luck.

It was all going genuinely well. A nice, comfortable routine. Until...

He was bleeding?

Arian stood in the bathroom, staring in absolute horror. He was definitely bleeding. And he was not wounded! He frantically checked his arms, his legs, his torso—nothing. No cuts, no bruises, no internal injuries that he could see. Just blood showing up where there absolutely shouldn't be blood.

"Saraaaa!" he yelled, his voice cracking in sheer panic. "I am going to die!"

Heavy footsteps immediately pounded down the hallway. "What?! What happened?!" Sara shouted, skidding to a halt outside the bathroom door. She slapped her hands against the wood, sounding like she was fully prepared to kick the door off its hinges to assess the situation.

"I think—" Arian started, but then he froze.

Wait. A sudden, bizarre wave of familiarity washed over him. He blinked, staring down. Oh. He didn't know exactly why he knew what this was, but his brain suddenly supplied the necessary information.

"Never mind, I can deal with this," he called out through the door, his voice much quieter now.

He really shouldn't have known or understood the situation that quickly, but he did. It was a strange gut feeling. Actually, it felt more like muscle memory. An annoying, deeply ingrained monthly routine that apparently even amnesia couldn't wipe out completely.

He quickly sorted himself out, his cheeks burning for an entirely different reason now. Taking a deep breath, he awkwardly unlocked the door and stepped outside.

Sara stood right there in the hallway. Her hand was still raised in a fist from where she had been about to start pounding on the door again. She did not move, her eyes scanning him for missing limbs or stab wounds.

"Um," Arian coughed, rubbing the back of his neck and suddenly finding the floorboards fascinating. "I don't think I can train for at least five days."

Sara lowered her hand slowly, taking a few seconds to process the information. She stared at his flushed face, mentally calculated the very specific 'five days' timeline, and then her eyes widened just a fraction.

She, too, connected the dots pretty quickly. However, her brain clearly hit a massive roadblock, considering Arian did not possess the right equipment for that.

Her eyes subconsciously darted downward, moving toward Arian's hips and—

"Stop that!" Arian interrupted sharply, slapping his hands over his front before her gaze could drop any lower.

Sara blinked, pulling her eyes back up to his face. The tension left her shoulders, replaced by a slow, highly amused smirk. She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe.

"You are a very strange man, Arian," she said, shaking her head. "In a surprising, and good way, but still strange."

Arian smiled at her, taking a quiet moment to realise just how incredibly grateful he was towards Sara. Honestly, considering the sheer amount of danger he kept randomly attracting and the overall weirdness of his entire situation, any sane person would have thrown him out weeks ago.

If Arian were in her shoes, he would have thrown himself out. He was absolutely not worth the trouble. He was an amnesiac half-wolf hiding from dangerous people, and now apparently dealing with highly confusing biological surprises.

But Sara just went with the flow. She never judged him, simply accepting him and all his chaotic baggage without a second thought.

Just as he was getting somewhat emotional about how great of a friend she was, a sharp, blinding pain shot directly through his lower back.

Arian gasped, his eyes going wide. He winced hard, his knees immediately buckling under him. He folded in on himself, dropping into a tight crouch on the floor and clutching his stomach.

"Whoa, are you okay?" Sara was at his side in a split second, crouching right beside him. She hovered a hand over his back, looking more sympathetic than panicked. "You do know how this works, right? So, basically, it's when the lining of the—"

"No, no, I don't need the lesson," Arian forced out through gritted teeth, hastily shutting down the impromptu biology class.

But this didn't feel like just a bad cramp. The pain was sharp and escalating fast. His face was rapidly losing all its colour, turning a sickly, ashen pale, and a cold sweat broke out across his forehead.

He definitely felt movement down there. And it was an intense, uncontrollable shifting feeling that made his entire body shudder. It felt less like a normal bodily function and more like his anatomy was actively trying to rewrite itself.

"I—I might need a doctor," Arian choked out, his vision doing a funny little swim.

Sara's calm, educational demeanour vanished instantly. "A doctor? Right now?" She looked around the room as if a medical professional might conveniently pop out of the closet. "I can't leave you alone in this state!"

She had a lot of valid concerns about leaving a sweating, half-fainting guy alone on the floor while he was in excruciating pain. What if he passed out? What if something worse happened? What if he choked on his own saliva?? He certainly seemed like the type that would.

Arian would have gotten offended if he had heard her thoughts.

But then her eyes lit up. She had an idea.

Before Arian could even ask what her plan was, Sara simply reached down, hooked her arms under him, and effortlessly hoisted him up off the floor.

Under normal circumstances, Arian would have loudly protested being scooped up like a literal damsel in distress. He would have firmly insisted that he was a grown man, he was perfectly fine, and he could walk on his own two feet.

But right now, he was in absolutely no condition to argue. His legs felt like overcooked noodles, completely wobbly and ready to give out, so he just embarrassedly slumped against her shoulder and accepted his fate.

Sara moved as quickly as she could, "Just hang in there! We are almost there!"

"Mmhmmm!" Arian's voice was a pitch higher. His eyes closed shut from the pain. But soon a weird smoky smell filled his nose.

Oh no... Not her again! Why her?!

"Did I ever tell you that the village crazy lady used to be an experienced midwife?"

No, Sara, no, you did not!