“My dear,” she touched his hair, straightened the lock that fell on his face, “well, don’t be sad! We got out!”

He was sweet and miserable, lying quietly looking with his blind eyes into nowhere, and a lump came to Karina’s throat, she forgot all her recent fears and thoughts about him. “He is a child, a miserabletormented child.”

“You know… if I didn’t know that today… well, or it was yesterday, I’ve completely lost time, you turned 25 years old… as my father says, I would never have believed! You are like a little one, and your facial expression is like that of an offended child. Well, or a teenager, well, not of an adult man! And you know… I don’t regret that I did so. That I helped you. Well… here, write me something? I can’t talk alone all the time.”

He obediently got up and picked up the already familiar notebook, which lately only served as a bridge of understanding between them. He handed her what was written:

“I need you.”

“My dear!” Karina laughed. “I’m not going anywhere and will be with you, you know, you are very, very pretty, you look like our mother, you generally look like a girl,” she laughed. “A guy cannot be so cute, it’snot surprising that both Lis and Arel molested you, they are off their minds, I would have molested you myself …if you had not been my brother.”

And he smiled at her, practically laughed. She managed to stir him up, cheer him up! She managed to pull him out, she saved him! She encouraged him now, and therefore, she will be able to restore him. Everything will be fine!

Karina lit a small fire.

“I need to collect more firewood before dark, and wash my clothes in this lake, and wash myself, my hair stinks of shit, I apologize for such details. It’s good that I have a bar of soap with me in my bag, I need to wash myself,” she looked at Nikto, “and wash you too.”

From the improvised means, Karina twisted something like a washcloth, without taking off her leather pants and jacket, (it was more convenient) she wiped all the dirt from her clothes. Then she forced Nikto to rise and go to the water’s edge, too, wiped him off, forced himto go into the water to wash his boots. He meeklyfollowed her instructions.