Siles' Sassy Salvations

I wonder if I'm actually going to be able to make it out of here alive.

We had been on the road for about an hour, and already my arms were tired from carrying Aiko's wheelchair. It wasn't the first time I'd had to carry something heavy, but I do think this situation is a little different from the other times.

See, we're not dealing with something like a heavy suitcase or a large bundle of wood. No, this item I am currently carrying is *a person*. A person that weighs about as much as a small child, and whose legs don't function properly.

I guess she's a good weight for me right now.

Since leaving Siles, we've encountered zero monsters. Usually after we leave a town, there are monsters waiting for us out in the wilderness, but there still hasn't been anything yet. Maybe they're getting smarter?

"Hey...Aiko," I say, panting as I trudge along. "Are you sure that they wouldn't be able to follow us?"

She glances over at me with her large blue eyes and smiles weakly. "It was very difficult to get them all down before you came through the gate," she says in her soft voice. "I was afraid that some of them would see us, but fortunately none did." She looks back out at the endless blackness of the mountainside that we're walking up. "There's no way any of them could get up here quickly enough."

"What did you do?" I ask curiously. I never would have thought that Aiko would have such power - she seems so frail and small and helpless most of the time! Then again, maybe it's because of those things that she does have magic powers - who knows? Who knows what those creatures are capable of?! All I know is that they're freakin' terrifying! If Aiko didn't manage to take care of them...well, let's just say that if they showed up after we made it to the top of this mountain, we'd probably both be dead by morning.

"Well..." She looks slightly embarrassed as she answers me: "I made a big fire." And then she grins at me sheepishly. "And then I had all the monsters jump into it." Her face lights up with excitement as she remembers it; without noticing what she's doing, her hands start flapping about in front of her face like bird wings (this is one of those weird things that *some* people like to do when they're excited!). "It was so funny!" Then she blinks and puts her hands down again, looking guilty for having lost control like that. "But...they deserved it." She turns back to look at me with huge eyes brimming with sadness and guilt: "They deserved it for trying to hurt me...for trying to hurt *you*." Her expression melts into one of concern. "Were you hurt by them too?"