That may have been the first time I saw a man cry.

I attributed it to his severe wounds and exhaustion, and due to my own lack of sleep I didn’t think much of his words. Besides, my brother distracted me. He was freaking out for no other reason than seeing the stranger freaking out.

“Wow, man, calm down! You will be perfectly fine, really!” he said, too fast and too high to do anything other than making things worse.

He tried to approach the man, who immediately dragged himself away, using mostly his arms behind his back, so fast that it seemed like he wasn’t hurt at all.

When the stranger talked again, he sounded more demanding than wary, the assertiveness somehow back in his tone. “How. Did. You. Move. Me?”

“How did you recover from those wounds?” I said. Not an actual question but a hint of the answer: We are special, like you.

“Yeah! And so fast!” my brother added in an accusing, victorious tone, as if this was about who was breaking more laws of physics.

“I’m an abiding,“ the stranger said casually, as if that was supposed to mean something to us. As if surviving death was just a normal thing for a whole… race? profession? Whatever those people were.

Decklan’s voice became hesitant, clearly torn between suspicion and curiosity. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh. You’re from the desert, aren’t you?” the stranger said. “Is this the desert?”

“What part of this flooded cave in the middle of the forest looks like the desert to you!?” My brother was being too loud and sort of dragging some sounds, just like he—and mom, and our cat—always did when exasperated.

“Decklan, don’t be mean,” I interceded. “He’s disoriented, maybe he doesn’t even remember that there is a forest out there. He may look fine but he has lost a lot of blood. And I can’t even imagine how awful it was to be trapped like that.”

Then, after a small pause, I faced the stranger even though we couldn't see each other clearly. “I’m Mirtala, this is my brother, Decklan. We are from the nearby town, Crescentia. In the middle of a forest, remember? And the closest to a desert are the pastures in the dry season.”

The stranger frowned, thoughtful.

“I’m Fransic,” he said, after a second.

Was it just me, or that was an odd name? He was probably from one of those distant countries whose capital cities had ruined my otherwise good grades at school because I couldn’t learn them to save my life.

“And these abidings are like a cult in the forest?” Decklan asked, happily surrendering to curiosity now that everyone around him was being so polite and calm. “How is it that there are no rumors about that? There would be rumors… not that I would know, since we’ve never had a cult in town before... Not in the whole country, actually… But there is no way a cult could live in the forest without someone noticing.”

A cult. An urban legend from who knows where was the first explanation he could think of. That kind of thing was the reason why mom didn’t want him to watch tv anymore.

“No, it’s just the name we give to the people with enhanced healing,” Fransic explained. “Where…?”

I found myself interrupting him. “Who is ‘we’? Is it a group who knows about those kinds of abilities?”

“Oh,” he interjected, like he had just figured everything out, but at the same time… what was that in his voice? Worry? Guilt? “You are Unaware.”

I didn’t understand what he was saying, but now I was sure that the tone was regret.

At the same time, he had relaxed so suddenly that I expected him to fall like a ragdoll. “I’m sorry,” he said, after a second that he probably used to choose his words. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble. Thank you for helping… I still don’t know how you did it, but thank you. I shouldn’t have been so defensive.”

“It’s okay,” I started, but my brother was talking at the same time.

“Why? I mean, sure, you almost died and all, but we helped you, why would you be defensive? It's not like we were about to put you back there now that you are better. It would be way easier than helping you out, you know? Just…” Decklan did a throwing gesture and I was glad that it was still dark enough to hide it from Fransic, “But that would have been pointless.”

The stranger rolled his shoulders to fight a shiver. “I… I know. I apologize. It wasn’t personal, I just didn’t know what to think.”

To my surprise, I sensed that my brother nodded. “Those friends of yours who gave a name to the super-healing, are they special too?”

Decklan was determined to believe that our ability made us special, like the superheroes on tv. Learning that it was possible to survive what that man had survived should have felt like an epiphany for him, but the existence of other people with unusual skills? He had managed to sound almost neutral, but I could feel the tension of expectancy in his muscles. He was even holding his breath.

“You ask if they are abiding?” This time Fransic said the word with caution, and thought for a second before saying anything else. “There aren’t many abiding. But everyone has their own skills. Just because they aren’t uncommon doesn’t mean they are less special.”

“Yes, I do want to hear it all about abilities, but that’s not what I meant. Are they friendly? Like… They didn’t throw you from a ladder to see if that would kill you, right?” As he talked, Decklan had pointed at the sharp rocks.

The man tensed so much and so fast that I moved forward and held him by the shoulders before thinking. “It’s okay. You’re fine. You made it.”

Then, at that moment when I should have withdrawn my left hand and apologized for squeezing his injured right arm, I finally understood just how enhanced his healing was.

“You are…” I paid attention now, felt the rest of the wounds with that sixth sense that I couldn’t believe other people didn't have. “You are perfectly fine. Like it never happened.”

I wasn’t comforting him now. I was astonished.

“It would never have worked if I had remained…” Fransic cleared his throat, instead of finishing the sentence. “Nothing hurts as bad as healing around a sharp object. You did more than save my life.”

“You're welcome,” Decklan said. “If you wanna show your gratitude tell us who threw you there, so we can avoid them.”

“I don’t think they’ll come back to your…”. He interrupted himself abruptly, just to immediately add: “To your town. And it’s not like they have a problem with you anyway.”

“They will, if they find out that we can move stuff.”

“That we can move it without touching it,” I clarified, just in case.

“I was sure that you actually… held me,” the stranger said slowly.

“That was to coordinate efforts,” my brother said.

“And… you let go when I was too high?”

I didn’t remember doing that, but yes. At least two of the stalagmites were too high to do otherwise. Because at that point we were in sync and I wasn’t feeling with my hands anymore, I hadn’t even noticed when the contact was lost or if it was back.

It turned out that Decklan had been in the same situation: “Well, I’m sure we can’t fly, so I guess we did. It was too dark to see.”

The stranger made an amused sound, and right then I knew that Decklan had finally found his first actual partner in crime. I made the mistake of hoping that now he would stop annoying me with his crazy theories.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my brother; growing up with him had been awesome. But I really needed to study for the admission tests, and having a break from his shenanigans at that precise moment would have been a blessing. Of course, that wasn’t what was about to happen, but I had no way of knowing that we were just about to invite a fugitive into our home.