Himawari watched Nova walk off to the others.
"Haven't slept in a month? What does he mean by that?" She whispered to herself.
She didn't have a mirror to see how she looked like, when she remembered there were a couple of metallic objects in her backpack. One of them was a very shiny, and unused, pocketknife. She got this from her father. The pocketknife was in the family for generations, perfectly well preserved thanks to polishing it with special scented oil. It kept it sharp too. Should the need arise, and only then, would she use it.
"Himawari, this is yours from now on."
The seventeen year old girl looked up at her father, blinking, not knowing what to say.
"Just take it," he said with a calm voice. "It's alright. It's seathed now and cannot do you any harm now."
"It's not that," Himawari said, "Why do you want to give it to me now?"
Her father sighed and looked away. It took him a moment to respond. "It's been passed through our family for generations. Usually from father to son, but I am happy with just you and would like to keep it in the family. Therfor I am giving it to you." He turned back to face Himawari. "Also, I have a feeling you might need this some day. It might be soon... or not. Eitherway, I would feel safer if you have it."
Himawari sniffed a bit at the memory. It had been 7 years since she had that conversation with her father. Looking back at the whole conversation, it gave her an odd feeling. It was a funny, yet terrified feeling.
How could her father know something like this would happen? That the world would fall to her knees, while suffering from the Consumption?
She didn't think about it any further and snatched the pocketknife out of her bag. She unseathed it and held it so that she could see her own reflection. Her eyes shocked her. The eyes were completley bloodshot, the whole white of the eye was red and... It just seemed as if her eyes were suffering from some kind of infection.
She started to panic and quickly seathed her knife, jamming it back in her backpack.
Himawari calmed down a little, thinking to herself: Calm down, it isn't the Consumption, your eyes wouldn't look like that if you were changing.
She shook her head.
Whatever the case, this isn't good at all. For whatever unknown reason my eyes look horrible.
Something else caught her attention in the corner of her eye and she looked back. She saw the fox anthropomorph they rescued earlier, making his way to Nova.
She was glad that he seemed OK, apparantly the sleeping gas was wearing off. Which made her wonder how the other furry creature was doing.
Himawari stood up and moved towards the vehicle of Nova, remembering he put the other rescued creature in there.
She saw the ocelot having small spasm attacks and fits. Himawri wasn't too worried, she knew some people (and apparantly these anthropomophs too) could have some kind of side-effect to the sleeping gas.
Himawari crawled next to the cat-like creature and aided him, trying to calm down the spasms and preventing form hurting himself by restraining him safely, pinning him to the seat of the car.
now all she had to do was wait for the side-effects to wear off and him to wake up completly.