David left his apartment and rushed toward the screaming just outside his window. Down on the ground a woman was being bit into, David rushed over and grabbed the undead by its neck, pulling it off her and throwing it onto the grass next to the sidewalk.

  He wasted no time smashing the full force of his hammer blow into its head as it tried to rise up and attack. After that he went to the woman, still lying there on the sidewalk. She had several bites and scratches all over her, and she didn't seem to be conscious, but he could see she was still breathing.

  David didn't really know how to dress someone's wounds, but he decided he'd try bringing her inside and wrapping them in the cut up shirts like he'd planned to do for himself. He bent down and picked her up, taking her in both arms, getting her blood all over himself. He carried her to his apartment and gently kicked the door open.

  He laid her down on the living room floor and shut the door. After that, he got some of the cut shirts and wrapped them around the worst of her wounds. Finally he got a towel and put it underneath her head. He'd considered cutting up more for the smaller wounds, but the bleeding had already stopped. He'd hope she'd heal like he did.

  Shortly after he sat down on his barely used couch, he heard a knock. David had heard them approach, it sounded like a woman and a child. After he opened the door, he saw that it was the same woman and child as before.

  The blonde woman stared up at him with her big blue eyes, not saying anything for a while, until she felt her son pull on her arm, growing impatient.

  "We came to help. I saw you help that woman, I looked through the window. I'm a nurse, I thought I'd try to help. Is she okay?" David walked back inside and gestured for them to come in. "She seems okay." He said, then continued. "If she doesn't bleed too much, she should heal on her own."

  The blonde woman looked at him in surprise. "What do you mean?"

  Now David looked at her surprised. "Her wounds should heal on their own. Didn't yours?"

  David looked at the bloody bandages around her neck and shoulder. He'd assumed she'd fully healed underneath. At the same time, the woman looked at where his clothes were torn, she noticed the skin was undamaged. Only blood remained on his clothes, there were no other signs of any wound.

  "It's good if we really can heal like that, but you might heal faster. I can still feel the bites on my neck and shoulder. How long did it take for you to heal?"

  David responded. "About ten or twenty minutes maybe, I wasn't really timing it." He thought for a moment and looked at the other woman laying on the floor. "Maybe we can try healing her faster. This is magic right? Maybe we can use healing magic?"

  He knelt down beside the unconscious woman and put his hands over an exposed wound. It was a smaller cut, likely from being scratched by the undead, so he thought it the most reasonable to try healing first. David tried sending energy out through his hands to heal her, but nothing happened, the energy never left his body.

  He tried laying his hands on her, feeling her blood on him. He focused on the wound, and tried sending energy in it to heal her. He tried sending energy into her body, but still, it wouldn't leave his hand. Trying to heal someone, it seemed, was more difficult than trying to harm them. If it was possible, he didn't know how to do it. After a few minutes of trying various ways of using his mana to heal her, David gave up.

  Though he'd noticed the small wound beginning to heal, to close over faster than any wound normally should be able to, he couldn't feel a connection between her recovery rate and the power in his hands.

  He got up and went to wash his hands, only stopping to turn and speak to the blonde woman and her son. "Guess I couldn't do it, but she seems to be healing on her own. Feel free to try yourselves."

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  After he started washing his hands, the woman standing in the doorway, still holding her son's hand, wanted to tell him that was absurd, that you couldn't heal someone with magic. But after everything that's happened today, she couldn't. Instead she walked over to the unconscious woman and knelt down, finally saying. "I'll try."

  She tried holding her hands above the wound, and even touching the woman near the wound, not feeling so brazen as to touch the wound directly like David had done. But she didn't feel anything. She'd felt something inside her since she'd had that dream, but she couldn't do anything with it. The only proof she had that anything changed inside her, other than that feeling, was the strength she knew she never had, when she fought off her husband.

  Her son sat next to her, waving his little hands and making noises, trying to make some sort of healing magic come out. But nothing happened for either of them. After the man had come back over, and watched them for a while, she gave up and said. "I'm sorry, I don't think I can heal her either, but you're right, the wound is healing on its own."

  She stood up, and remained standing there, in the middle of this man's living room, standing between an unconscious woman and a couch.

  "Well." He said. "Feel free to sit down." He gestured to the couch, and she sat down, with her son sitting next to her. She picked up her son and put him on her lap.

  The man sat on the other side of his dark brown three seat couch. After a moment he spoke again. "So, what's your name?"

  The woman smiled faintly and said. "Abigail, but you can call me Abby. And this is Issac." She said as she grabbed her son's hand and waved it toward the man. "What's your name?" She asked.

  "David." The man said. After a brief silence, David spoke again. "That was your husband right?" This brought her out of an attempted semblance that everything was okay, but she quickly regained her composure. "Yes, why are you asking that now?"

  David quickly responded. "You can go home if you want, you don't have to stay here if you need more time." Abby and her son had been crying since this morning, and she'd only gotten the courage to walk out the door after she saw the man carry away the injured woman. She'd wanted to help. She'd tried calling an ambulance for herself earlier, but not one answered. And after a few minutes she knew she couldn't keep wondering if the woman was okay, so she left. She brought her son of course, to keep him safe. But her face was a mess, and her eyes were red. She'd guessed her attempt at composure was pointless.

  "Sorry." She said, "I'm okay, and I'm glad you came to help. Me and my husband.... We were going to get a divorce. I'm sure Issac heard us yelling about it a thousand times. I got pregnant in senior year of high school, and Isaac's father left me. I haven't seen him in years, it's a nightmare to try and get any child support too. I met my husband when Isaac was four, but we rushed into marriage after we'd only been dating a few months and I-."

  Her voice caught in her throat and her eyes began to water again. "I guess I just wanted to have a family. But things haven't been very good for the past year or two. We weren't very close anymore, maybe we never were. But I didn't want him to die!" She was openly weeping now, and her son held her. He was crying as well, but not as hard as her.

  "He never did anything wrong, maybe if I wasn't working so much things wouldn't have been like this. Maybe we would've-." She paused for a moment and tried to contain herself before speaking again, her voice sounding hoarse and desperate. "Please, don't make me go back there while he's still-. I can't go back there, please."

  David sat there for a while, taking it in, letting her cry, not sure of what to say. Finally he only said. "You don't have to go anywhere."

  After the conversation was over, David wasn't sure where to look. He turned from the woman and her child and let them sit there, quietly sobbing in the corner. He looked at the asian woman laying on the floor, with a folded up towel under her head like a pillow. He watched her breath, heavy ragged breaths occasionally came from her chest, and her face would contort in pain. Otherwise she was peaceful, seemingly unbothered by the crying or the hard floor beneath her.

  David had considered laying her in his bed after patching her up. He'd decided he would if she didn't wake up soon. But for now he thought it was better to keep an eye on her, at least until her major injuries had healed. So far the minor wounds had healed, at least the cuts, so he was hopeful she'd wake up soon.

  Most concerning to David however, was the silence beyond this room. There was no more screaming, and there were no more cars starting up or tearing across the street. He wondered how many of those things were out there, and would occasionally steal a glance at the door or the window, as if expecting them to burst through.

  After nearly an hour though, sitting there waiting, he finally saw the woman's eyes open. First she stared up at the ceiling, her eyes focused, and then she turned and met his gaze.