Eternal Winter

"G–Ge, it hurts…"

Those feeble words that sounded weakly beside his ear managed to snap He Juan back to the present, it was as if someone had yanked his head out of the water. 

He hurriedly lay He Xie on the ground and pressed his shaking hands against the grievous wound on the young man's chest. How ironic, for this was the first time He Juan had ever been so terrified by the sight of blood, even more so than when his parents had died a decade ago. 

"He Xie, He Xie…!" He Juan rasped with desperation of a dying man clutching onto a lifeline. "Stay with me. Don't close your eyes, please!"