Bugs in the system

Mac twisted and turned on the snow cave floor.
He had woken seconds ago with a strange taste in the back of his throat, feeling terrible. He quickly got up on his feet, but almost fainted in the movement. He felt dizzy and cold. Freezing cold.
"What the hell is this?" he shouted. “What have you done?”
Njoro woke to the angry shouting of the Savage.
"What have you done to me?" he kept repeating.
She hesitated for a moment, then she sat up and lit the walrus fat lamp.
The Savage was standing upright in the cave, his body swaying from side to side. She could sense his confusion and desperation immediately.
"What do you mean?" she asked in her soft voice.
"What kind of witchcraft is this?"
"None that I know of. What exactly is the matter?"
The Savage sat down on the floor again.
"Hell, I don't know", he shouted. "Something is just not right, and whatever it is I'm sure you got something to do with it."
Njoro wasn't used to being exposed to aggression and accusations in this way, but the fact that she could feel his aggression was entirely rooted in fear, it made her feel calm and somehow on top of the situation.
"Now, I really don't know what you're talking about”, she said, “but if you let me make up a fire I can make us some hot water with peppermint leaves, and you can try to tell me what exactly is wrong."
"The hell I will! You'd probably poison me even more, and why on Earth would I give away anything to you, young witch? You're my prisoner, don't you forget about that!"
Njoro almost felt like smiling, but didn't.
"Very well", she said, then shut her mouth.
The Savage, who had said his name was Mac, got to his feet again, then sat down immediately, and then he started fumbling inside his sack.
He dragged out a container made of some very un-organic looking material, and took a sip of its liquid contents.
"There." he said to the cave wall and took a deep breath. "It'll do the trick."
Njoro said nothing, but merely looked at him with her deep gaze.
"I'm sure it will", she thought to herself and whoever cared to listen.
After sitting down for a while, the Savage called Mac got a distant look in his eyes, then leaned his upper body against the cave wall and said:
"I'm watching you, so no tricks."
A few moments later she could hear him snore.

At first she sat completely still, puzzled by the situation.
Here she was in the middle of the ice. Pi had disappeared. Her beloved friend Mungpuk unwillingly crossed to the other side far too young. Murdered in cold blood.
The awful man behind the attack had - without warning - turned into a scared child overnight, but was still trying to act out his overdeveloped masculine control attitude and imagined authority to her face.
Why?
She had The Vision. One of the strongest in The House of Lhasa, except maybe among some of the Elders. She could see straight into the soul of the rude, unbalanced, and now also quite frightened and strangely acting captivator. Easily.
But why couldn't she see Pi or any traces of him?
And why hadn't she seen all of this coming? It was her job to keep in touch with the Innerworld and to lead her entourage safely along the Path. This also meant that it was her job to know of such dangers, and to warn everybody when they were on the verge of disaster.
She had failed in this.
Why?
As she sat there letting the sudden helpless and a little self-pitying emotions pull and tear her insides, the Savage called Mac suddenly sprung to his feet with a moan.
Then he fell flat out on the cave floor.
"Oh dear", Njoro said.
She moved over to him and pulled him over to a reindeer skin.
It was the same place Mungpuk had been sleeping on the night of the attack. There were blood stains on it, but it couldn't be helped. She had to use all her physical strength. Mac the Savage was a large man.
She only got him halfway atop his new bed, but decided it would have to make do.
She went outside the cave. The weather had brightened up and the wind stilled. It was still biting cold, but the air was clear and the blueish light in its brightest hour and at its most intense for the day. That still meant it was dim as the early dawn would be back in Lhasa.
It was strangely quiet. At first she thought it was because the storm that had raged for the last days finally had stopped roaring, but then she sensed something else. Something terrible.
The dogs.
She rushed over to the other side of the cave entrance where the dogs had taken refuge during the storm.
All the dogs had died. Frozen to death in their sleep.
This tragedy was more complete than she could have imagined.
Njoro knelt down quietly in the snow.
She put her palm on the head of one of the dogs, and closed her eyes.
As she followed the spirit-trail of her defeated helper and companion, she arrived at an image of the Savage Mac once again.
He was behind this, too.
Was there no end to the damage a bewildered soul like his could do to his surroundings and fellow creatures? His destructive behaviour seemed to have no limits. How could he kill if it wasn’t out of necessity for food or survival? How could beings like this exist at all?
She'd been taught all her life that everything in the world was dependent on balance in order to exist. That every piece of reality had to have an inner balance, or at least to seek it - in order for it to find its place in the system of life. Every living thing, even every tiniest particle in the building-blocks of reality had to be whole in order to be able to find peace within this Universe.
Balance, and purpose.
So how could this creature called Mac be so totally polarized and out of touch with his own soul, barging into their corner of reality and slaughter pointlessly? It was a complete mystery, and a mystery that provoked a rising anger inside her.
Anger was something she didn't want inside her.
She stilled her heart, and focused on her lungs breathing the chilly, fresh air. She got to her feet, picked up the bag of snow, and returned to the cave.

Inside, she made a fire to melt the snow.
When the water was boiling, she poured some of it over the dried peppermint leaves in two wooden cups.
Then she gently woke her captivator.
"What are you doing? Get away from me!"
His voice was hoarse and weak, and his eyes were glass-like.
"I'm giving you something to regain your strength", she answered, and held the cup with the steaming brew under his nose.
"And why the hell would you do that?" Mac the Savage said worried.
"Because without it, you will probably go back to sleep, and I think it's not so wise to lie here without any nutrition in your body."
Mac looked at her with a blurry stare. She could feel the heat from his face and breath on the back of her hands holding the cup. His body-temperature had been rising. It, too, was out of balance now.
"Drink it.", she said in her soft, but now also quite determined voice.
Mac drank.
She put down the half-empty cup. Then she pulled away the rolled-up reindeer skin she'd used to hold his head high enough to get him drinking. As she did, she supported him with his left hand so he wouldn't fall back.
He already slept when his head reached the floor.
She moved over to the fire and topped up her own cup with some more peppermint brew. Then she cut a few slices of meat from the salted and dried lamb's leg they had been carrying along.
No point in rationalizing too hard anymore now that she was the only one left of the entourage. Especially considering the very dim future that lay ahead.
It felt like heaven, and a most welcome variation from the bear meat.
After eating and drinking she could feel some of her vitality coming back. Her system had been quite overthrown by the terrible events of the day and night before.
The Savage slept.
He didn't look good.
Not that he ever did.