Author's Note: This is, essentially, Across the Sun's prequel (following RSE-canon, not ORAS). Most of the events from this story occur before the events of Across the Sun, some occur during, and some occur after. However, I would recommend reading the original story before this one. It will give you more insight about May's character in particular—her motivations, for example. (If you are sensitive to reading about mental illness, this is your warning.)

The story will update every Monday (with much longer chapters!).

Prologue

-Seven Weeks Since Disappearance-

It felt like a thousand needles stabbing into my feet whenever I took a step, but I took some slight pleasure in the pain as I paced back and forth across the rotting floor. It hurt so badly that with each step, a giggle erupted from me, but it was only when my legs gave out beneath me that I burst into continuous laughter.

I would try to take my shoes off, but my feet swelled so much from being on this damn half-sunken ship that I couldn't. Not to mention my fingers pruned from the water to the point that I couldn't feel them anymore. I probably hadn't been able to for weeks.

But all of that pain, even the tingling of my fingers, reminded me that this wasn't just a dream. I was still alive.

When I stopped laughing, mainly because I couldn't breathe anymore, I sat up on my knees. The ship creaked even with that slight movement, but by some miracle, the floor didn't give out beneath me. I explored every inch of this wreckage since I came, and that this place wasn't as torn apart as the rest of it had to be fate. It was like I was called here.

I crawled across the floor to my stash of food, and I peered into the sack. Mostly nonperishable items: nuts, canned fruits and tuna, and bottles of water that I refilled with every rainstorm. Every now and again when a lone fish swam up through the ship, I'd snag it and eat that, but it was too damp to start a fire here.

I peered into the nearly-empty bag… a laugh burst from me again, and, with a grunt, I threw the sack against the wall beside me. And as it crashed against the wall and fell to the floor, I screamed. My voice broke several times from disuse, so it sounded more like a jungle man's roar than anything else.

I was still alive, but there wasn't much time left. I was a time bomb, and the clock was quickly ticking down to zero.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

My Adventurer… where were they? Did they ever find my letters? Were they the hero I desired, the one who was going to fix everything?

Was I really going to die on this ship?

I laughed again. I should have known that the game never would've worked out. I had a hunch that it wouldn't. It was too difficult, too painful. Maybe no one ever found my first letter to begin with, or maybe the person turned it in to the police after all. Someone might come for me someday, but I'd be rotted away by that point.

With another shot of pain coursing through my body, I pulled my legs into my chest. My arms shook so badly that I could barely hold them there, but I bit down on the skin of my right forearm to stifle a gasp. It used to be thicker. All of me used to be a bit thicker—my skin, my hair, my mind. It didn't give me a lot to bite.

"I'm almost done," I whispered to myself, and then I bit down on my arm again.

The hours passed by as they always did: silently, slowly. I lost track of how many days I had been here weeks ago. I used to count by my rations, but now I just ate when I couldn't see straight, not when I was hungry. I was always hungry.

And the silence…

The silence…

The silence…

The silence shattered this place. The creaking of the ship, my staggered breathing, the grumbling of my stomach—none of it could mask the pure silence of this place. It was all so loud—the voices inside my head, too, that were probably my own, but I didn't even recognize it anymore. Weeks of silence could do that to a person. Every little noise sounded strange: the ones I made up, too.

When was the last time I spoke with anyone? I couldn't remember. Probably right before I left, but I couldn't remember the words exchanged or with whom I exchanged them. Everything in my head was foggy. The only thing I could remember right now was all the rage that made me leave in the first place.

Anger…

Pain…

Silence…

And a face. The face of the one person who mattered, the one person I loved by my choice, the person it had been most painful to leave behind. Even he was starting to fade away behind the haze in my mind.

What a cruel world this was.

I couldn't fix it. All of my attempts to salvage what was left of this world had failed, and my hero wasn't going to save it either. I would be left behind on this ship, never knowing if the world was any better than it was on the day I left it.

So cruel.

I lifted my mouth from my arm as a cough built in my chest, and it broke from me so fiercely that I thought my throat might tear itself out. It was getting so hard to breathe in this place; the saturated air just got heavier and heavier every day.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

I let my legs fall out straight, unable to hold them against my chest any longer, and I leaned back against the slanted floor. When I closed my eyes this time, maybe the Adventurer would be there with me the next time I opened them.

Ha. All that hard work gone to waste.

Or maybe I never started the game at all. When it came down to it, this could all just be one big figment of my imagination, and I was here and not there because I couldn't cut it in the real world. I started a game in my head to erase everyone and everything.

Yeah. That sounded right. And when I opened my eyes again—if I opened my eyes again—I would find out that this was just one big nightmare that never ended.

It hurt, and I was still so scared. But I just lay there and laughed. This, after all, was the fate Icarus deserved.