We had done it. Katriel and I, together, though mostly me if I'm honest, we fought our way out of there. Katriel was jumping for joy, screaming about how we had done it.

First thing was first thought. We had to get me walking. I looked over my wounded leg, and discovered that the muscles, whether Mark's teeth missed them, or Katriel's Heal Pulse fixed them, were intact. So I was capable of walking, but at the moment due to the pain, I couldn't.

"I'm happy about that, but we, or at the very least I, am not out of the woods yet. I can't walk, and you can't drag me everywhere. Go and check if the Pharmacy is still accessible."

"Got it. Um, where is it?"

I pointed to my right.

"If I remember correctly, it's a couple hundred yards in the direction. Contact me when you find it, and take this." I took my phone, battery 3/4 depleted, and handed it to her.

Katriel took the phone and walked off where I had pointed her, and a couple minutes later, her voice echoed in my mind.

'Found it. Looks like it's still accessible. What am I looking for?'

'My wounds are not clean. I will need antibiotics to stop the infection, and painkillers to be able to walk. Use that phone to look up what the meds do. You'll find them behind the counter.'

'Can't I just grab some morphine?'

'No, that stuff is addictive as hell, and if I take that, I'll be too high to do anything useful.'

'Ok, I'll look for some painkillers first. I'll contact you when I have something.'

It took about 20 solid minutes. Not that I blame her, she had no clue what any of these medicines were, and had to rely on luck to find a painkiller.

'Ok Grey I've got one. I've got some slow release Oxycodone. Used to treat severe pain in adults. One capsule every 12 hours with a drink of water.'

'Sounds good. Grab that one. Now try to find a strong antibiotic. I'm not sure what kind of bacteria was in the fucking dragon's mouth, but I don't wanna take any chances.'

'Yeah, I'll get on it.' It was another 10 minutes, and me being extremely bored, but Katriel's voice came to me again. 'Ok I've got one often prescribed for Pokémon bites. Amoxicillin. One 500 milligram tablet every 12 hours should do it.'

'Take 20 of them. 10 days should do it. Thanks Katriel. You just saved my life again.'

'Hey, I just wanna help. You'd do the same for me.'

'That's true. Now get back here quickly. I'm getting sick of sitting here.'

'On my way. Just sit ti- poor choice of words.'

It took a couple more minutes, but Katriel arrived with a cup of water, and two bottles of the aforementioned medicines. I swallowed both meds with the water, and after a couple minutes, all the pain was gone. Once that was done, I shoved the bottles into the pockets in my shorts.

"Wow." I got to my feet and lightly hopped on my injured paw. "I can't feel that at all! That stuff is great!"

"Good to see you on your feet again, now let's get the hell out of this damned place!"

"Just, wait a moment." I grabbed my father's keycard with a solemn face. "There's something I wanna do first."

Katriel noticed the look and what I was holding. "Of course. Take all the time you need." With that, she took a few steps back. Giving me some extra space.

I walked to a nearby patch of dirt, jammed my left foot's claws into the ground, and began scraping out a small trench. I did this about 6 times, until there was a small ditch about 10 inches deep. I dropped my father's keycard into it, and covered it back up.

"It's not much, I do realize that dad, but… it's all I can do. You deserve so much better than what you got. I'm gonna miss ya. I only wish I had something from mom to burry with ya."

With that small speech done, I drew a small cross in the dirt. The tears threatened to spill over, and this time, with us finally safe, there was nothing to stop them. My breath sputtered a couple time, and then I broke down and cried. I had not cried in… I really don't know how long, probably half a decade, but today, there was no stopping it. It wasn't just losing my parents. I had been bottling up all my sorrows for all that time to put on a strong face. I didn't like showing weakness, and to me, crying was a weakness. Now the dam had opened, and all the emotional hurt and pain that had built up over the years came pouring out all at once.

I had been kneeling by that pitiful excuse for a grave for at least 5 minutes, crying my eyes out, when I felt a pair of arms wrap around me. It was of course Katriel, but I did pick my head up a bit quickly and face her.

"I'm here for you Grey. Don't worry. I'm right here with you. Just let it all out. You'll feel better in the end."

"I know… I do know that I just… *Sniff* I've lost everyone. My sister, my mother, and my father. They're gone. I… have nothing left."

I had no one left. I was the last of my family. I had no next of kin.

Katriel just pulled me in tighter.

"You'll be ok. We will survive, for them. I may not have known them, but I seriously doubt they'd want you to die. Right?"

That was true. My parents were both stubborn people who sometimes didn't know when to quit, and that all culminated into me being so ungodly stubborn I could probably try the patience of Arceus itself. Even if I wasn't so stubborn, my dad, who was my role model, was a fighter, and damnit, I would be too. Until the end.

"You're right… you're right. We'll make it out of whatever's going on. I swear it."

Katriel let me go, and I cried for a couple more minutes, before I was able to stop. I took a few deep breaths, slung the rifle over my should, and got to my paws.

"Ok. I'm alright. We should head to my home. We'll be able to find out just what the hell is going on, and if necessary, stock up on supplies."

Katriel smiled, happy I was returning to normal, and nodded.

"Ok. That makes sense. How far from here do you live?"

"30 minutes by car."

I checked the sun. It was almost directly overhead, not far past noon.

"I don't know exactly which direction it is, so we can't just ignore the roads and walk in a straight line to save time. If we leave now we should get there by nightfall."

"We aren't taking a car?"

"Dad had the keys last I saw them, and I don't know how to hot-wire. So you'd best be ready, cause we're in for a long hike."

"Yeah, I'm ready. Oh, you should probably take this back."

Katriel took the Luger out of her pocket and handed it to me. I grabbed it and placed it in the hostler, then fastened it in. The Luger was a nice gun, but if that holster wasn't fastened, dirt and other shit could get in the weapon and make it not work. Which is a rather bad thing I'm sure you'd agree.

We began to walk to the base's exit, and what we saw… there were destroyed aircraft all over the base. Fighter jets, bombers, all kinds of stuff. There were bomb and missile craters, large pokemon skeletons, dead soldiers. It looked like a war zone. I would've loved to take the guns of the dead soldiers, but they'd been sitting exposed to whatever the weather was outside for something like three weeks. Even if the guns had any appreciable amount of ammo, they had been in active use at the time after all, they were likely severely damaged or jammed. I'd rather have a poor choice of weapon that was reliable, than a perfect choice of weapon that was at severe risk of jamming or simply breaking apart.

We left the base and began to walk to my home, following the road as we went, we saw a few destroyed cars, the windshield usually busted, doors torn off, and blood inside them. The engine was also always badly damaged. I didn't even need to look closely at it to tell that. Whatever had attacked these people left one hell of a mark.

There were also no cars in motion the whole way we went. Not a single driver. It was honestly a very grim sight. Just what the hell was happening? How far had the virus spread? Was there anyone left? It hadn't seemed like anyone else had escaped that facility, were we the last ones left? As we got closer to the house, my body braced.

We lived pretty out of the way. About a 7 minute car ride into the woods. One rule we lived by, is we never left that house at or near night time without a gun. I had a couple yes, but walking into those woods this time, felt so surreal. I knew this place well, yet I was so unnerved by it. Perhaps it was the dread of what we'd find out when we got there. I really don't know, but we had to get there.

As the sunlight completely gave way to moonlight, we reached the house. A nice big log cabin in the middle of the woods. Nice and peaceful. Everything seemed intact. No windows broken that I could see from our position, the door was still shut and locked, and the garage doors were still closed.

"You got a key?"

"I most certainly do not. Dad had it."

"I see. So how do we get in? Do we just break in?"

"No, there's a keypad by the garage doors. I just have to punch the code in."

We made our way over there, and I punched in 0525 into the keypad, and pressed enter. I was greeted with the sound of the door opening. I'd never been so happy to hear such a normal sound. We should've been safe there for some time. We walked in, I closed the door, and we opened the door to the house.

I flipped the kitchen light on, and took a deep breath of the air conditioned space. It felt so good to be home. After two weeks of being trapped underground, it was so nice to be back. A sense of normalcy that I had been missing for a long time. The only thing I noticed, was there was a single back window that had been broken out. Guess our Rockruff ran off after not being fed for… well whenever she took off. Hopefully she could survive out there.

"Ok first thing's first, let's head to my room and get my dead phone charged so we can find out some news."

"Actually, do you wanna get something to eat first? It's been a long time since we ate."

Suddenly reminded that it had been over 12 hours since I ate, my stomach growled loudly. If I was fixated on something, it wasn't THAT uncommon for me to go a long time without eating before I realized I was hungry.

"Good plan. Unfortunately we were going to get groceries after we got my meds at the base, so we're kinda low on food."

"Well there must be something. I'll check the fridge you look through the pantry.

I walked over to the pantry and opened it up. Looking for something to eat. Most of the things we had were just ingredients and spices. Not good to eat by itself. We had some potato chips and a couple cans of Spaghetti-O's. It would do for now. We'd have to go on a food run tomorrow.

"Got a few cans and some chips. Anything over there?"

"Most of the meat and produce I found in the fridge has gone bad after us being down there for so long, but I did find some bacon that's good."

Bacon has salt on it, which keeps it good for longer.

My ears perked a bit. I liked bacon.

"Do you know how to cook bacon?"

"Fraid not. I'll get the cans in the microwave though."

I opened the packet of bacon, grabbed a pan, turned the gas on, and began cooking the bacon. I could hear Katriel open the cans, grab a couple bowls, and get the microwave going. About the time the microwave stopped, the bacon began to start sizzling.

"You go ahead and start eating. It'll be a few, but I can wait."

As Katriel grabbed a spoon and sat down to eat, the smell began to hit my nose. My mouth began to water, and my stomach growled a second time. Something was wrong though. My eyes were drawn to the raw bacon, instead of what was cooking. It puzzled me for a moment. Raw pork was dangerous to humans, but it felt like my body itself was demanding that I eat the raw bacon.

Of course, it didn't puzzle me for long. I was only a bit more than half human at this point. The other near half was that of a vulpine killing machine that ate raw meat all the time. The virus must have started to reach my stomach. It was gonna change what I ate, and what I found tasty.

Now it wouldn't be THAT bad. After that vegetarian phase I went through, I discovered that vegetarians were complete pussies and scrawny weaklings who couldn't fend for themselves. After that, I did develop a taste for mid-rare burgers, so eating raw meat wouldn't be that much of a change. Though since my craving for raw meat had just started, I wasn't gonna start with eating raw pork. As I said, it's dangerous for humans, and I wasn't about to take that risk yet. I'd probably start with beef or fish. So for now, I'd cook it just enough to make it safe to eat.

As the bacon was sizzling, I grabbed a pair of plates and set them down. One for me, and one for Katriel. After just 30 seconds on each side, I took half of it off and set it on my plate. Bacon was unique in that it continued to cook after it was taken off of the pan because of the hot grease.

After a few more minutes, I finished cooking Katriel's bacon, it wasn't crispy and it wasn't chewy. It was perfectly in between. I drained the grease into one of the empty cans, put the pan in the sink, set the plates down on the table, and walked to the fridge. It did reek of spoiled meat, but it wasn't too bad.

"Whatdya want to drink Kat?"

"Just a water will be fine."

"Two waters it is."

I grabbed the bottles of water, and sat down at the table opposite her. I was relieved that Zoroarks don't have tails. That would've been an awkward sit down.

Katriel had already finished her Spaghetti-O's and was beginning to eat a couple chips. I cracked open the water, and she did the same. I held it up.

"To… whatever comes next. We'll push through it right?"

She looked at me for a moment, before she held hers up.

"Bit of a strange time to be making a toast, especially with just bottled water, but you're correct. Whatever happens, we will survive."

We didn't exactly clink them together, they were just plastic, but we did hit them together like we would if we had glasses before tossing them back.

After we toasted, we continued eating. As the Spaghetti-O's had been made first, I ate that first. Canned food isn't really the best, but it was about the same as what I ate in the facility. Ordinarily I liked the spaghetti rings most, but this time around, due to my carnivorous other half, I enjoyed the meatballs most.

"Hey Grey, if this thing is global, if the whole world is like this, what are we gonna do?"

That was a very good question. What WOULD we do? Would we stay here in the woods, try to get to some other kind of shelter, or try to find other survivors. I was racking my brain for answers, but for once, I had none. Each option had its advantages and disadvantages, and I couldn't decide. I took another spoonful as I tried to come up with a good response, but there wasn't one. I swallowed what was in my mouth and finally spoke.

"I don't know. I suppose right now, until we finish eating, all we can do is hope it hasn't gotten that bad."

"You're right."

We sat in silence until I finished the bowl off, and began to munch on the very much undercooked bacon. The moment I took the first bite, flavor exploded into my mouth. It was heavenly! Perhaps the best food I'd ever eaten! All it was was rare bacon, but it tasted so good to my changing body. The next few moments were a bit of a blur until I heard Katriel fighting back laughter.

"What's so funny?"

"D-do you realize what you looked like right there? What you sounded like? You were moaning like you were having sex or something. That was perhaps the most hilarious thing I've ever witnessed."

I felt blood rush to my face. I believed her. Her laughter was too genuine, and I've had times when I was fading in and out of consciousness during a long car ride where my parents would complain I was making similar sounds. No, before you ask, I was not having wet dreams, it's just something I did for some reason.

Upon seeing my face flushed with blood, Katriel burst out laughing for a good 10 seconds. It was a pleasant sound. I would say it warmed my heart, but it wasn't that nice. It did make me smile in return though. And if the worst came to fruition, and this was worldwide, we'd need these moments of childish comedy. We'd have to keep our spirits up. A will to live was important.

Regardless, conversation kinda died out after that, and we kept quiet. The only sounds being us eating, and the air conditioning going.

Shortly after that, I took the medicine bottles out of my pockets and looked at them. We were about to go to bed, but it had been almost 12 hours since I had taken one. So should I take one now? I was leaning towards no, but then something told me to take them. I don't know what it was, but I listened to it.

After we finished eating, we placed our dishes in the sink, and we went upstairs to my room. A pretty average room. Blue paint, a bed, a closet, nothing too special, but it was enough for me.

I walked over to the outlet that had my phone charger and plugged it in. I was treated to the phone coming to life and going to the home page. I went to the Internet, and clicked on the News tab.

The news was, not good. Reports of the virus and "ferals" popping up in every corner of the planet, cities completely destroyed, "Our final message" posts everywhere, hundreds of millions of dead, if not much more. And the latest post I found was from over a week ago. The death toll could be billions by now. I froze completely. This was worse than I could've imagined. The most consistent thing, was the words, "The Disappearance." This virus had been spreading so fast, and the death toll climbed so quickly, that, "It is as if humanity is just disappearing."

"… So… what do we do Grey?"

There was the question again, and I still didn't know the answer. At least not a long term answer. I had a thought for the short term.

"It's dark out now. We should go to bed, get a good night's sleep, try and get some food tomorrow. Survival first, plan later. We're no good to anyone if we die of hunger."

She nodded with determination behind her eyes. She was pretty stubborn in her own right. I would definitely give her that.

"Yeah. That makes sense. It's been a long day anyways."

"You can use my sister's bedroom or my parent's if you want."

"Actually, can I sleep in here? If something happens, I'd prefer you within arms reach."

I looked down. I was horribly conflicted. The pain of losing my parents, the only people I was close to, still fresh in my mind, I was worried about getting close to anyone else. I could feel tears welling up as I thought. It wasn't just that, I was turning into a Zoroark. Pokémon known for their ungodly devotion to those they felt attached to. As I changed more and more, if I didn't keep her at a distance, I would become so attached, that if something happened to her… I'll just put it this way. It IS possible to die of a broken heart, and it's a pretty common way to go for Zoroarks if someone they cared about died. If I got attached to her, and she died, I'd slip into a deep depression. One that I doubt I'd ever recover from.

On the other hand, she did need my help. She may have determination, but she wasn't a fighter or a leader at this moment. She didn't have the sort of level head under duress and natural shooting ability I had. She had some, for certain, but we had a better chance with me in charge. A companion close to me would certainly help keep my mental state in check, as well as provide a sense of comfort having someone I could rely on. Not only that, it was already too late. I already felt a sort of attachment to her. It was too late to go back and push her away. I had to protect her, for her sake, and my own.

"Ok, I'll go grab my sister's mattress and set it in here. You may be my companion, but I sure as hell am not ready to sleep in the same bed as you."

"I understand completely. Trust me, I think the last thing we need right now is a committed relationship. As you said, survival first."

I was glad that she wasn't pursuing me sexually. She was right, we did not need that distracting us right now. The world was facing the fucking apocalypse, we had to focus all of our efforts on survival.

I walked out of my room, down the hall, and into my sister's room. The place she slept before she died… Just being in here was making my heart beat harder. I still wasn't over this. Would I ever be?

I shook my head in frustration.

'Fucking focus Grey! Push this to the side for now! You've grieved over her for a long time now! Why the hell can't you get over this!? Grab the mattress, and get out of here!'

How was I still not over this? Someone who I never felt close to, and I seemed simply incapable of being near anything having to do with her without starting to grieve. I was beginning to wonder if something was wrong with me. I just… I couldn't forget. Not then, not ever. I had tried and tried, but I just couldn't do it.

It took a few moments, but I was able to focus long enough to grab the mattress and leave. Returning to my room.

"That took longer than I thought. Is everything ok?"

"… Get some sleep Katriel. Tomorrow is gonna be a long day."

She shot me a concerned look. I didn't exactly hide the fact I dodged the question, so she knew something was up, but I wasn't gonna talk about it, and I think she knew it. As such, she didn't question it.

"Alright. Thanks again for rescuing me. Goodnight Grey."

"Goodnight Katriel."

I set the rifle down next to my bed, closed my eyes, and after some time, went to sleep.

When I opened my eyes, I was in some kind of forest, sitting on a felled log. It was bright, peaceful.

I looked all around, and when I looked down, I saw human legs. Now I was even more confused.

"What is…"

How'd I get here? I had gone to bed in my room with Katriel, and now I was here, and I wasn't turning into a Zoroark anymore. The fuck was happening?

"Oh I get it. I'm dreaming. Very odd though. I've never had a lucid dream before."

"Well, you're mostly right."

I whipped my head around. Standing there, was a Zoroark. It, he, was holding the SSG 08 I had taken from the base.

"Who are you?"

"I'm you you idiot."

Well, he certainly sounded like me. He had my snark. Even so, it seemed a bit too surreal. Was this guy from the future or some shit?

"If you're really me-"

"If you ask me to tell you something only we would know I'm gonna drop kick your ass out of this dream."

Ok. Yep. This guy was me. No one else I know would ever say something like that with that amount of cynicism. Plus, I was becoming a Zoroark and had an SSG 08 sniper rifle, and here was a Zoroark with an SSG 08. I've seen some big ass coincidences, but nothing even close to this.

"So… what do you mean I'm mostly right?"

The Zoroark me sat next to me. We were almost close enough for the fur on his leg to brush up against the hair on mine.

"Well, you're right, this is a dream, but… it's not quite a lucid one. Yes you realize you're dreaming, but this isn't one where because of that you can control what's going on. So it's not exactly a lucid dream."

"Yeah it is. It has to be a lucid dream for one to be able to control it, but you don't have to have control for it to be lucid."

He smirked. To be fair I did too. As to why I did, he voiced the reasoning pretry well.

"Only we would have the wit and knowledge of useless facts required to correct ourselves when said self knows more than us about what's going on at the moment."

Um… yeah… that, kind of made sense. I think I should explain after all.

He clearly knew more about what was happening than me, but even so, I somehow knew more if that makes any sense.

Ok I'm well aware that makes no sense, but sometimes the way my mind work makes no sense. It's just how I am.

"Ok. So why are you here then?"

"Well, I suppose you could say I'm here to warn you. This virus of yours, of ours, as it turns us, it's gonna start to affect our mind as well. I suppose you could say I'm your Pokemon half, but that's not exactly true. I am you, but at the same time not quite. There's some differences obvio-"

He, I, was rambling again. I decided I'd listened to pointless shit enough and decided to cut him off.

"Get to the fucking point."

"Oh, sorry. The point is, as you change more and more, fighting the changes in your mind will get harder and harder. Whether it's possible or normal when you fully turn to retain your human mind is not something I know, but you've got a bit of a choice to make. You can try to accept the new mentality and risk forming tight bonds with even people you haven't known for long, which in a world like this one would be very bad for your mental state, as people have a high chance of dying, which would in turn cause you severe depressi-"

"Yes I've already run this bit by myself. What's the other choice."

"…You're no fun. Anyways, you could also try and reject the mentality, fight it to the end trying to keep those bonds at bay as much as possible, along with all the other Pokémon like behaviors, but risk having split personality should you fail."

I suppose that made enough sense. Pokémon were much more in tune with their instincts for obvious reasons. They weren't buried in their DNA like with humans, they were there on the surface. Still, real bastard of a choice. Risk dying from heartbreak, or risk having multiple personality disorder. I sighed heavily.

"This just gets better and better. Is this gonna be a regular thing?"

"Oh no I don't believe we'll ever need to do this again. Part of us just had a premonition about this and," He gestured to me, "this half of us didn't pick up on it. So I decided to relay the information."

"Ok that's good."

He stood up and went to walk away, before he stopped.

"Oh, there is just one more thing. I recommend you wake up right now."

This caused me to raise my eye. Why would I be telling myself that? What could possibly be going on now?

"Why?"

He gestured to himself, "Because this part of us just detected the smell of blood and Pokémon. The house is under siege now."

What!?

"Ok that's all fine and fucking dandy, but how the hell do I get out of here!?" The smile that crossed his face was disturbing as he raised the rifle. "Fan-fucking-tactic."

BANG!